#28 Jonathan Downey - Milk & Honey London, Sasha Petraske, Dick Bradsell, Success, Disaster, Street Feast, Vodka
The Curious Bartender Podcast2 Kesä 2025

#28 Jonathan Downey - Milk & Honey London, Sasha Petraske, Dick Bradsell, Success, Disaster, Street Feast, Vodka

Jonathan, known to his friends as JD, is a bar and restaurant operator of nearly 30 years who has been responsible for some of the best loved and most influential cocktail bars of the early 21st century. In 1997 he founded the Match Bar group which through JD’s uncompromising vision and an illustrious cast of future superstar bartenders, made for groundbreaking venues as Match Bar, The Player, Milk & Honey London, Sosho and more. These bars along with the likes of LAB, Lonsdale and others set the standard for cocktail excellence in London through the first decade of the century, defining a generation of drinking in the capital and inspiring all that came after globally.

JD then went on to found Street Feast which brought together small food and drink vendors in disused or otherwise useless spaces (like old car parks or former markets) with music and entertainment. Street feast was a casualty of covid however, but JD is now back and involved with a couple of new restaurant projects which we touch on briefly at the end of the conversation.


The main part of our chat is centred around the remarkable story of the Match Bar group. Expect to learn how JD met Dick Bradsell by pure chance and convinced him to help open the first Match Bar. How Dale DeGroff became the director of cocktails for Match Bars and introduced Jonathan to a certain Sasha Petraske and a new and title known bar in New York called Milk & Honey. How Sosho and the East Rooms burned to the ground in 2010 jeopardising the whole business, what in JD’s eyes makes a great bar, what he thinks of the current state of cocktail bars in London, and much more.

This episode is sponsored by Fever-Tree mixers.

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(91)

#91 Liquipedia Live – Tree Shrews vs Andre the Giant, Getting Drunk on Sweat, Champagne Tower Architecture, How Old is Water, Ian Fleming, Drinking Rocket Fuel, Soju & Swimming Pools

#91 Liquipedia Live – Tree Shrews vs Andre the Giant, Getting Drunk on Sweat, Champagne Tower Architecture, How Old is Water, Ian Fleming, Drinking Rocket Fuel, Soju & Swimming Pools

We're doing something different this time: a special edition replaying the Liquipedia seminar we delivered live at Tales of the Cocktail 2026 in New Orleans, sponsored by Belvedere — forty-five increa...

17 Elo 1h 54min

#90 David Wondrich – Cocktail History: The Only William, Savoy Without a American Bar, WW2 Supply Officers, Business Cards, Unmarked Graves, America's Love of Ice

#90 David Wondrich – Cocktail History: The Only William, Savoy Without a American Bar, WW2 Supply Officers, Business Cards, Unmarked Graves, America's Love of Ice

David Wondrich is a drinks historian and author of Imbibe!, Punch and the Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails, and The Comic Book History of the Cocktail. The conversation runs from a $3,000 fre...

10 Elo 1h 38min

#89 Julie Reiner - NYC, Clover Club, Pegu Club, Cocktail Renaissance, Milady's

#89 Julie Reiner - NYC, Clover Club, Pegu Club, Cocktail Renaissance, Milady's

Julie Reiner arrived in New York in 1998 after a stint bartending in San Francisco, following her wife to a city she'd always wanted to live in, and found a scene stuck on sour mix and nothing fresh, ...

3 Elo 1h 5min

#88 Grover Sanschagrin - Agave Matchmaker, CRT, Additives, Lawsuits, Police Raids, Agave Syrup

#88 Grover Sanschagrin - Agave Matchmaker, CRT, Additives, Lawsuits, Police Raids, Agave Syrup

Grover Sanschagrin is the co-founder, alongside his wife Scarlet, of Agave Matchmaker — the platform, formerly known as Tequila Matchmaker, that has spent over a decade cataloguing how tequila and oth...

27 Heinä 1h 17min

#87 Daniele Biondi - Indiana Jones of Rum, Clairin & Haiti, Viche & Colombia, Hampden, Velier, Luca Gargano

#87 Daniele Biondi - Indiana Jones of Rum, Clairin & Haiti, Viche & Colombia, Hampden, Velier, Luca Gargano

Daniele Biondi is one of the world's leading experts on the rum category. Working with Luca Gargano at Velier, he is one of the key figures behind the international rediscovery of Haitian clairin, the...

20 Heinä 2h 17min

#86 British Rum Special - Dropworks, Outlier, J. Gow: History, Production, GI, Tasting, Rum Market, Future of Rum, British vs. Caribbean

#86 British Rum Special - Dropworks, Outlier, J. Gow: History, Production, GI, Tasting, Rum Market, Future of Rum, British vs. Caribbean

We sat down — hungover, under-slept, and drinking before nine in the morning — with three of the people actually building British rum from the ground up: Lewis Hayes of DropWorks, Collin van Schayk of...

13 Heinä 1h 46min

#85 Dré Masso - 30 Years of Bartending, Creating Altos, Henry Besant, LAB Bar, Nusa Caña, Dick Bradsell, Potato Head

#85 Dré Masso - 30 Years of Bartending, Creating Altos, Henry Besant, LAB Bar, Nusa Caña, Dick Bradsell, Potato Head

Dré Masso is one of the most consequential figures in the modern cocktail world — a British-Colombian bartender whose career has stretched from the epicentre of 1990s London to a beach club in Bali an...

6 Heinä 1h 52min

#84 Jörg Meyer - Gin Basil Smash, 50 Best Bars, Le Lion, German Bar Scene

#84 Jörg Meyer - Gin Basil Smash, 50 Best Bars, Le Lion, German Bar Scene

Jörg Meyer is the founder of Le Lion — Bar de Paris in Hamburg, one of the most consistently recognised cocktail bars in the world and the birthplace of the Gin Basil Smash, a drink he created in 2008...

29 Kesä 1h 31min

Suosittua kategoriassa Yhteiskunta

olipa-kerran-otsikko
i-dont-like-mondays
download
hupiklubi
siita-on-vaikea-puhua
seitseman
uutiscast
sita
poks
antin-palautepalvelu
mamma-mia
gogin-ja-janin-maailmanhistoria
kaksi-aitia
kolme-kaannekohtaa
yopuolen-tarinoita-2
rss-palmujen-varjoissa
loukussa
ihme-ja-kumma
aikalisa
free-opa