Longtime Subscribers on Why They Love Imbibe
How long have you been an Imbibe reader? While preparing our 20th anniversary issue, we reached out to a few subscribers who’ve been with us pretty much since the beginning, both to extend a sincere thanks and to ask, “What keeps you coming back?”
For Kelly Ryan in Albany, New York, an initial interest in beer, coffee, and whiskey led her to subscribe around 2006. “I sort of love it all,” Ryan says. “I’m a bit of a beer nerd and a coffee nerd, and I was always sort of a whiskey person. But I’ve graduated into other spirits. So this is the combination of many things I love in one pretty magazine.”
Today she regularly gifts the magazine to others, and she appreciates finding recommendations that lead her somewhere interesting. “I found this rosé vermouth that I love from The Wine Collective in Baltimore,” Ryan recalls. “Vermouth never would have been on my radar, but it’s one of my favorite things now. And that’s because I saw it in Imbibe.”
Eric Lebovitz in Pittsburgh is passionate about coffee and coffee drinks. He picked up a copy of Imbibe’s first issue at a bookstore and has been a subscriber ever since. The coffee articles still grab his attention. But tropical drinks also hold a place in his heart, as does good tea.
Rich Delorme in New Jersey came onboard as a cocktail lover. He believes he first came across Imbibe when he saw a copy at Astor Center in New York City during an event featuring former Imbibe columnist David Wondrich. But says he’s learned more from Imbibe than just cocktails. “It’s made me look into coffee more,” Delorme says. After trying “ridiculously expensive coffee pots,” Delorme and his wife found themselves gravitating to pour-over coffee after reading Imbibe. “We do it every day—that was a big learning experience for us.”
“I continue to use the recipes—it’s not just one and done.”
—Kathy Guadagnini
Recipes, unsurprisingly, keep many readers coming back. Delorme keeps digital copies of favorite recipes on his phone, while Kathy Guadagnini in Huntington Beach, California, goes old-school, saving clipped recipes in binders. “There was a drink called Jefferson’s Crimson, from your November/December 2007 issue. We had 30 people over for Thanksgiving that year, and I made so many that I thought we’d run out of bourbon,” Guadagnini says. “And I continue to use the recipes—it’s not just one and done.”
While the recipes give Guadagnini something to share with her guests, she says she also appreciates the deeper details Imbibe provides behind some favorite cocktails. “I really like when you go back through the history of a drink,” she says. “Even when it’s somebody’s modern version of a cocktail, you’ll go back through the history and where that drink came from. And I like that historical aspect.”
Imbibe, of course, covers more than just drinks. Merrianne Timko, an art and culinary historian in Houston, first came across Imbibe in 2008 while working with the Museum of Natural Science to design a cultural feast dining program. “I was the culinary historian working with the one of the education directors to develop this interpretation of exhibitions through a food and wine perspective. And I guess it was around the time we were doing Leonardo da Vinci that I subscribed to Imbibe. And I’ve kept it up ever since.”
In addition to our ventures into drinks history, Timko says she appreciates our coverage of the people behind the drinks. “I like getting to know some of the people who are interviewed, especially as the whole industry seems to be in transition,” Timko says. “And you’ve got young people and older people. And I think you’ve done a very good job of blending those two groups together.”
Getting to know the people behind the drinks is also one of the reasons Kelly Ryan keeps renewing her subscription. “I really like the reporting you do about folks in the industry who are following their passion and doing cool things,” she says. “The human element of the story draws me into it. I really like that you guys have been doing that pretty consistently.”
“It’s pure joy, and it’s tactile … and in many respects the articles are timeless.”
—Tom Zaiser
Some readers save their favorite issues or recipes, while others are completists. Ryan has almost all her back issues on hand, as does Tom Zaiser, who lives near Atlanta. “My brother is in Princeton, New Jersey, and he stumbled across the magazine and knew immediately I would love it,” Zaiser says. “He turned me onto the magazine, and I got a subscription in 2007.” Zaiser says he travels frequently on business. And Imbibe comes in handy, giving him ideas for distilleries to visit or bottles to bring home. “I’ve always had a bar in all my homes. And I’ve been fortunate enough to travel the entire world in my career, so I’d pick up bottles of spirits and wine from all over the world and bring them home to my bar.”
Beyond the drinks themselves, though, Zaiser says Imbibe has additional meaning. “Today, the world is full of noise, disagreement, and loud people arguing on TV, with everything coming at you 24/7 on your phone,” he says. “And then along comes my Imbibe in the mail. It’s pure joy, and it’s tactile. I can pick it up and turn the pages at my own pace. And in many respects the articles are timeless. It’s 100 percent positive, and it’s just pure fun that shows up in the mail.”
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