20 Years of Imbibe: Paul Clarke’s Favorite Stories
Way back in the pre-digital age, a writer’s or editor’s profession might be divined by the abundance of ink smudges on their hands and clothing. In the 20 years I’ve been working with Imbibe—first as a writer and contributing editor, then since late 2013 as executive editor and editor in chief—enough editorial has passed through my hands to have left permanent stains on my fingers, if pixels were swapped for ink. Instead, though, two decades of working with some of the world’s foremost drinks writers and our chosen topics has left me with an abundance of favorite pieces (and the occasional wine or coffee stain here and there).
While Imbibe is a drinks magazine, our real focus, of course, is on people. My very first assignment for Imbibe was to write a profile of Ted Haigh, aka “Dr. Cocktail,” for our inaugural issue. Haigh was the first of many friends and colleagues I had the opportunity to interview and profile over the years, joined by people like Houston bar owner Bobby Heugel, Bay Area bartender and syrups impresario Jennifer Colliau, Brooklyn writer and restaurateur St. John Frizell, and King Cocktail himself, Dale DeGroff.
But yes, of course, there were drinks. In the early years of Imbibe, our mission skewed largely to introducing readers to an array of beverages that had fallen off the map (if they’d ever been on the map in the first place), and that were emerging in the 21st century in new and interesting forms. In those first years I wrote about subjects including the changing legal status of absinthe, the return of rye whiskey, and the boom in bourbon and agave spirits that continues to this day.
I love tasting and discovering new drinks, but I also love to read engaging stories from talented writers. Josh Bernstein has been a regular contributor pretty much from the start. In addition to navigating us through the ever-changing world of beer (and so, so many interpretations of IPAs), Josh has shared favorite stories of mine including the ways brewers in Asheville, North Carolina, dealt with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene; how brewers in Flint, Michigan, dealt with the city’s ongoing water crisis; and how breweries are making space for drag performances in support of the LGBTQ community.
Wine writing can be about wine, obviously, and also about people, but increasingly in this warming world, it’s about climate change. Jenny Fiedler brought us an alarming story about the increased threat of wildfires in wine country, while Betsy Andrews shared another favorite piece about how winemakers and wine regions are adapting to shifts in the global climate.
There are pieces from over the years that I’ll repeatedly bring up in conversation, and go back and re-read because in each case, a writer just nailed it. Wayne Curtis has regularly unearthed gems over the years, such as his Behind the Bar column on the fictitious bar in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” or his Mixopedia investigation of the worst drink names ever. Meanwhile, Max Falkowitz sets the standard for tea writing, whether he’s exploring the culture of Hong Kong tea roasters or meditating on what drinking tea can teach us about everything else. And St. John Frizell contributed a Quench column nearly a decade ago that I return to every holiday season, on the significance of flaming drinks on dark winter nights.
I recently paged through hard copies of every issue of Imbibe ever printed to prepare for a podcast episode with some of the magazine’s longtime columnists. When working on a particular issue, it’s easy to get lost in the daily process of edits, layout, proofreading, and factchecking, and to lose sight of the bigger picture, which in many cases is: This story is amazing. My hands and my clothes may not bear physical traces from working on these stories, but that sense of amazement tends to emerge and stick around once the day-to-day process is finished.
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