Listen in as Stretch and Dan visit the 3rd Annual Pinot Days festival at the Barker Hangar at the Santa Monica Airport. While there they chat with reps from some of their favorite California wineries, including Rodney Strong, La Fenetre and Big Basin.

The Grand Tasting showcased over 80 phenomenal producers of pinot noir. The boys were able to sample up to 300 pinots from every important pinot noir region, from the Russian River Valley to the Santa Rita Hills, Oregon to the Anderson Valley, Burgundy to New Zealand to the Sonoma Coast.

Latest Imbiber Show was recorded at Spago in Beverly Hills with The Glenmorangie's master distiller, Dr. Bill Lumsden. We ate lobster, drank wine and sipped Scotch that costs $3,600 a bottle. (Yeah, I hate me sometimes, too.)

Bill knows Scotch as well or better than anyone I've met, and is always happily willing to share his knowledge.

Give a listen, Scotch lovers...

It doesn't get much better than this.

Lunch at one of the world's most celebrated eateries, The French Laundry in Napa Valley, with 50 of the best bartenders in the world. And we got to record an episode of The Imbiber Show inside the restaurant!

Among the libational luminaries we chat up - Jon Santer, Simon Ford, Joaquin Simo, Erick Castro, Dylan O'Brien and Giovanni Martinez. Also check in with Kit Codick, founder of our newest partner, Liquor.com.

The visit to The French Laundry was part of an epic three-day drinking and eating extravaganza called Juniperlooza, sponsored by our friends at Plymouth and Beefeater. It also included a stay at Bardessono, a lobster "throw-down" dinner at Mumm Napa, a party at Bottega, and a much-needed stop at In n' Out Burger on the bus ride back to San Francisco.

Hear all about it by clicking the links below...

Our first guest on this edition of the most liquorlicious podcast in the listen-o-sphere is Mr. Craig Boreth, proprietor of Twice the Vice, where chocolatey goodness meets delightful tipsiness. Boreth infuses fine dark chocolate with top-shelf liquor like Macallan, Elijah Craig and El Diamante, to name a few. It's genius. And tasty as all hell.

We're broadcasting from inside the cozy confines of The Basement Tavern in Santa Monica, and later in the show we're joined by bar manager TJ Williams, who knows a thing of twenty about whiskey.

Tune in and tune out.

Enjoy the sweet buzz of sauce-soaked confections.

While Stretch mans the controls of the Imbiber Show Mothership in LA, Dan travels to Portland, Maine, to hang out with TheImbiber.net contributing editor Curtis Robinson. There, they get a tour of Shipyard Brewing Co. from the esteemed craft beer brand's man with a plan, Bruce Forsley. Then comes a full-portfolio tasting at the brewery, in which Dan falls hard for Old Thumper and Export. Next up, by a mini pub crawl in Portland with Shipyard's owner Fred Forsley. And then things get a little... drunkish.

Give a listen.

Links below to download, stream or subscribe on iTunes.

Enjoy.

As emcee for the United States Bartenders Guild/Bacardi Piña Colada competition at Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans, it was incumbent upon me to sample no fewer than 17 different variations of the storied Puerto Rican cocktail, prepared by bartenders of all stripes representing USBG chapters across America.

By the time a dynamite drink-slinger named Debbi Peek of Chicago was crowned winner — earning her a check for $1,500 and a spot at the World Cocktail Competition in Warsaw, Poland — I’d quaffed more piña coladas than a pack of horny Midwest divorcees on a singles cruise.

You’d think taking part in an hours-long orgy of rum, pineapple and coconut cream in sweltering New Orleans would have turned me off tropical drinks for awhile, but on the contrary, I returned home to Southern California with a fire burning in my belly. A fire that could only be brought under control by copious amounts of the frou-frou.

So I ventured beachward to get my bamboo-umbrella-ed sip on at Gladstones, a 33-year-old LA institution famously located where Sunset Blvd. meets the Pacific Coast Highway. The venerable old seafood joint recently got a facelift courtesy of the sbe group, and I’d heard they’re doing very cool things with the new beverage program there.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE WHOLE POST AT FOODREPUBLIC.COM

As part of our continuing effort to keep things fresh and lively on The Imbiber Show, we've decided to take it to the streets... well, the bars, actually. So we went out and got us some fancy mobile recording equipment that affords us the freedom to record the show ANYWHERE. Anywhere that'll have us, that is.

Our first stop: Hinano Cafe in Venice, CA -- the Coliseum of dive bars. An all-time classic. Hinano was Jim Morrison's hangout years before the Doors lit any fires. There's sawdust on the floor. Free popcorn. Beer and wine only, but only tourists would dare order the wine.

Show also features some material recorded at the Venice Whaler about five hours into a serious bender. Peter O'Toole-like in its boozy brilliance.

Oh, and we talk about The Moscow Mule. Here's the recipe:

2 parts Grey Goose vodka
Juice from 1/2 a fresh lime
Ginger Beer

Squeeze the lime into a tall glass filled with ice. Add  vodka. Then add ginger beer to taste

Hinano Cafe
15 Washington Blvd
Venice, CA 90292
(310) 822-3902 ‎

Club promoters Nate Poznick and James Hall reveal what goes on behind the scenes at some of LA’s hottest nightclubs, including the infamous Voyeur, where the RNC got in a little trouble. Poznick nd Hall offer insider tips on getting past the velvet ropes and into the VIP section. And find out why Andy Dick is always getting booted from nightclubs.

Dan and Stretch go loco over pisco, mezcal, and cachaca, as Steve Livigni of the East Hollywood hostspot La Descarga mixes up South-of-the-border style libations.

Wine expert and aspiring supermodel Sarah Warner of Jarvis Communications offers tips on how to achieve a happy medium of wine knowledge. To know enough so you're perceived as an urbane sophisticate, but not so much that you become an insufferable douchebag. Much time is devoted to discussing the term “mouthfeel.”