#29, St. John Frizell, owner of Fort Defiance and Gage & Tollner, Brooklyn, NY

I sat down with St. John Frizell, who founded Fort Defiance bar in Brooklyn's Red Hook neighbourhood back in 2009, and brought Gage & Tollner, long the most vaunted fine-dining restaurant in Brooklyn since it opened in 1879, back to life in 2021 (yep, 2021!) after it lay dormant and closed for almost two decades. I met St. John when he taught a seminar I attended on the subject of playboy travel and food & drinks writer  Charles H. Baker, Jr., at Tales of the Cocktail, around 2006 or 2007; in fact, his seminar inspired the first-ever cocktail menu at door 74 (which I opened in Amsterdam in 2008), which was all Charles H. Baker, Jr., cocktails. We kicked it for several hours and it's all here: laundry tips for white shirts, why martinis now cost $21, St. John's exciting new side hustle as a liquor smuggler, why he'll open more Sunken Harbor Clubs but not more Gage & Tollners, world premiere of the Sunken Harbor Club Membership Scheme, serving Hearsts, the old Pegu Club,  having to relearn the art of concentration, and a whole bunch more. We were fuelled solely by coffee, so me and St. John should really do this again some time with a drink in hand!St. John on IG: St John Frizell (@stjohnfrizell) • Instagram photos and videos Gage & Tollner on IG: Gage & Tollner (@gage.and.tollner) • Instagram photos and videos Fort Defiance on IG: Fort Defiance (@fortdefiance) • Instagram photos and videos  (Get in touch with Duff!Podcast business enquiries:  [email protected] (PR friends: we’re only interested in having your client on if they can talk for a couple of hours about OTHER things besides their prepared speaking points or their new thing, whatever that is. They need to be able to hang. Oh, plus we don't edit, we won’t supply prepared or sample questions, nor listener or “reach” stats, either, and no, you can't sit in on the interview (or lurk on the Zoom.)  And our AI automatically deletes pitch emails that are clearly written using AI. Retain Philip’s consulting firm, Liquid Solutions, specialised in on-trade engagement & education, liquor brand creation and repositioning: [email protected] on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/philipsduff/ Philip on Facebook: Philip Duff Philip on X/Twitter: Philip Duff (@philipduff) / Twitter Philip on LinkedIn: linkedin.com Old Duff Genever on Instagram: Old Duff Genever (@oldduffgenever) • Instagram photos and videos Old Duff Genever on Faceboo...