E215 Emma Janzen

This week's cast is Emma Janssen, who is an award-winning book author and journalist, reports on global drinking cultures for outlets including The New York Times, Punch, The World's Fifty Best Bars, and more. In our conversation with Emma, we talk about Emma's journey from working at a newspaper to becoming a successful author and photographer. She shares her approach to freelance journalism, the importance of finding a niche. Emma details her experience working on various projects, including co-authoring books, and how chemistry is important in co-author projects, plus a range of other topics.

Emma was a terrific guest and we had a great time talking with her. Enjoy the show. Instagram, that's where you find a great artwork from, Zachana at zachana.co.ca. I guess that's about it.

Perfect. Let's get to our guests. Emma Janssen is with us. How are you, Emma?

Hi, I'm doing good things. Good to be here. Thanks for joining us. We'll just dive right into it.

Emma, for those who are not familiar with her work, is an award-winning book author and journalist. And if you basically buy your trade in the global drinking culture, is that accurate? Yeah, I've been writing about drinks professionally for about the last 15 years. And I started covering every category of beverage, beer, wine, cocktails, spirits, the whole thing, first in a newspaper and then in a magazine.

In the last few years, I've definitely narrowed in more in the cocktail and spirits realm, because that's where I've always been most excited to explore. Did you have a service industry background before you started writing about bar culture? No, not at all. I was working at the newspaper in Austin, Texas.

I was a multimedia producer at the time. I would shoot videos and put together audio projects and things like that in both the news sign and the entertainment side. And this was like, we started there in 2008, I think 2008, and like 2009, 2010, I started to notice that the cocktail thing was really kind of trickling down into the Austin market. We were starting to get those craft cocktail bars.

And so no one was really writing about it at the paper in a serious way. There were a lot of those stories that were like, ooh, these craft cocktails. They're too fancy. They're too expensive.

Like, why are we doing this? And I thought, ooh, I think there's space here to look at this as an actual thing. Look at it seriously, look at the creativity people over to the table. And so I just started pitching stories to the editors, and that's how I ended up getting the entire booze beat.

So I covered, yeah, I covered all of Austin's bar scene for about three years before we left. It was hard to get that kind of approved through the others. Like, did they see the benefits of doing it or do you have to fight it? I think they didn't have to fight too hard.

It was pretty easy. Austin being such a food and drink city, that kind of thing was already pretty regularly being featured, more on the restaurant side, obviously on the bar side. But Austin has so many bars that it was not, it was not a hard sell. Especially with the live music scene and everything happening in Austin as well, kind of all ties together.

And it's something that would probably drive interest to the paper. Totally. Yeah. Especially for the tourism.

I know if I was coming in Austin and you could just pick up a newspaper or go on a newspaper's website and figure out where the cool bars and restaurants that go to are, that would make life easier. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Okay, so you start doing it there.

And at some point, obviously, it kind of must have hit you that this is maybe something you can do full time to sort of just focus on drinking culture. Yeah, I mean, that part definitely took a while. I didn't think it could be a whole career. It definitely was not the plan.

When my husband and I left Austin and 2013, I moved up to Chicago. And my plan was actually to get out of the booze, the writing. And so I went and worked for a design magazine because I also love like architecture and graphic design and that stuff. And that was very short lived.

And so I not fell through. I kind of just fell back when I knew which was, I know, I met a editor at Series Eats, that's the end of the talk to a conference that one year, like I'm going to pitch her. I'm going to pitch this guy. And so I started, I needed to make money.

So I worked my ass off trying to get stuff placed. I ended up freelancing for like Bon Appetit. Food Republic at the time was a really big update. I was writing about a lot of beer for them.

And then also serious seats. I was doing a lot of cocktail and spirit-citing for serious seats too. And I also had about a year till the job at in Bi Magazine came up. And so with the background that I had in multimedia production and like web production from the paper, in addition to what I know about drinks, I ended up getting hired to be the first digital content editor.

Can you describe for our listeners, sort of like the life of a freestyle journalist? Because I can imagine it must be a little stressful. You kind of never know where your next paycheck's coming from. And like, what is the process?

Like, do people reach out to you with a story idea? Are you pitching stories to them? Or do you just write a story and then pitch the story sort of fully realized? Or is it sort of a combination of all these things?

Yeah, and it's a combo. And it's definitely, it was incredibly difficult back then, you know, before I kind of made a name for myself, just cold-pitching places. You really do have to have the whole story formulated. You know, there's essentially the way I look at it, same with books, as well as the person on the receiving end of this pitch is looking for a product, right?

And I think with books specifically, it's like they want to know that this is, they want to know the fully formed product and how it's going to sell. I think with articles, it's a little bit different, right? But it's kind of the same in the sense that they want to know that they're going to get a lot of clicks, right? Like a lot of people are going to read whatever story we're selling them.

So yeah, the amount of work that goes into pitching up front is a ton. I mean, you need to show that you can't just, you know, say, Hey, when I write about Jen, you know, and then they'll be like, Okay, whatever you want, I really, really wish it was that easy. But no, it has to be more about a fully formed idea, with a sharp angle, ideally something that no one else has really written or a perspective that you're bringing to a topic that that nobody else has maybe explored, you know, that side of it or that perspective, and then essentially flush it, you know, flush it out in the pitch and say, you know, I'm going to talk to this person, this person, this person, this person, and the right person to write the story because I see and from there. So how do you come up with a sort of a fresh perspective on like drink culture?

Because like, at this point, it seems like almost everything that you can write about cocktails, you know what I mean? Like, so it's a little bit about that process of trying to come up with something sort of a fresh perspective on an article that you can write. That's a really good question. I don't think anyone's ever asked me that before.

That's what we're all about. Yeah, that's good. So I think, I think for me, and especially like in the media landscape right now, you know, we're seeing so many stories, some of you drink stories are, you know, they're the recommendations, you know, like buy this bottle, drink this drink, here's a recipe, you know, here are 10 bars you should visit, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And for me, I try to look for, I mean, I definitely do Google search this first, right?

I'm trying to get a big picture of what is everyone saying about this one thing, and then literally sit there and think, okay, what, what's not being discussed or who's the left out of the story or, you know, what maybe even just put myself in like a devil's advocate position and think, okay, well, what would the opposite, you know, perspective be here for me? Also, like, I don't know, I guess I like, I do not basic research where I want to make sure I'm not just pitching the same thing that everyone else is, but I also try to just look for something that lights me up, right? Like a straight angle, it's usually some kind of cultural or human angle that I'm most interested in. I'm kind of the least interested in the actual liquid itself or the recipe and more interested in like, what's the culture, like what are all of the influences that collided to like bring this thing to life?

Or how does it speak to, you know, a certain place or a certain group of people who created it? And so I don't know if I feel like I'm battling, but that's kind of the most true, those two things, right? Because if I'm interested in something, chances are someone else, someone else out there might be interested in reading it too. So I'm also not trying to appeal to like the mass, you know, to the masses, which sometimes is really good and sometimes is not so great because then my stories are like, quote unquote, too niche.

Yeah, that's sort of a fine line you got to walk, right? Because you do need people, I mean, I sure part of what your pitch to a perspective magazine or book it or whatever is how many clicks or downloads stories you've written in the past have received, right? And then also the other side of that would be over time, you're writing style develops to in a unique way for and then that's got to be part of your pitch as well, correct? Yeah, yeah, I would think so.

I mean, I maybe even more so just like you know, my own interest in like the niche that I am like working to carve out within that space. You know, so I read a certain number of articles on, you know, the culture surrounding agave spirits and then it's like the editors at punch note, when they've got that kind of story in the queue, they come to me now and say, hey, you know, we would like, we would like a round of 10 men's go bars to visit. And I'm like, okay, well, I'm going to do it within the context of, you know, who are the bars that are doing putting a priority on education and who are the bars who are, you know, sending their staff down to the ground to visit because this is a spirit category that, you know, is full of economic and political and cultural and social issues. So yeah, it's, I think that that is only happening now because I've tried as hard as I can, we then reason, right?

And with them being able to pay the bills to kind of establish myself as that person who you would come to for that kind of story. Yeah, and that's something that obviously takes years to develop sort of that reputation. What's, I want to, we have a, we want to start talking about your books, but just for listeners who might be looking to break into sort of this writing within the bar culture, starting with magazines and blogs and however you might choose to do it, what some of the advice you would give to like a perspective writer to stand out? Yeah, it is a really, it's such a different landscape right now that it was when I first started and I have a lot of writers, you know, new writers come to me and ask me if I had exact advice.

And I was kind of stumbled through it because I don't, because it's tricky. It's like really hard. The industry has never had so many people who are interested in writing my drinks and the rates have also never been lower. So I think, I think good advice is, you know, don't, is this stuff takes, it takes a lot of time, like you said, just now.

I wouldn't expect to, you know, come in as a fresh writer and get things placed right away. It's going to take a long time. And the other advice that I give is kind of along the lines of what I was just saying, which is, you know, write about what really likes you up, right? Like if you're passionate about your pitch about the story that you want to write, the category, right, the niche, like find that niche because not only is that going to make the story better, like I feel like you can tell when a writer actually gives a shit about what they're writing versus like, oh, I had this idea, I need to write about it because I need to pay check on it.

Yeah, because that comes across kind of formulaic, right? Like it's like, plug in plug-in play style of writing where like, because I know I'm talking about your time with a red article like that, like, oh, like an article about old fashions in the city of Toronto or whatever, it's just like, you can tell they're just have like a formula where they're just plugging in the words and the bars and restaurants within the formula that they always use. Yeah, yeah, and I would say just be prepared to like have to diversify too. Like if you only want to do this for a living, you know, the way I make money is, you know, I write, I do some copywriting for brands, you know, I also, I do the books, I do the co-author projects, I do articles that are actually probably the, I don't do that many of them anymore because it's a co-author.

Right, but it's kind of just how you got into it, right? Like, that's a good starting spot to expand what you do. And to do what you do in today's climate, you kind of have to do a bunch of shit, like you're not just do one thing, right? Right, no, exactly.

Because again, like that's how I got like part of the reason why I got the job in my magazine was because I knew like I knew how to work in WordPress. Like, I learned that at the newspaper, I was managing news, I was managing one night, it was like one night a week, but I was managing like what news went where on the website, I was writing the headlines, I was writing the subheads, you know, the reason why I got the newspaper was because I knew how to edit videos because I went to film school. So like, you know, you really have to, and then on top of all that, I've also done photography for as long as I can remember. So like being able to shoot my own stories as well, I think has made me more of a valuable, has given more value to editors because I don't have to go out and hire photographers as well, sometimes.

So much like any other area of life, and especially in a professional capacity, like the best thing you can do is just learn as much as you can about everything and make then you make yourself more valuable, right? 100%. Yeah. Okay, so let's talk about the books then.

What was your first book? Was it a co-author? Yeah, your first book was a co-author, correct? No, my first book was missed out.

Oh, okay, so you're working on the second version of that now, the sequel or what have you. Yeah, okay, is that what you call the sequel? It's gonna be a second edition because I'm basically updating the first one. Oh, okay, gotcha.

All right, so that's your first book. So at some point you're like, okay, this is something I can tackle. And now books are much bigger project than writing an article, so what made you think that you wanted to or could do it? Yeah, I always knew that I had a book in me.

I just didn't know what it was gonna be. And this one was kind of a luck of the draw thing. I was writing about a copy of spirits for the magazine and for other outlets, and one of my articles caught the eye of the editor at Court of Press. And he came to me and he said, you know, I noticed this in a cell thing.

It's kind of a thing. Like, do you think there's enough there to write a whole book about it? And I was like, yes, like, absolutely, yes. And yes, if I wanted to do it.

And it was very intimidating. Not because of the size and scope of the project, I think. Like, I was ready for that. But I wasn't sure that I was the right person to do that book.

And so it took some convincing a lot of like my family and husband and friends being like, why wouldn't you? Like, why wouldn't you do that? You're like, are you insane? Also, they like, you know, they only gave me four months to write it.

So yeah, that was also very much the moment where I was like, I don't know if I should do this. And like, the odds of me fucking this up are way higher than I was doing a good job with this. And so yeah, long story short, no, I said yes to it. I think part of the reason was because I've been covering that category of spirits for so many years.

Anyway, I already had a really solid baseline in it, or as solid as it could have been back in 2016, because there wasn't that much written about it at the time. So I took a stab at it. And when you're working on a project like that, too, especially when you've been working with, like in that world of Mascale for so long, like doing the articles, like you said, etc. Well, you have this based on your head.

You're like, I don't know if there's a whole book, but you know, in a way you're thinking, well, because everybody knows this, like, say, oh, the history of Mascale or where it comes or whatever, but you're real, then you got to kind of convince yourself, wait, I'm not writing it for Star Tender at this bar and I'm writing it for the general public and I don't know shit about Mascale. So then now all of a sudden you have pages and pages of information that is just in your head that doesn't know about, right? Yeah. And I think ultimately another thing that I convinced me to do it and that I carried with me through the process was, you know, I'm going to approach this as a one on one and I'm going to approach this as a curious journalist, right?

I'm not an expert here. The only expert is some of the gavis' spirits and other people who make a gavis' spirits. And so I thought by using that approach, it would help anyone else who would be picking up this book, right? Because they would be in the same position.

Quick question for the book writing process itself. Did you, what worked for you in terms of, did you have like a set schedule saying, like, I'm going to write between these hours every day or as a more of a case of whenever you had a creative urge? That's when you're going to write, like, what worked for you in that case? Yeah, I mean, with that one, I had no choice but to just stuff it in as fast as I could.

I mean, four months is pretty much nothing. Like, for, to compare all of the books that I've done since, which are on larger publishing houses, they take about two years to put together. So with that one, and I was also full-time at the magazine at the time, it was very much just every spare minute that I had, I was working on it. And yeah, four months is no time, right?

And so for any of these books that you've worked on, have you done any lithography? Because I, you mentioned earlier that you, you were also involved in the biography. Yeah. Yeah.

So I did the photography from a scale, and I'm going to add more photography to the second edition. And then I'm also, I didn't shoot, I haven't shot any of the other ones that are already out, but I am about to shoot another co-author project. And it's actually the follow up to Bartenders manifesto with Toby Maloney. I'm going to shoot the photos from now on.

So four months to do all the writing and all the photography? That's insane. Yeah. Congratulations.

But I guess, are you one of those people who works better under a deadline? Like, you knew you had four months. So yeah, yeah, because you kind of have to do it. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Pressure is, I really work well under pressure. Okay.

That's good. Because you've got about 20 minutes to tell us everything about the rest of your career. So I'm just kidding. We have as long as you want.

But I do want to talk about some of your other ideas for books and like the co-authoring thing. How does that come to be? Was it a springboard from people reading the MSCAL book and then now they learn about you as an author and what you can do as a photographer? Is that sort of how it happened?

Yeah, I think so. I think, you know, having covered the cocktail world for so long, I also, you know, I had good relationships with a lot of bartenders having covered their work for many years. In the case, so my first co-author project was the way of the cocktail, with Julien Momosay from Kumiko in Chicago. And I, one of her cocktails is featured in the MSCAL book.

So there was already kind of a little bit of a synergy there. And it was kind of the same, well, I wasn't quite the same with Toby for the bartenders manifesto came right after. Actually, those two projects came to me like within several months of each other. So they ended up kind of overlapping in time, which was interesting.

But I think with the bartenders manifesto, again, it's, I don't know, I suppose I could apply this to most of the books that I have worked on. And I'm putting together right now for the future. The thing about the co-author thing is you just, you really have to get along with the other person for the product to end up being good. So like Julien, I, you know, we knew that we got along pretty well.

And then Toby and I hadn't really met Toby. I met him once at the Violet Hour. I went in, you know, as a journalist to cover like the process of putting together the menu. And it was like the last day of, you know, where they do that and they pass all the drinks around to the whole room.

And like the whole staff is there and everyone's tasting everything and blah, blah, blah. And I just remember meeting him and I don't think he even remembers this. Maybe he does. The only thing he said to me basically was I hope you may breakfast.

It'll be a long day anyway, that went well. And then when he called up a few years later, we just went out to a bar just to talk and hang and we had like three rounds of rosé and it was the middle of summer and we talked a lot of shit and we had a lot of fun. And it was very clear that we were going to get along really well. So I think that's kind of how those projects came about.

And that's, like I said, it's also how I'm basing the projects that I work off that I'm putting together for the future. Also, one of the, I'm working on a proposal right now, it's almost finished with a bartender from New York. And as I'm putting together this proposal, it's really funny because I'm tracing back our history in addition to his career history and putting together my bio for the thing too. And it's like, oh yeah, we're both quoted.

And in the New York Times as experts, you know, on Macavirus and like, oh, we're both quoted in this recent story about this other thing. And like, here's a picture of us at this party from 2017 from whatever. So that's, I think that chemistry is really important because I really think it comes through. When you're doing a co-author project like that, I don't know if they've all gone the same way or you have a formula to use, but like, is it okay?

We're going to section off different parts of the book. You work on this part, you work on this part and then we'll sort of swap out and give notes. Is that sort of how you do it? So they're all completely different in the way that they've unfolded.

And it would be foolish of me to try and create a plan or have a system, I think, because everyone's different and everyone needs something different. So like, do you have a preferred way to do it? Or like, if you give in your brothers, if it was just up to you? That's a good question.

You know, I think I've enjoyed, I've enjoyed every one to a degree. I think, you know, writing with Toby was so much fun because he actually, like, he loves to write and he loves to tell stories. So, and when you give him a prompt, he just runs with it. So like, you know, I'd say, talk to me about texture or whatever in a cocktail.

And he'd send me back like 10 pages of Google Docs, which is just ideas, ideas, ideas, ideas. And so, and that was me. My job in that respect was to just kind of dial them all down, right? Like train the fat, find the gems, pull them all together and edit it together in a way that reads like a story.

A lot of the other ones, the bartenders are not writers. So, my job is to get the story out of them verbally, whether that's at the bar or over the phone, most of them have been remote since pandemic, getting the story out of them and then writing it in their voice, more or less. Yeah. That's kind of cool.

It's like, I mean, it's obviously the exact same process people go through to do like a biography of a famous person, right? But I'm just super interested in the whole process behind it. So sorry about all the the nerdy process questions, but yeah, because the whole concept of writing a book seems so overwhelming to me, I've fucked around with it a couple times and I just can't take it through it. I just get like a couple pages in and I'm like, holy shit, I took that long to write two pages with like, I'm just, I'm very interested in the whole process.

Let's talk a little bit about James Beard. So you're a multiple James Beard award winner. Tell us about what these awards are for and for our listeners aren't familiar. Yeah.

Yeah. The James Beard Awards, they've got two different times and the one honors chefs and restaurants and bars, and then the other ones are journalism awards. And so they do have you know, awards for articles and books as well. That's it's pretty much the top honor that you could get, I think, as a food or drinks writer in the industry.

Yeah. So congratulations on that. That's amazing. How long have you been at this?

Would you say fully? Like from your very first article writing about spirits to where you are now is a multiple time award winner and written multiple books, co-authored multiple books. How long are we talking? Yeah.

So my first printed article on drinks was, I want to say 2010 and it was about my style and it was for the newspaper. And then I started, well, it was like the year that I freelanced and then I was with the magazine for seven years and then I've been independent from the magazine for about three. With the 50 Best Buyers situation, you're involved in that as well. Tell us exactly what your role is in it if you can and then how did that come to be?

The 50 Best Buyers Supercool. I've been the Academy Chair for the USA Midwest since 2021, I think, summer of 21. And my job as an Academy Chair is to put the lists together of the voters for my region for both the North America's 50 Best List and also for the Global List. So it's two different lists every year and the voters are, and this is all on the website also, you can find this if you want to look more into it, but we do about 50% bartenders and bartenders three people and then a quarter of media and educators and then a quarter of just like your average enthusiast.

So basically that job just requires me to have a super strong network of cocktail loving people and it doesn't actually have to just be cocktails, it just bar bars. In my region. So how did you originally get approached for that role? I think it was recommended by somebody.

Mark Samsung was the content director at the time and he called me out that we had a very enjoyable zoom interview. That's pretty amazing. Like, did you ever imagine when you were kind of just a multimedia, your job was a multimedia newspaper and then all of a sudden you start writing about cocktail scene in Austin, did you ever like even consider that your career would end up where it is? No, not at all.

No, there's no way. And did you ever think it would be so specific because you kind of started wearing an area where you got, I guess you could have written about anything and now you're kind of chiefly writing about the bar culture world. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, I think there was always a part of me when I was having to cover everything and know a little bit about wine, a little bit about beer, a little bit about coffee, like enough to get by and all of those areas. Like, I knew there was part of me that really wanted to not have to do that anymore and to get really good at like one area.

So, you know, the bars, the cocktails on the one side and then I would say about the spirits in Mexico or on the other side, right? And these days, I'm actually, I'm circling back to write a lot more about Japanese bar culture and their spirits as well, which is wonderful. So like, yeah, those little niches, I think I'm really happy that I've kind of done enough things in enough areas that like, I know this is where I'm supposed to be. Would that be a recommendation that you have for someone else is like, start with a broader scope and then find out what interests you the most and then slowly narrow it until you get to sort of have a niche?

I mean, it's a long process. Like, that's a long road, right? To do it that way. But I almost feel like, I don't know that I would have, I don't know, I think there's definitely going to be pros and cons to either way.

But in doing it the way that I did, like, I know for sure that like, that thing didn't work. So like, I'm not worried about, well, maybe I should have tried this or maybe I should have tried that, like I kind of, you know, by narrowing in and I feel very confident and I think very at home where I've ended up. Yeah, I said, the reason I'm asking is because I sort of felt that that's how I went with my career. I worked in like every single different kind of bar restaurant you could work in.

And then when it came time to do my own thing, I like, I narrowed it down to a focus of some very niche spots. But I felt like I knew what worked it didn't didn't work for me in the, in like sort of the larger scope of what parts and restaurants can be. I mean, that's the thing to right? Like you learn about, you learn so much about yourself through that process too, right?

And like, what parts do you might be good at? And what parts do you not good at? And so like, I know, you know, I can't really, I'm not good at talking about the science of distillation. Like, I'm not good at talking about really any kind of scientific details or things like that.

But I, you know, I can talk to you all day about culture and identity, right? And the people, you know, the stories behind them. And so I do think there is a lot of, there's a lot of value in doing it that way. What's, what's next on the horizon?

I know you have the expanded edition coming up for the Mascale book, but do you have any other anything else that you can share with us that's down the pipeline? Yeah, I kind of have too many projects. In a moment where I'm trying to figure out how I can make it all work. The one thing, I guess the book that's coming up next, I mentioned the follow up to Bartender's Manifesto, with Tobi Maloney, and we're working on Final Draft right now.

It's going to be, it's called the Classic Cocktail Sessions. And so it's essentially taking, with all of Toby's knowledge and taking a lot of the lessons that we taught in Manifesto about how to get good texture, balance, temperature, aroma in a cocktail, and then applying it to the classics. This was originally something that was going to be in Manifesto, and we had to cut it for space. So it's, it's, since then, it has been the kind of thing that, that I, it's a very selfish project and that I'm doing it because I wanted this book in my, in my home bar.

You know, when I'm at home, I'm making classics. It's like what you said, if it's something you're interested in, someone else is going to be too. So there you go. So it's really fun.

The vibe is very much like, Toby and I, you know, we're hanging out at a, at a dive cocktail bar, you know, probably like Mother's Rowan on a Sunday afternoon and it's, you know, it's, the two boxes on and like he's just going to teach me like a few good tips for making, you know, the best possible martini or the best possible margarita. And then, you know, give you advice on like maybe you should try this brand for this reason or, or try this approach for that reason. And again, he's just such a storyteller in his word choices. So good.

It's just fun. So, and it's like 60 cocktails. Like we're not, it's very curated list. It's, you know, it's not like every classic cocktail ever made.

So I'm hoping that it will be useful to people. I think it will be. 60 is more than enough Christ. Like if you have 60 different cocktails, you like to drink at your house and you're, you know, I'm gonna do it.

Right. No, I was the worst problem. Okay, fair enough. I find that all super interesting.

So I'm guessing that you are the type of person who just needs to be busy. Yeah. I mean, I love, I mean, I, I'm very lucky in that I get to just write and create books, you know, kind of, and that's what I do. It's, it's a very creative art.

I always knew I'd end up somewhere in the creative arts. But the fact that I get to do this is wonderful. It honestly, most of the time doesn't feel like work, which is, you know, blessing and the purse. Because I, I definitely spend, uh, maybe too much time working and not enough time doing other things.

Well, we can maybe call your husband in for some of perspective on it. But Is there anything to that to speak on that? Is there anything in your more before you started to sort of become more niche in like you're writing about certain spirits or cocktails or even just the cocktail world at all? Is there any part of your previous experience that you used to write about or do professionally that you missed now that you've sort of made your world in, uh, so specific, but also busy at the same time?

Yeah. No, that's not a good question. I do miss writing about architecture, like about buildings. You know, I mentioned the design magazine I worked for for Hotman in Chicago and before that I worked for Texas architect magazine and then call it like right out of college.

I wrote a lot for dwell before I got hired by him by him. Um, I could listen to architects talk about buildings like all day. Like I just, the way that they describe light, the way they describe, you know, the, the physical environment, I think is just so wonderful. Poetic like the best ones are poetic.

It's a poetry. So I do miss writing about design. I'm, I'm doing so much travel right now for the bar stuff that I'm getting to see at some super cool hotels. And so I've just started pitching some hotel stories, which I think is kind of partially my way of getting back into being able to talk about design a little bit too.

I love a good hotel. Oh, so good. Chicago has been the epicenter for you for the combination of architecture and cocktail scene. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm really well. Well, that's super cool. Like, so tell our listeners where they can find all of the stuff that's coming out that you're doing that you're working on, where they can buy the stuff that already exists.

Sure. Yeah. So I'm most active on Instagram. My handle is just at Emma Janssen.

I do promote like articles and books on that platform, mostly in stories. And then on the feed, I do a lot of it's mostly travel. You know, I was just in Japan. It's like here, the bars I went to Japan that I liked.

I'm about to write a bunch about Japanese Shochu because I went to a bunch of distilleries out there. And you get a lot of insight there. And that doesn't make it into actual articles just because they don't feel like they have time. Right.

So that's definitely a good place. The books are available pretty much anywhere, you know, try your local indie first. And if that doesn't work, then usually just googling them, we'll pull up the publishing house website. Obviously they're available on Amazon.

Sometimes on Amazon, you know, I hate to plug it. But like sometimes you can get my first book, Mescal, for like less money than I can buy it from the warehouse. So if budget is a concern, as I know it can be with some bartenders, I do send them to Amazon for that reason. I'm advertising the knowledge of it all.

But what are you going to do? He's taking over a week. And the point is the work gets out there. So that's what's most important to people are reading what you're writing.

We certainly are super thrilled that you gave us the time to talk about this. So super fun. And I love to nerd out about the process of this whole writing experience. So thanks so much for giving us your time.

Best of luck with the new Mescal edition and the bartenders manifesto follow-up sounds pretty cool for like home bartenders. So we're excited for you and thanks again for giving us your time. Awesome. Thank you all.

Good luck. Good questions. Thanks a ton.