August 2025 Dispatch
"Summer, it turns me upside down."
August 2025 Dispatch
Hello, and welcome to August. How did that happen already?
In the recent survey I conducted there was a lot of feedback on paywalled posts. Since launching in July 2022, LAST CALL has offered a mix of both free posts available to all readers along with content exclusive to paid subscribers. The original schedule was one free post and one paid post each week. Due to my schedule and bandwidth, I’m not always able to maintain that frequency.
While everyone would like fewer paywalls, starting this month I plan to dial down the frequency of free dispatches. The primary reason is to help drive home the benefits and value of being a paid subscriber to LAST CALL, especially to the hundreds of current paid subscribers who have been here since Day One. Going forward, I’ll kick off each month with a free dispatch to all readers with additional free content from time to time with the remainder paywalled.
Unlike other newsletters who drop the paywall portcullis on readers after the first sentence, I always allow a good-sized above-the-fold preview in the hope that what you read inspires you to want to read more and, even better, support my work here.
From time to time here I also work with like-minded brands in the beverage, food, and lifestyle space on paid promotions which benefit readers with promo codes, recipes, and other featured content. For those I always turn off the paywall as an added value to all readers, as well as the featured partner.
One last note, after free dispatches run for 1-2 weeks they join the three-plus years’ of writing behind the paywalled archives (another great reason to consider becoming a paid subscriber).
With that being said, I wanted to remind readers about the three LAST CALL Subscription Plans and their benefits. If you really dig what you’re reading here from week to week, I truly hope you’ll consider becoming a paid subscriber or upgrading your paid subscription. A friendly reminder that the Yearly rate of $50.00/year is 40% cheaper than subscribing month to month. And if you’re a true BTP super-supporter of my writing and work here and want to be the ultimate benefactor, the Courtside Seats plan is made for you.
My continued gratitude for everyone reading and supporting LAST CALL.
—BTP
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“It’s An Honor to Be Nominated…”
“The minute you land in New Orleans, something wet and dark leaps on you and starts humping you like a swamp dog in heat, and the only way to get that aspect of New Orleans off you is to eat it off.” —Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume
Last week I took a rather planned-at-the-last minute trip to New Orleans to attend Tales of the Cocktail, the annual spirited conference attracting bartenders, bar owners, brands, distillers, producers, writers, influencers, and cocktail aficionados from all of the world to mix and mingle in the summer high season when the city is at its most hot and humid. I first went in 2012 when my debut book Bitters was up for a Spirited Award and again in 2014 attending as media, but this marked my first return in more than a decade.
I was a finalist for a Spirited Award in the Best Cocktail and Spirits Writing for my VinePair essay “The Hidden Hospitality Hazards When You’re Too Big for the Bar,” which was also a James Beard Award finalist in the Personal Essay category. Spoiler alert: I’m 0-2. While it was a very personal and quite vulnerable essay about navigating the hospitality world as an overweight person, that didn’t hold much weight with very real world concerns as the Beard Award went to a Pulitzer Prize-winning New Yorker poet writing about Gaza and the Spirited Award to a piece on Ukraine. As they say, or at least everyone tells me: It’s an honor to be nominated.
I’ve benefitted from my first book coming out of the gate strong in 2012, winning both a James Beard Award and an IACP Award. I assumed I’d never win another professional award again, but was pleasantly surprised when my book Last Call won a Spirited Award in 2020 (there was no in-person ceremony that year due to the pandemic). So when my VinePair essay received these two prestigious nominations I was over-the-moon thrilled, especially as I figured I had my run. But I also can’t help but feel like this was the closest I could’ve come to ever winning another major award. As the great Enzo Ferrari once said, “Second is the first of the losers.” (I’m not implying I was second in either situation but you get the idea.)
After exiting the Fillmore Theater on my way back to the Hotel Monteleone I took the folded acceptance speech I had written from my jacket pocket and flicked it into a trash can. But here’s one part of it that I would like to share here, especially for all of the readers who rallied behind me and this story.
I'm grateful for all of the readers for their support, and those who reached out to thank me for helping them feel seen in a hospitality world where overweight guests at bars, restaurants, and other businesses frequently feel dismissed or overlooked. Sharing this story also sparked a long overdue personal wake-up call to prioritize my own health and well-being over the past year.
On that note, I know this won’t win me any points with the ladies but my recent flight to New Orleans marked the first time in more than 15 years that I didn’t have to request a seatbelt extender. You don’t know how embarrassing it is to write that. But this morning when I did my weekly weigh-in I’ve now lost 60 pounds since Memorial Day weekend 2024.
I’m not kidding myself. I’m still a big fella. But my first day in “feels like 107 degrees” New Orleans I walked around 7 miles exploring the city, something that would have been impossible just a year ago. And lest you think I got a little cocky, I was brought back down to earth when I visited the Campari Hospitality Lounge and picked out a sharp-looking 3XL short-sleeved Campari rugby shirt. Back at the hotel I couldn’t even got my head through the neck hole. I guess it was an Italian-cut 3XL. At least the Campari visor and socks will fit me!
I’ll write more here on LAST CALL about what I ate and drank and other fun in New Orleans, but my re-entry back to the real world proved to be more problematic than I could’ve imagined. There were storm alerts that morning for the East Coast and if I had taken a flight an hour earlier I would’ve been golden, but instead, just 20 minutes from our approach into JFK a ground stop due to weather had other plans. The pilot announced we’d be diverted to Baltimore until the weather cleared up and then, on a slightly brighter note, to Atlantic City, which was at least closer to NYC.
We landed at the Atlantic City Airport and since it wasn’t a hub for JetBlue, we waited on the tarmac until we were released. The weather updates and delays kept piling on and five hours later we were still sitting on the tarmac. As some sort of compromise we were towed to the terminal around 9:00PM and were allowed to deplane if desired but couldn’t leave the mostly closed and abandoned floor we were on. So I basically transferred my purgatory from my plane seat to a gate seat, stewing and cursing and mumbling to myself in utter frustration. There were no updates or announcement but soon the remaining passengers on the parked plane exited and through whisper-network rumblings we were informed that two buses would be arriving in two-and-half hours (12:30AM!) to ferry us to JFK. My head was exploding with rage. Why not drop us off in Times Square? Two-and-half hours? You couldn’t have summoned those buses at any point during our 5-hours parked on the tarmac?
There was no way I could ride out the wait for the buses and then deal with getting home from JFK in the early morning hours. After retrieving my checked bag (which contained a muffuletta from Central Grocery) I was welcomed by the cut-throat Uber surge rates and wanted to cry.
I know, I could’ve rallied around fellow stranded passengers to share a ride but I wasn’t in the right frame of mind. I was looking out for myself and just wanted to get home. I played Uber roulette for a while hoping for the rates to drop and when they got to around $330 I tried my luck. The first guy pulled up but wouldn’t let me in and instead tried to shake me down saying I’d have to pay cash up front. I told him to fuck off along with some other choice words. Uber No. 2 finally comes. I deposit my back in the trunk, hop in, and buckle up and suddenly my ride is “canceled” and my guy pulls the same cash up front move.
Finally, Uber No. 3 rolls in, driven by a sweet-faced woman whose fiancé was riding shotgun up front. After exchanging pleasantries we were on the road driving through New Jersey with an ETA for Brooklyn around 1:30AM. They were nice and I was grateful to be on my way home, but after our initial conversation faltered I listened to the radio and kept one eye open the entire time for fear I’d wind up the subject of a future Dateline special.
The ride was $300 and I tipped $50. I crashed in my bed and two hours later Enzo crashed on me, pushing himself off the dresser and onto my chest with the strength of Krypto the Super Dog as an official welcome home and it’s almost time for breakfast reminder.
Cat Tales
Yesterday marked what would have been the 22nd birthday of the late great Louis, my roommate and best friend who spent 16 of of his 18 years with me until we had to say goodbye in September 2021. He was larger than life and, though social media, known to many who actually never met him in person. He always rang in his birthday with a fresh bag of treats, a new toy, and a can of Cento oil-packed tuna (his favorite). I still think about him every day and I have a feeling he’s been looking down with amusement at Enzo, the 1-year-old tabby cat I adopted this April from Brooklyn Animal Action, and keeping an eye out on both of us.
I know all cats are different, from their breed, coats, and coloring to their unique personalities. Louis was always pretty chill. We drove cross-country together in the spring of 2010 from Seattle to Brooklyn and we lived in four different apartments together. He did things on his own terms, as cats do. He didn’t love being man-handled by me but always wanted to be a part of the action. He was a free-feeder so I could leave a big bowl of kibble and water for him and he would eat and drink just enough to keep him satisfied and for nearly his entire life he hovered around a slight but healthy 9 pounds.
Enzo, on the other hand, is long and strong and built like an NBA power forward. He’s close to 15 pounds (a few pounds up from his original weight when he moved in but the vet said “he’s a big boy” and said he should lose maybe a pound). I’m pretty obsessed with his coloring—swirling patterns off brown, black, and white that reminds of Ben & Jerry’s Vanilla Caramel Fudge ice cream. His crazy long legs are decorated with shocks of solid white making his back paws look like he’s wearing white tube socks pulled up high and little white ankle socks up front.
He’s not a lap cat, doesn’t love being picked up, and tends to nip at me when he’s overstimulated (like when I can’t resist pushing my face into his soft belly or kissing him on his forehead). He still has a lot of kitten energy and we participate in calisthenics each morning with his favorite felt rainbow wand. Rather than the plush cat beds I purchased for him he prefers sleeping on a flattened Trader Joe’s shopping bag on the kitchen table and jamming himself into a Nike shoebox that I’ve had to repair with duct tape several times since his arrival. He loves hanging out in the windows to watch the mourning doves and ascends to the top of the kitchen cabinets to set up base camp like an alpine climber.
The most challenging aspect is adjusting to his “food scarcity” issues. He was a house cat who was abandoned and did an unknown amount of time on the streets of Kensington, Brooklyn, before being rescued and put into the foster system, so I don’t blame him being obsessed with food, especially as the poor guy didn’t always know when or if he’d get something to eat. For health reasons I balance wet food with dry food and that’s a whole new thing for me to adjust to. I’ve invested in an auto feeder with a built-in camera so I can check in on him and speak to him before releasing a 1/4 cup of dry food when I’m not home. And we have a high-end wi-fi enabled gurgling water fountain that notifies me how often and how much water he drinks each day. But once he eats his breakfast or dinner from his ceramic slow-feeder dish he immediately posts up in front of his auto feeder and stares at it for up to a half hour trying to use his psychic cat powers to will the food into spilling into the dish, seemingly forgetting that he had eaten just moments before.
Every night at bedtime he hops up on the bed and, channeling faraway memories of being a kitten, picks up the throw at the end of the bed and holds it tightly in his mouth as he aggressively makes biscuits until he tires himself out and then retires to the bottom right quadrant of the bed and sprawls out. He is out cold until he comes to life like a time bomb any time between 3AM and 4AM and alternates between playfully though aggressively biting any exposed limb and repeatedly hopping up on the dresser and throwing his 15-pound self upon me like a wrestler launching from the top rope of the ring. But I will cherish him and all his quirks because unless he outlives me (which is very likely), one day I may long for the memory of these early days together when things are silent once again.
The Long Wondrous Life of a Cat Named Louis
“I like to read books. I like to listen to music. I collect records. And cats. I don’t have any cats right now. But if I’m taking a walk and I see a cat, I’m happy.”
Officina del Bere 1397 Event
It was a hot and steamy night in the Big City on Friday, July 18 when David Hatzopoulos, Trevor Eichhorn, and the team at Officina del Bere 1397 hosted me for a packed 2-hour meet-and-greet, book signing, and amari tasting. It was their second author event and the guys seemed pretty jazzed with the turnout and level of engagment. Grazie Mille to chef-owners Rita Sodi and Jody Williams for opening this curated bottle shop and bookstore sandwiched between their two incredibly popular Bar Pisellino outposts in the West Village.
It was great so see plenty of LAST CALL subscribers in the house as I hit the ground running welcoming guests, fielding questions, signing books, and pouring amari (neat, with ice, and/or soda) along with bambino versions of the Vino Veritas. This perfect for summer cocktail from Jose Cordon is made with Cappelletti Pasubio Vino Amaro, almond orgeat, and Lambrusco garnished with fresh mint and a fat blackberry and is from my forthcoming book Drinking Italian. Post-event wind-down found me a little sticky, my dogs barking, and mildly exhausted, but so very grateful. Thanks again to everyone who joined us.
September Seattle Events!
October 2019 was the last time I was in Seattle, a city I lived in from 1999-2010 and revisited at least once a year. That period from October through December was also the last time I traveled extensively as I was on a 20-city-plus book tour for Last Call.
But I’m excited to share the news that I will be making it back to the 206 next month for two collaborative amaro events with Jamie Hunt, the founder and owner of Fast Penny Spirits, who produces Amaricano Bianca and Amaricano Rossa using a bevy of botanicals sourced from the Pacific Northwest including cocoa nibs, Rainier cherries, Yakima hops, and locally foraged truffles.
I look forward to seeing a lot of familiar faces (and hopefully Seattle-based LAST CALL readers) and meet plenty of new folks at either of these two ticketed events, which include talk a and tasting at Tom Douglas’ Hot Stove Society Culinary School in the Hotel Ändra (my home away from home whenever I’m back in Seattle), and a custom amaro tasting experience and panel discussion at the Fast Penny Spirits distillery with me, Jamie, and Death & Co.’s Dave Kaplan moderated by Zach Geballe. All the details are below, so be sure to order tickets before they sell out.
Demystifying Amaro With Fast Penny Spirit’s Jamie Hunt and Author Brad Thomas Parsons
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12 | 5:30PM - 7:30PM
Amaro has taken the spotlight in bars around the world, evolving from a traditional Italian digestivo to a star ingredient in modern cocktails. Join Fast Penny Spirits founder Jamie Hunt and award-winning author Brad Thomas Parsons for an evening exploring the rich world of amari at the Hot Stove Society. You'll enjoy a Fast Penny Viola Spritz and Venetian cicchetti on arrival, followed by a guided tasting of seasonal cocktails and Italian-inspired dishes, all paired with both Italian and local amari. The Hot Stove team will serve hearty bites to match each drink in this festive, flavor-packed experience. Signed copies of Amaro will also be available for purchase.
Date & Time: Friday, September 12 | 5:30PM - 7:30PM
Location: Hot Stove Society
2000 4th Avenue, Seattle, Washington 98121 (located on the 2nd floor of Hotel Ändra)Tickets: $135 (Purchase Tickets)
Ticket price is per 1 person. Tickets are non-refundable, but are transferable.
Bitter Intentions: The Rise and Role of Amaro
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13 | 5:30PM - 7:30PM
Join us for an interactive evening exploring the world of amaro! Taste Amaricano your way at our custom amaro station, explore key botanicals, and enjoy a lively panel discussion with industry experts on amaro’s past, present, and future.
Mix, match, and make it your own! Build your perfect amaro at our interactive tasting station—brighten it with citrus, add fresh herbs, or top it with a splash of sparkling wine or water. Wander through our botanical table featuring gentian, wormwood, hibiscus, cacao nibs, and more, and snack on light bites while you sip.
The conversation will be moderated by Zach Geballe (Seattle-based sommelier, educator, and host of the award-winning VinePair podcast) and feature Dave Kaplan (co-founder of Death & Co. and CEO of Gin & Luck), Brad Thomas Parsons (James Beard Award–winning author of Amaro), and Jamie Hunt (Fast Penny Spirits founder). Bring your questions, we’d love this to be interactive and fun.
Savor the experience, mingle with fellow amaro lovers, and end the night with book signings by celebrated authors Brad Thomas Parsons and Dave Kaplan. Your ticket includes a custom amaro tasting experience, a hands-on sensory exploration, an engaging panel discussion, and light snacks.
Date & Time: Saturday, September 13 | 5:30PM - 7:30PM
Location: Fast Penny Spirits Tasting Room
1138 W Ewing Street, Suite B, Seattle, Washington 98119Tickets: $25 (Purchase Tickets)
Tickets are non-refundable, but are transferrable.
Follow Brad Thomas Parsons on Instagram.
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There was a lot of info in this newsletter, but yikes (!!!!) being stuck on the tarmac for 5 hours. Omg...
Holy moly, that was brutal. Were you able to receive some sort of compensation from Jet Blue for that? They used to be my favorite airline but things have really changed over the last few years.
Sorry you didn’t win, it’s difficult to compete with what you were up against but I’m certain you were the true winner in everyone’s eyes here. :) Congratulations on the weight loss, not an easy thing to do but especially for someone in your industry. You’re looking good.
Enzo sounds like a terror. Lol! Pet stories are the best and always enjoy reading about him.
Thanks for the dispatch!