Dive Bar Jukebox with Amanda Schuster
"We like dancing and we look divine."
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Welcome back to Dive Bar Jukebox, where every Friday bartenders, writers, chefs, musicians, and a host of dynamic people answer the question: If we were hanging out together at a bar and I put ten credits on the jukebox, what songs would you punch in and why? Their answers reveal thoughts on their favorite dive bars along with a hand-picked, annotated 10-song playlist for your weekend listening pleasure.
Please welcome today’s special guest…
Amanda Schuster
Amanda Schuster is a writer, author, consultant, and self-described “broad about town” who covers the spirited world of bars, cocktails, distilleries, and more. She was the longtime editor-in-chief of Alcohol Professor and her work has appeared in Forbes, Imbibe, and Bloomberg News, among others. Schuster is also the author of New York Cocktails: An Elegant Collection of Over 100 Recipes Inspired by the Big Apple and her most recent book, Drink Like a Local New York: A Field Guide to New York's Best Bars. And be on the lookout to pre-order her forthcoming book, Signature Cocktails, coming out this fall from Phaidon.
Amanda is neighbor of mine here in Brooklyn, the borough with likely the highest concentration of drink writers, and we often cross paths at some of the local bars. Her cat Jasper is the coolest and Amanda is known for her deep love of music, especially Duran Duran. I would never try to top her Duran Duran-ness (I mean, the band shared her cocktails inspired by Duran Duran songs story on Twitter), but I think she'd give me cool girl points if she knew that my very first concert was Billy Idol opening for Duran Duran on March 3, 1984 at the Syracuse Carrier Dome on the Seven and the Ragged Tiger tour (here’s the set list). (My second concert was INXS opening for the Go-Go’s at the Utica Memorial Auditorium on July 11, 1984.)
Read on for some down and dirty NYC dive bar memories and a truly dynamic playlist—I mean, it opens with “Mirror in the Bathroom” and only gets better from there.
Thank you, Amanda! I’ll see you at the bar.
