Introducing The Morning Tipple

Preparing for a pub and cask-ale-fueled jaunt through England and Wales.

Hello friends,

I alluded to this in my previous email, but next week is the official launch of a new newsletter called

The Morning Tipple

. TMT is no ordinary newsletter, however.

If you've followed me for a bit, you might know that I have an annual tradition where I spend Thanksgiving abroad. It started back when I used to live on the east coast of the United States and found flying back home to Portland, OR, was too much of a pain in the ass around the holiday. Instead, one year I booked a trip abroad and have been doing it ever since (except 2020, damn you virus).

The locations vary each Thanksgiving, but typically, I lean pretty heavily into the cold, damp climates because a) I enjoy pain and b) I get the place to myself.

While trying to decide where I'd be heading this Thanksgiving, I came across this article from the BBC saying that two pubs are disappearing in England and Wales per day. TWO PUBS PER DAY. Tragic. This prompted many, many questions.

The article mentioned an organization called Campaign for Pubs. So I got on the phone with Greg Mulholland, their Campaign Director and former Member of Parliament for the city of Leeds. We talked a bit about the community importance of pubs and some of the issues they’re having now. He also offered to put me in touch with a few publicans (pub owners) to chat.

So, all of this to say, this year, Thanksgiving will be spent in the U.K. exploring and investigating the most British of institutions - the pub. This is where The Morning Tipple comes into play.

TMT will chronicle my pub and cask-ale-fueled trip through England and Wales. We'll talk to publicans and breweries, drink cask-ale, stay at pubs that are also inns, hike rugged Snowdonia, and walk the beautiful Cotswold countryside.

The newsletter will operate a little differently than usual. The Morning Tipple will be a daily email from November 16th to December 3rd. Each day, you should expect at least one picture, about 500-1000 words about the pub I visited that day, and some talk about the past, future, and current state of the pub. That's right, one pub a day for 16 straight days. Wish me luck.

But because the emails are daily, you'll have to sign up for TMT separately (I don't want to fill your inbox with stuff you didn't ask for). So, if you're interested, you can sign up by heading over to

The Morning Tipple

(it’s a separate publication on Substack).

And as a part of TMT, I’m testing Substack’s Chat feature. This is a conversation space in the Substack app that I set up exclusively for my subscribers — kind of like a group chat or live hangout. I’ll post photos, thoughts, and updates that come my way, and you can jump into the discussion.

If you know anyone who might be interested in this pub journey, forward this email or tell them all about The Morning Tipple. After December 3rd, all TMT posts will be archived and only available for paying subscribers.

I hope to see you there!

Cheers,

Skylar

This is an experiment, so there might be some kinks to work out along the way. If you have any issues or think you signed up and haven’t received any emails, please reply here and we’ll sort it out.

P.S. - This idea is largely based on Craig Mod's pop-up newsletters - which are an absolute must-read. He's currently on his third installment of TOKIO TŌKYŌ TOKYO, so definitely give that and all of his archives a look.