Holly Graham

Hong Kong

Drink Magazine ; Asia Women in Booze; Penicilliin, Dead&

Instagram: @hollygrahamdrinks @drinkmagasia @asiawomeninbooze

*Changemakers is a Cross Cultures series spotlighting inspiring women who are creating and doing in the F&B ecosystem; eading the way and helping better the world.

Originally from the UK and currently based in Hong Kong, Holly Graham is the (international) managing editor of Drink Magazine Asia, recently nominated for Best Cocktail & Spirits Publication at the Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Awards 2019-2020.

Voted No. 26 on Drinks International’s Bar World 100– a list of the world’s 100 most influential figures in the bar industry– Holly founded Asia Women in Booze, a safe space for women to connect in Asia’s alcohol industry, and co-founded HK EnvironMentalists, a group of bar industry professionals striving to minimize waste and implement environmentally-friendly practices in bars. She also organized Speed Rack Asia 2019 – a competition that originated in the USA championing female bartenders, which sees them go head to head in a speed bartending competition and all proceeds are donated to breast cancer charities.

Before finding her calling in the bar world, Holly worked in video production, was a hotel receptionist, taught English in Thailand and Korea, and was food and drink editor at Time Out Hong Kong.

Most recently, she has joined the Penicillin and Dead& teams, led by Agung Prabowo and Roman Ghale (formerly of The Old Man) as social media manager, and will likewise be pulling bar shifts.

Tell us about you. Where were you born, raised, and what you are making or doing at present?

I was born and raised in the East End of London, leaving Blighty a decade ago for adventures in Asia and now reside in Hong Kong. I’m currently the Managing Editor (International) of Drink Magazine, which originally started in China and has a huge WeChat platform, but my role is to manage the rest of the Asia region, which we champion through our website drinkmagazine.asia.

[Last month], I’ve joined the team at Penicillin and Dead& as the social media manager and will be pulling shifts.

How did you end up working at your present career? How long have you been doing this/ When did you start?

It took me a long time to find my calling but I feel like I’m finally here. After graduating into the 2008 recession, it took me six months to find a job relevant to my degree in Media Production, majoring in video and photography. My first “proper” role was as a production runner for an advertising company. The dream was to become a producer and/or script writer, but I was left reeling when I was made redundant less than a year later.

Disenfranchised, I took a job as a hotel receptionist – my second dalliance with hospitality after working at a bar during university – and saved enough cash to travel for a bit. When I returned to London a few months later, I couldn’t wait to leave again. After two years back at home and an uninspiring job, I got a TESL qualification and somehow, without ever having visited Asia, I found myself teaching in rural Thailand.

It was wild and I absolutely adored it. I had no idea what was going on half the time but I thrived off of the challenges and loved every aspect of learning about a new culture. I taught classes of over 50 eight year olds who were practically bouncing off the walls fueled by sugar and the novelty of my goofiness. I’ve never been maternal and have never had a desire to have children but I quite enjoyed teaching, so I continued and moved to Seoul, South Korea.

Seoul will always hold an incredibly special place in my heart – my time there was extremely formative – but much as I loved it, my time there was very intense and after two years, I decided to move to Hong Kong after visiting a few times and falling in love with the city. I could only get a job teaching really young kids and it all got a bit much so I took a step back and decided it was time to get back to writing.

I freelanced my butt off for no pay to build my portfolio but it was all worth it when I landed a job at Time Out Hong Kong as the Food and Drink Editor. The pay was absolute pennies so I freelanced for other publications for extra cash – including Drink – and when I left Time Out, Drink reached out and here I am almost three years later, and loving it! I’d always wanted to work more from the trade side of things, and for a while between Time Out and Drink, I worked at cocktail bar The Old Man, which really solidified my love for the industry. This year I was voted as 26th on the Bar World 100 – a list of the bar industry’s most influential figures. It was extremely humbling as I have spent my tenure at Drink championing others, so to be celebrated in turn was just an indescribable honor.

What was the biggest challenge you have faced?

The last year has been really tough for Hong Kong with the protests and then of course COVID-19. Business after business was – and still is – struggling, and while December showed some glimmers of hope, COVID-19 came smashing down the door and meant my beloved bar industry got hit really hard, with many friends having to temporarily close their venues due to government orders. Seeing everyone stricken with panic in the face of such uncertainty is heartbreaking.

A positive challenge I’ve faced was executing Speed Rack Asia 2019 – the all female speed bartending competition that raises money for breast cancer charities. We hosted it in Hong Kong but had women from all over Asia come and compete. It was a huge challenge to organize but on the day I was filled with joy as everyone hustled to make it happen, and our girl Summer Lo of the Four Seasons Hong Kong won!

How/ what did you do to get over it?

I feel like COVID-19 ignited something in me. I have always liked helping people but I went pedal to the metal, offering Drink as a platform to help people, share information and advice. My fiancee and I also used it as an excuse to order as much delivery food and drink as possible to help contribute to smaller F&B businesses in Hong Kong. My waistline suffered as a consequence, but what a great excuse to indulge!

What is the best advice you can give to anyone wanting to get into or excel in your field?

Write, write some more, and keep writing! You need to build a portfolio and the more you write, the more you will hone your skills. Learn the tone of who you’re writing for or pitching to – you wouldn’t believe the amount of consumer listicles I get pitched for a trade publication! Get out there and meet people. Try everything and ask questions and also be prepared to intern or write pieces for free as you build up your CV and portfolio as it’s dog eat dog out there!

What is your favorite thing about your culture or living in your city?

So many things! What first brought me to Hong Kong is the palpable electricity that runs through the city and the amazing cuisine. The F&B scene here is one of the best in the world and I especially love how collaborative and supportive our bar industry is. Hong Kong is also incredibly diverse in its landscape and most people don’t know that 40% of HK is country parks. As well as the amazing concrete jungle, we have stunning hikes, beautiful beaches and fascinating wildlife. I just moved out to a rural village and though it’s only 30 minutes from the city, it’s such a contrast and I love both sides.

How did you spend your days during this COVID-19 quarantine period?

We were really lucky in Hong Kong to have not had a hardcore lockdown, but at the beginning, everyone opted to stay in more even before closures happened. During that period, as I mentioned before, I did what I could to pump out useful information and support, while ordering in food and bottled cocktails from my favourite independent businesses as every little helps.

Hong Kong is just coming out of the third wave of COVID-19, and I find it so bizarre as people think we keep getting hit with the virus, when in reality I think we’ve dealt with it really well and just a few waves ahead. I think the West should pay more attention to how places like Hong Kong and Singapore are handling the pandemic!

Please tell us about Asia Women in Booze. Please feel free to share any COVID-19 initiatives you may have as well with Asia Women in Booze and Drink Magazine Asia.

I founded Asia Women In Booze as a safe space for women to connect in Asia’s alcohol industry. I created it with the hope that we can expand our network in Asia’s blooming booze industry and create a support system and strive for change such as pushing for equal representation in cocktail competitions, judging panels, guest shift line ups, panel talks and more.

So far we’ve had meet-ups in Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok and even one during Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans. Much like many fledgling projects, COVID-19 kind of pumped the brakes on this much like everyone else at the moment, I need to focus on surviving and riding this pandemic out safely, and I wanted to travel and meet more babes killing it in our industry. When things begin to stabilize, I really hope to grow AWIB into a thriving network, hosting not only meet-ups but seminars, discussions, education forums and more. Watch this space!

At Drink, we’ve launched several new programs that you can read about here and as the pandemic situation is pretty good in Shanghai, we can go ahead with our annual awards which we renamed this year to Drink Awards 2020. Though we won’t be having international guests, we will be honoring China and the rest of Asia’s bar scene in November. I’m devastated I won’t be able to be there this year but keeping my fingers crossed that the borders open!