courtyard

Explore "courtyard" with insightful episodes like "Mexico Travel Tips & Tequila with Casa Dragones CEO", "Michael Leckie - Leckie Studio", "Living Room Concerts are the Best", "Episode 37: An Article From The Telegraph About Hospitality Safety Measures And Test And Trace" and "Reading Body Language Part 2" from podcasts like ""Passport to Everywhere with Melissa Biggs Bradley", "ALL GOOD VIBES", "Grace 242", "Free Association Freedom Of Speech Podcast" and "Grace 242"" and more!

Episodes (8)

Mexico Travel Tips & Tequila with Casa Dragones CEO

This week Melissa is joined by a remarkable force in the world of tequila, Bertha Gonzalez Nieves, Mexico's first female master tequila distiller and the co-founder and CEO of Tequila Casa Dragones, an esteemed small-batch tequila distillery based in San Miguel de Allende. Bertha's influence and expertise are widely recognized.

Her accolades are numerous, as she has been named one of the 50 most powerful women in Mexico by Forbes and hailed as one of Mexico's top young businesswomen by Revista Expansion. Bertha worked as an executive at Jose Cuervo International for a decade before launching Casa Dragones, and today the luxury label – recognized worldwide – focuses on handcrafted, small-batch production and sustainable processes.

Melissa also shines a spotlight on San Miguel de Allende, offering a glimpse into the allure of this enchanting place, so if you're planning a trip to San Miguel Allende, you'll want to stay tuned for Melissa's recommendations for restaurants, shopping, and hotels.

If you want more information on the tequila, restaurants, galleries, and hotels mentioned in this week’s episode, click on the links below:

Casa Dragones Tequilas

Joven - made for sipping and pairing with food, the joven is smooth with a hazelnut-hinted finish and is best served neat.

Añejo - featuring notes of fig and roasted almonds with a round finish, the añejo is perfect to sip after dinner.

Reposado - rested in oak casks with notes of apricot and butterscotch, the reposado is best served neat or with one ice cube.

Blanco - crisp and smooth with a bright aftertaste, the blanco is perfect for sipping on the rocks.

Bertha’s Mexico City Favorites

Lunch

Galleries

Bars

Bertha’s San Miguel Favorites

Hotels

Restaurants

Bars

Locations to further experience Casa Dragones in San Miguel

Melissa’s San Miguel Destination Hack

Shopping

Dôce 18 Concept House - a great place to shop at popups; the brands here represent the best in Mexican fashion, art, and design

El Nuevo Mundo - stop here for local handcrafted goods, home decor, jewelry, accessories, and more

Restaurants

Áperi - featuring creative cuisine and a great atmosphere, Melissa recommends trying the delicious tasting menu here

Moxi - located in Hotel Matilda, Michelin star Chef Vicente Torres presents a high-class menu with Mediterranean influence

Luna Tapas Bar - located on the rooftop at the Rosewood Hotel, this spot is great for a cocktail while enjoying the sunset

Cumpanio - a bakery/restaurant near Casa Dragones, Melissa recommends the chicken sandwich for lunch and taking back some of their famous breads

Tacos San Francisco - a small but famous taco truck

Hotels

Rosewood San Miguel - sprawling, luxury hotel that meshes colonial Mexico with cosmopolitan flare

Live Aqua - contemporary hotel on the northern edge of town that captures the historical and cultural charm of San Miguel in its design and features 153 rooms with 5 bars and restaurants

Matilda - a chic boutique hotel in a modern setting

Casa Arca - part of the Dôce 18 Concept House in a bright setting with modern decor

For more information on pairings, daily tastings, dinners and private events at Casa Dragones, check out their website at www.casadragones.com or email Concierge@CasaDragones.com; to arrange a private event at La Casa Dragones contact Indagare at productions@indagare.com.

Passport to Everywhere with Melissa Biggs Bradley

enJune 15, 2023

Michael Leckie - Leckie Studio

Guest of this appointment is Michael Leckie, founder in 2015 of Leckie Studio Architecture + Design. After a Bachelorâs degree in genetics, Michael received his Master of Architecture at the University of British Columbia, UBC, practicing for several years at Patkau Architects, having later a collaborative work experience with a colleague.
The young multi-disciplinary practice, based in Vancouver, embraces different typologies, single-and multi-family residences, renovation, hospitality design, boutique-interiors mainly realized across North America. Essentiality and simplicity characterize their energetic realizations, displaying an attentive sensibility towards details and the act of making.
Awarded several times as emerging firm by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, and the Institute of British Columbia, Leckie Studio has won in 2019 Architizer A+Awards, shortlisted for Dezeen and Frame awards, winning recently the 2022 Architectural Record's annual Design Vanguard. The projects of the practice are widely featured in publications including FRAME, Arcade, Wallpaper, Azure, among others.

A side project company, The Backcountry Hut, established by Michael and a partner, complements the practice, creating prefabricated modular prototype shelters, flat-packed sustainable structures, simple to be assembled and easy to be transported.
The conversation starts from the long journey that has led Micheal to study architecture, after a series of interesting experiences, as an undergraduate degree in genetic and microbiology and an adventurous, nomadic life, a network of knowledge and experimentations that have contributed to the individual character of his work.

We speak about the initiative of realizing prefabricate, mass-customizable small-scale cabins, a challenging opportunity of hands-on approach, creative design for young architects and about a new shift that the production is gradually witnessing. For a series of contingencies, economic factors and a diffuse rethinking of certain existential values, people seem motivated to consider alternatives to the increasingly densified and prohibitive urban situation, re-evaluating more liveable and affordable suburban areas and the economic cabins, easy to be assembled by any common person with no construction experience, offer an attractive complement of this new, possible model of life.

Full House, a multi-generational residence in Vancouver, a flexible space, plenty of green and natural light, proposes another interesting topic, appropriately responding to our urban dystopian scenario. The attention focuses then on a recent realisation, the University of British Columbia Arts Student Centre, winner of this year's Architectural Recordâs Vanguard award, an iconic, contemporary and essential gesture, well expressing the core mission of âcommon groundâ it embodies, promising an innovative and collaborative active space.
We then explore the whimsical, special atmosphere created for a new-born cosmetic clinic, a beautiful, soft, monochromatic ambience evoking freezing moments of cosmic geological silence, inspired by the âQuarriesâ of the famous photographer Edward Burtynsky, and the surrealist works of Matthew Barney. An interior particularly original and appropriate for the treatments of the clinic, well expressing the brandâs identity, and its core values.
Micheal concludes by explaining his idea of an aesthetic driven by pragmatic considerations and his aspiration to a biophilic design, in respect the clientâs expectations.

enOctober 28, 2022

Living Room Concerts are the Best

Series: Sent
Episode 10. Living Room Concerts are the Best
Scripture Reading: Luke 4:33-41

What's God's mission for his people in 2021? Why do we exist as Christ's church? What's our purpose in this world?

en-usApril 10, 2021

Episode 37: An Article From The Telegraph About Hospitality Safety Measures And Test And Trace

Hospitality venues open again next week under strict conditions. This article describes the conditions being imposed by government.

Free Association Freedom Of Speech Podcast

enApril 09, 2021

Reading Body Language Part 2

Reading Body Language Part 2

Series: Sent
Episode Episode 9. Reading Body Language Part 2
Scripture Reading: Luke 4:38-41

What's God's mission for his people in 2021? Why do we exist as Christ's church? What's our purpose in this world?

en-usMarch 27, 2021

Temple for the Gentiles

In this episode, Reflecting Light welcomes our first guest, Mike Day, for a discussion about the ancient temple prototype and how it continues to show up in modern culture. We look at movies, stories, myth, scripture and apocrypha to find the themes and elements common to the archetypal hero's journey. Join us!

enJanuary 16, 2021

Providence by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows

This 2015 comic series is an attempt to tell "the ultimate H.P. Lovecraft" story, so we dive deep into the cold, clinical research process behind it. We also discuss this story's relationship with sexual violence, racism, American mythology, capitalism and... comic book fandom.

Interested in the media we discussed this episode? Please support the show by purchasing it through our affiliate store:

Providence

Additional Resources:

Supercontext: an autopsy of media

enAugust 16, 2019

Rear Window

Rear Window peeps into YOUR window as the 48th podcast from the T100P. Alfred Hitchcock teams up with Jimmy Stewart for the 1st time and one of us thinks it’s a home run. The other is not convinced. Controversy! There might even be a few bad impressions thrown around. Go to it!

en-caApril 07, 2014

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