Drink of Choice

EP11 Jon Hwang - An entrepreneur who built the drink he couldn't find

Sid Kim & Han Kim — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 19:04:10 -0700

Jon Hwang spent a year turning his kitchen into what looked like a Breaking Bad lab: bags of white powder, mystery ingredients, and a food scientist who had never tasted milk tea in his life. The result is MAKO, a boba-inspired high-protein milk tea designed to do what no ready-to-drink protein shake has done before: actually taste good. We talk about leaving a tech career behind, bootstrapping a CPG brand from scratch, navigating supply chains, trademarks, and co-manufacturers - all as a team of one. Plus, why the Asian fitness market is about to explode and why milk tea protein might be exactly what it's been waiting for... here on the Drink of Choice.

EP10 Paul Dimalanta - The most important shot

Sid Kim & Han Kim — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 13:25:44 -0700

Paul Dimalanta grew up in Oxnard, California, the son of a Filipino Navy engineer who gave up a college degree for a one-way ticket to America. Paul was supposed to follow the path - engineering, stability, the whole thing. Then he watched Office Space and changed his major. What followed was a career that took him from the accounting department of Robb Report magazine to shooting luxury brands across the world for clients like MasterCard - from Lake Como to the Yellowstone Club in Montana. Along the way he had to learn that his photos could look too good, that car ads don't always need cars, and that the most important project of his career wasn't for any client at all. It was photographing the faces of his own Filipino community. We talk about art, identity, AI, and what happens when you finally stop apologizing for who you are... here on the Drink of Choice.

EP09 Noelle Song - The pancake that started it all

Sid Kim & Han Kim — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 06:00:00 -0700

Noelle Song had a dream job, a marketing degree, and a plan. Then she quit. What followed was a tiny pancake, five million views, and the beginning of something she never saw coming. Today she's a fitness coach, content creator, and musician navigating the space between going viral and building something that actually lasts. We talk about fear, identity, and what it really means to bet on yourself... here on the Drink of Choice.

EP08 Tom Li - Beijing to to America, and his Choice to Stay

Sid Kim & Han Kim — Tue, 07 Jul 2026 06:00:00 -0700

Tom Li was born in Beijing, fled to America as a child in the wake of Tiananmen Square, and grew up in a high school that was 80% Asian - never once setting foot in a majority-white space until law school at age 22. He decided to become a lawyer at five years old, not out of passion, but because it seemed safe. It took twelve years of practicing law to finally find his footing. We talk about identity, belonging, code-switching, and the quiet choices that shape who we become... here on the Drink of Choice.

Drink of Choice is an interview podcast co-hosted by Sid Kim, restaurateur and entrepreneur, and Han Kim, entertainment lawyer. Every guest arrives with a drink that means something to them, and that drink becomes the doorway into a much larger conversation about their life. Built around Asian and Asian-American voices, artists, creators, chefs, entrepreneurs, and anyone who carries a story worth telling, Drink of Choice creates a space that is intimate, unhurried, and culturally grounded.

New episodes every Tuesday. Subscribe so you don't miss one.

EP07 Alice Kao - She Didn't Find Her Sport. Her Sport Found Her.

Sid Kim & Han Kim — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 03:28:31 -0700

A bad breakup sent Alice Kao to a climbing gym in London. That one afternoon changed everything. Today she's the co-founder and CEO of Sender One, one of the premier climbing gym chains in Southern California — built with no plan, a lot of grit, and a Harvard-educated husband who gave up his law career to hand out shoes at the front desk.

New episodes every Tuesday. Subscribe so you don't miss one.

EP06 Tiffany Law - From Hong Kong to Big Law to Dance Music

Sid Kim & Han Kim — Tue, 23 Jun 2026 08:24:50 -0700

Tiffany Law is an entertainment lawyer, entrepreneur, and lifelong lover of dance music whose career has taken her across four continents and through some of the world’s most competitive industries. From growing up in Canada after immigrating from Hong Kong, to living in Africa and Europe, surviving Big Law, and eventually finding her place in the music industry, Tiffany shares the experiences, setbacks, and life decisions that shaped who she is today.

EP05 Sam Gollestani - September to Remember

Sid Kim & Han Kim — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:06:39 -0700

A receptionist became a producer, a producer became a showrunner, and a showrunner became a director. Along the way, Sam Gollestani got Sylvester Stallone mad at him and wrote the untold story of what it felt like to be Iranian American on September 11th. That short film won at Cannes — and changed someone else's life. Not getting help sooner was his worst decision. Finding the right person was his best.

Grab a glass. This is Drink of Choice.

New episodes every Tuesday. Subscribe so you don't miss one.

EP04 Big Phony — How Bobby Choy Hid His Identity to Break Into Music

Sid Kim & Han Kim — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 06:00:00 -0700

Bobby Choy has spent his entire life doing things he wasn't supposed to do.
As a kid, he moved 45 times, taught himself guitar using cassette tapes, and was left to fend for himself in New York at 14. As a young man in LA, he decided to become a musician at a time when Asian Americans simply weren't supposed to. So he hid behind a name: Big Phony.

New episodes every Tuesday. Subscribe so you don't miss one.

EP02 Sid Kim - The Long Way Home

Sid Kim & Han Kim — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 06:00:00 -0700

Sid Kim didn't plan any of this. A year became thirty. A lazy afternoon at Barnes & Noble became an internet business. An idea and a little luck became an F&B group across Asia. Then a health scare reset everything. Now he's telling stories through food — here on Drink of Choice.

EP01 Han Kim - JD? Or DJ? Or Both?

Sid Kim & Han Kim — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 06:00:00 -0700

Before Han Kim was negotiating deals for K-pop's biggest labels, he was in the booth — rapping, producing, and managing artists out of pure love for the music. He had a front-row seat to the early days of Epik High and the Wonder Girls, cold-DM'd an artist he discovered in a Facebook group and talked his way into becoming their manager, and made beats on an old MacBook and GarageBand while most kids were just trying to pass high school.

He went on to work with Far East Movement, Black Label, and JYP Entertainment — a career path that started with a nickname his mother gave him and a relentless belief that he could figure it out along the way. When the music industry's notoriously thin margins caught up with him, his mother (in her infinite wisdom) suggested he go to law school. Her pitch? Become a JD DJ. He listened.
Now he sits at the intersection of law, music, and culture, protecting the choices of artists who are living the dream he once chased himself.

His drink of choice? An unlikely combination of creatine and matcha, and he'll tell you exactly why it changed everything.

Every week, Sid and Han sit down with fascinating guests, each of whom arrives with a drink that means something to them. What follows is a conversation about the choices — big, small, accidental, and hard-won — that shaped who they are.

New episodes every week. Subscribe so you don't miss one.

EP03 Young Kim — Behind the K-Pop Curtain: Scandals, Soju, and Starting Over

Sid Kim & Han Kim — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 06:00:00 -0700

Young Kim had a dream, a one-way ticket, and no real idea what he was walking into. As a member of S#arp and Uptown, he was a young kid from the States trying to learn to rap, dance, and sing in a language and culture that wasn't his own — all while being constantly scrutinized for the way he looked. The K-pop machine made him plenty of promises. It didn't keep all of them.

His years in Korea took him through broadcast politics, industry scandals, and the kind of late-night soju conversations that either break you or bond you for life. He found his footing in radio and television, built a life far from home, and somehow kept a marriage intact through all of it.
Then he came back to the States with no plan and had to start over from scratch. He sold cemetery plots at a funeral parlor. He hustled. He figured it out. Eventually he found a small restaurant in Inglewood — one that's been feeding the same neighborhood for eighty years, with a loyalty that spans generations. He wasn't looking for peace and contentment. He just followed the next open door until he found it.

His drink of choice? Red top soju. Naturally.

New episodes every week. Subscribe so you don't miss one.