Beverage Experts

Caleb Silver is the Editor in Chief of Investopedia and host of The Express podcast. He is an Emmy-nominated business journalist who previously worked as the Director of Business News at CNN, the Executive Producer of CNN Money, and a Senior Producer at Bloomberg Television. He is a frequent guest on CNBC, MSNBC, CNN, and ABC News Radio.

Melanie Hansche is the editorial director of special projects at Food & Wine and a former restaurant owner who has created food and lifestyle content for over 24 years across two continents. She started her career in food journalism in Sydney at Australian Gourmet Traveller before joining Aussie food icon Donna Hay for eight years as her magazine and cookbook editor. Melanie relocated to the U.S. a decade ago to work for Rodale publishing as its food director before joining Food & Wine in 2018 as its deputy editor. In her current role, Melanie oversees editorial programs like Best New Chefs and Global Tastemakers, spearheads the brand’s travel and home coverage, and sometimes develops recipes close to her heart (crumpets, anyone?).

Kat Kinsman is the executive features editor at Food & Wine, author of Hi, Anxiety: Life With a Bad Case of Nerves, host of Food & Wine’s Gold Signal Award-winning podcast Tinfoil Swans, and founder of Chefs With Issues. Previously, she was the senior food & drinks editor at Extra Crispy, editor-in-chief and editor at large at Tasting Table, and the founding editor of CNN Eatocracy. She won a 2024 IACP Award for Narrative Food Writing With Recipes and a 2020 IACP Award for Personal Essay/Memoir, and has had work included in the 2020 and 2016 editions of The Best American Food Writing. She was nominated for a James Beard Broadcast Award in 2013, won a 2011 EPPY Award for Best Food Website with 1 million unique monthly visitors, and was a finalist in 2012 and 2013. She is a sought-after international keynote speaker and moderator on food culture and mental health in the hospitality industry, and is the former vice chair of the James Beard Journalism Committee.

Lucy Simon joined team Food & Wine in the Spring of 2021 and has worked for both print, video, digital and her written work can be seen in a variety of sections across the magazine and online. You can find her on Food & Wine’s Instagram page talking all things drink in her video series, Varietals. She has completed the Wine and Spirits Education Trust’s (WSET) Level 3 Award in wine.

Lucy has always been infatuated with the world of food and beverage. She graduated from Tufts University with a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology and minor in Food Systems & Nutrition. While there she channeled her love of food and culture into her thesis on restaurant resilience amidst COVID-19, with a focus on the social, political, and economic history of restaurants.

Hunter Lewis has been the Editor in Chief of Food & Wine since 2017, leading a team that has earned multiple James Beard Awards and a National Magazine Award from the American Society of Magazine Editors. Prior to that he was the Editor in Chief of Cooking Light, Executive Editor of Southern Living, Food Editor of Bon Appétit, and Kitchen Director of Saveur. Lewis cooked under chef Jonathan Waxman in Sonoma County, California, and as a line cook at Barbuto in New York City. A graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he was also a reporter for The Herald-Sun in Durham, North Carolina. You can find him in his home kitchen in Birmingham, Alabama, cooking for his family, on Instagram @notesfromacook, and as a guest judge on Bravo’s Top Chef.

Before getting into the oyster industry, Trey McMillan spent 15+ years carving out a successful career as a professional sportfisherman. During that time his fishing career took him up and down the East Coast and throughout Central America and the Caribbean where he brought his signature fishing style (and beard) to billfish tournaments at every stop.

Despite all of the travel, Trey always kept one eye firmly on his hometown of Charleston, SC where he grew up fishing, shrimping, and crabbing in and around Mt. Pleasant’s Old Village. During the holidays in 2015, Trey got the chance to tour an oyster farm in the Chesapeake Bay and the gears started turning. Long story short, the idea stuck and two years later Trey decided it was time for the next phase in his life. Trey founded Lowcountry Oyster Co. in late 2017 and officially started oyster sales in May of 2018.

Trey now serves as the president of The South Carolina Shellfish Growers Association, and is South Carolina’s state rep for the East Coast Shellfish Growers Association. He is also an active board member for the Coalition for Sustainable Aquaculture where he lobbies in DC for the progression of aquaculture practices.

The Lowco farm is located about 34 miles south of Charleston in the ACE Basin Wildlife Refuge. They use a sustainable, floating-cage oyster farming system to raise the oysters from 1mm seed to 3-inch single, select oysters. You can find their briny “Lowcountry Cups” on raw bars throughout the Lowcountry and the southeast all year long thanks to new regulations in South Carolina allowing for Summer oyster sales as of 2018.