Pitch Us
Slake is an independent digital magazine exploring people, places and ideas through what we drink.
We see drinks as a way into much bigger stories: about culture and identity, history and place, travel and food, memory and ritual, and the ways our tastes change over time.
We’re open to pitches from writers, photographers and storytellers who share that curiosity.
We commission both one-off stories and ongoing columns or series, and particularly welcome ideas that take us somewhere we haven’t been before; whether that’s a drinking tradition, a subculture, a city, a personal experience or simply a question nobody seems to have asked yet.
Stories We’re Looking For
We’re interested in original stories that tell us something about how, where and why people drink; and what that reveals about the world around us.
✦ Culture & History
Reported features and essays exploring the forces that shape what we drink and how we think about it.
That could mean investigating how a drink became associated with a particular moment or place, tracing the history of a drinking ritual, examining how migration or tourism changed a country’s tastes, or looking at the strange ways drinks move in and out of fashion.
We’re interested in the story behind the thing, rather than another explanation of the thing itself.
✦ People & Drinking
Some of the best stories are told through the people who know a subject or place intimately.
We’re interested in remarkable people whose lives open a window onto a wider drinking culture. A woman who single-handedly kept a disappearing tradition alive, the bartender who has watched a neighbourhood change from behind the same bar for thirty years, the winemaker reviving an almost-forgotten grape, or the person whose particular knowledge gives us access to a world most readers wouldn’t otherwise encounter.
We’re equally interested in people who can act as our guide. A local’s guide to a city or region might come from a chef, sommelier, winemaker, writer, artist or other person with genuine authority and deep roots in the place – someone who can tell us not simply where to go, but help us understand it.
We also commission interviews and profiles with popular cultural figures where there’s a genuine connection to drinking, taste, memory, travel or place.
✦ First Person
Personal stories are welcome when the writer has a distinctive experience or perspective that tells us something larger.
We’re interested in drinking traditions, memories, rituals and encounters that can only really be told by the person who experienced them.
The personal should be the way into the story, rather than the whole reason for it.
✦ Tastes Like Home
Our Tastes Like Home series explores the drinks people recognise as home through stories of habit, memory, migration and meaning.
Pieces might be first-person or reported, but should be rooted in close engagement with the people, histories and everyday rituals surrounding a drink.
We’re particularly interested in drinks and drinking cultures that have traditionally received less attention in mainstream drinks media.
✦ Drinking Out
Bars, restaurants, pubs, cafés, clubs and other drinking spaces can tell us an enormous amount about a place and its people.
We’re interested in stories about where people drink and why those places matter: disappearing institutions, new drinking rituals, neighbourhood favourites, unusual concepts and the social lives that happen around them.
✦ Travel
We want travel stories that use drinks as a way into a destination rather than simply providing a list of wineries to visit.
That could mean exploring a wine region beyond its vineyards, following a city’s drinking culture, understanding a local drink through the people who make and consume it, or creating a genuinely useful guide to somewhere worth travelling for.
First-hand experience is essential.
If you’re pitching a hotel, restaurant, bar, winery or destination, you must have visited it yourself. We don’t commission travel recommendations assembled from online research or places the writer hasn’t personally experienced.
Tell us when you visited and what access or reporting you already have, or intend to undertake, for the story.
✦ Food & Drink
We’re interested in the places where eating and drinking intersect, particularly when there’s a cultural story behind the pairing.
That might be a regional tradition, an unexpected combination, the history of why two things are consumed together or a contemporary shift in the way we’re eating and drinking.
We’re less interested in formulaic “X wines with X foods” pitches unless there’s an original idea behind them.
✦ Pairings, Loosely Defined
Pairing doesn’t always have to mean food and wine.
Music and mezcal. Film and fortified wine. Books and bottles. Drinks chosen for fictional characters, cultural moments or very specific situations.
The idea should be clever enough to justify the conceit, and the drinks knowledge underneath it still needs to hold up.
✦ Essays & Ideas
Sometimes we simply want a writer with something interesting to say.
We’re open to thoughtful, funny, provocative or unexpected essays about drinking and the culture surrounding it, provided there’s a clear argument or observation at their centre.
✦ Columns & Recurring Ideas
We’re actively interested in writers who have an idea that deserves more than one article.
If you have a distinctive lens on drinking culture that could sustain a monthly, bi-monthly or occasional column, pitch the concept rather than sending us several individual story ideas.
Tell us what the column would explore, why you’re the person to write it and give us three to five examples of future instalments so we can understand its range.
Stories We’re Not Looking For
Some areas of slake are predominantly produced in-house, so we’re not currently looking for unsolicited pitches for:
- Generic wine or drinks guides
- Grapes 101 or Wine 101 explainers
- Straightforward product round-ups or “best wines” lists
- Seasonal supermarket wine guides
- Gift guides without a genuinely original editorial idea
- News or press-release rewrites
- Generic “top 10” destination lists
- Single-bottle or brand profiles unless there is a substantial independent cultural story
- Reviews or tasting notes without a wider story
- Desk-researched hotel, restaurant, bar or travel recommendations
- Promotional brand stories presented as independent editorial
A brand being new, premium, unusual or sustainable isn’t, by itself, a story. We’re looking for the idea around it.
What a Good Pitch Looks Like
You don’t need to send us a finished article.
A concise paragraph or two should tell us:
- The idea – what is the story actually about?
- Why now – if there’s a timely reason for publishing it
- Why slake – how does it connect drinks to a wider cultural, personal or geographical story?
- Your approach – will it be reported, first-person, interview-led, visual or something else?
- Your sources and access – who do you intend to speak to, and what first-hand experience will inform the piece?
- Why you – particularly where personal knowledge, expertise or access is central to the story
Tone of Voice
Slake writing is:
- Conversational, sharp and culturally fluent
- Curious rather than prescriptive
- Intelligent without being academic
- Knowledgeable without being intimidating
- Warm, witty and capable of having an opinion
- Interested in the wider story, not simply what’s in the glass
Expertise matters here. Showing off expertise doesn’t.
Photography & Visuals
We welcome pitches from photographers and visual storytellers exploring drinks, hospitality, travel, people, place and drinking culture.
We’re interested in documentary photography, portraiture, still life, photo essays and more conceptual visual projects where there’s a strong editorial idea behind the work.
If you’re pitching a visual project, please include examples of your previous work and a clear sense of what you intend to photograph.
Rates & Rights
Slake is an independent, founder-run publication.
At this stage, we don’t yet have the budget to pay industry-standard freelance rates, although increasing contributor budgets is a priority as the publication grows.
For now, we offer a small fee for commissioned work. We know this does not reflect the full time and skill involved, and we’d rather be transparent about that before anybody pitches us.
Fees, deadlines, scope and rights will be agreed before commissioning.
A Note on Independence
Editorial coverage at slake cannot be purchased.
If you represent a brand, hotel, destination, drinks producer or other commercial organisation and would like to discuss paid coverage or a partnership, please contact us about commercial partnerships rather than submitting an editorial pitch.
PRs are, of course, welcome to introduce us to relevant people, places, launches, research and story ideas for independent editorial consideration.
Where to Send Pitches
Send your idea to hello@slakemagazine.com with the subject line:
PITCH: [Your Story Title]
For a recurring idea, use:
COLUMN PITCH: [Proposed Column Name]
Please include links to a couple of relevant examples of your previous work where possible.
We do our best to consider every pitch, but slake is run by a small team, so please allow a few weeks for review. If the idea feels right for us, we’ll be in touch to discuss the commission.