Karen Foley ’94 is describing a tasting day at the office, and it sounds more like happy hour than a corporate powwow. But don’t get her wrong: She may be comparing 10 different tequilas in one afternoon, but she’s going home sober.
“It’s not like we’re drinking all day,” laughs Foley, the founding editor of Imbibe magazine, a bimonthly devoted to liquid culture. “We sample recipes and products and do our tastings very methodically. You end up finding different things, from tequila to tequila, for example, that surprise you – the aroma or something in the flavor or body.”
During her time at the College, Foley was hardly a gourmand, but she was always “an avid magazine enthusiast.” Poised for an editorial career, the communication major interned at Charleston Magazine and spent her free time honing photography skills. After graduation, she headed west to Portland, Ore., where she landed a gig with a textbook publisher. The job called for plenty of technical editing, which sharpened her editor’s eye.
Three years later, she left the company to travel and pursue a freelance career. It was during this time that she sent a fateful pitch to Fresh Cup, a Portland-based trade magazine devoted to the coffee and tea industries, and eventually joined the magazine’s editorial staff. It was here that she fell head over heels for gourmet coffee drinks. 
“I fell in love with the culture of coffee – the people, places and stories behind the drink,” she adds, “and that was eventually the inspiration for Imbibe.”
With seven years of experience writing about beverages at Fresh Cup – where she also gained valuable experience managing budgets, tracking sales and goals, overseeing freelancers and employees, planning marketing strategies and choosing editorial content – she decided to roll up her sleeves and steam ahead with raising capital, writing a business plan and querying potential advertisers. Just three years later, in 2006, the premiere issue of Imbibe hit newsstands.
From its first issue, the nationally distributed magazine was well received.
“We came in at a cocktail renaissance, just when craft beer and cocktails, specialty wine and coffee were taking off,” Foley explains.
Today, the magazine boasts a readership of 74,000, and has wrangled a Folio Award for best full issue of a consumer epicurean magazine, and four of the Western Publication Association’s Maggie Awards – including the honors for 2010 Best Overall Publication/Consumer.
Thanks to draws such as the Imbibe Unfiltered blog and the “Imbibe Sips” video series, the magazine’s website gets more than 100,000 page views a month, and more than 50,000 people follow its Twitter feed. And though the magazine-publishing industry is in the doldrums (in 2009 alone, a string of well-established national magazines, including domino, Metropolitan Home and Gourmet, were shuttered), Imbibe continues to thrive. According to Foley, sales have climbed each year it has been in business, and the magazine is now profitable – something she credits to its specific niche.
“We’re a special-interest magazine,” she says. “Our readers are passionate about our content.”
Foley also notes that alcohol tends to be a recession-proof industry, which likely helped protect the magazine from the recent economic downturn.
“People are spending more time at home, making drinks,” she says. “They’re looking for a resource to help them with that.”
And that’s something we can all raise a glass to.
– Bridget Herman ’08
Check out Foley’s Imbibe magazine at www.imbibemagazine.com.
