TV Tango: What can viewers expect the rest of Season 3, as they watch you travel to Quebec City (on Wed 11/21) and then Downtown Los Angeles, Burlington, The Hamptons, Nantucket, Montreal?

Zane Lamprey: Yeah, I think we peaked in like Season 1 [deadpan]. Juneau [which first aired last Wednesday on 11/14] was one of my favorites.

It's interesting. The job, at some point it's work and some point it's fun, and the crazier the location -- the more fun the location -- the more fun we're having and the less work it seems like we're doing, and, therefore, the better job we do, which is sort of funny.

Zane Lamprey (cont): This is the turning point of the season, where I think the season becomes more fun. We had fun when we went through Texas and Baton Rouge and Louisville and Indianapolis, but this is where it really starts to get fun for us. We did Alaska, and then we went to Canada, which is our foray into international travel -- if you call Canada international. Then, we worked our way down through Burlington, which is really really fun and then Providence, Nantucket and the Hamptons.

I'm sorry, not the Hamptons. It was supposed to be the Hamptons. When we are getting ready, I help the producers get locations and stuff like that, but when we're out shooting, they're still tidying up the locations or locking down locations. Once we shot Providence, I'm like "OK, let's talk about the Hamptons. Show me what you got." And I'm looking at it -- and I lived in the Hamptons for two summers bartending -- and I'm like, 'This is Montauk. Every location is in Montauk.'" It just so happened that the people who were the most receptive and with fun locations happened to be in Montauk; so I'm like "There's nothing Hamptons about any of this." That's when the episode turned into Montauk, which was fine by us.

TV Tango: Do you have a bunch of Los Angeles-people doing site scouting?

Zane Lamprey: Well, we have people in our office [in Los Angeles] and we do a lot of phone stuff. With THREE SHEETS, because of the language barrier and the distance and stuff, there was actually someone on the ground. Here [for DRINKING MADE EASY], we'll start talking to people there, and then somebody knows somebody who knows somebody else. That's really how the shows evolve before we start shooting.

Steve in Quebec City (not Burlington)

TV Tango: What's the best story of Season 3 that didn't make it on TV and ended up on the cutting room floor?

Zane Lamprey: I don't know what it is, but I'm sure it involves Steve [laughing]. There's one from every episode where we lose Steve.

Well, OK, here's a good one. We were shooting in Burlington. Again, it's a job that seems like it's fun. Really, the person who gets duped the most is Steve, because he's not involved in any of the production side. He just shows up; he doesn't even know where he's going that day. He shows up, and his job is to have a drink and have a good time. If he says something stupid, then we're better off for it.

TV Tango: You almost make it sound like you kidnap Steve and put him in a white van and take him somewhere as a willing participant?

Zane Lamprey: Yeah, exactly, he's a willing participant. He's all for it

So we went to this place in Burlington. It's called the O.P. -- the Other Place. We went there, and they had opened early for us. Steve didn't know that; it didn't matter. The people that were working there and at the bar were all like friends and employees; so it was a very controlled environment. We went and shot there and had a good time, and they wanted to keep going, like always, which is how we know we've done it right. But we had to leave and do another location and do another location. And then we're like, "We're going to shoot some B-roll and stuff. Steve, do you want to take a cab back to the hotel or do you just want to hang tight?" He's like, "Uh, I'm going to go back to the O.P., the Other Place. I'll see you guys in a little bit or whatever."

So he goes back there because he's still drinking. He's been drinking since then, and he just wants to keep the party going. So he walks in there, but he didn't know anybody who's there because those people had all left. It was like him expecting to walk in and have everybody say, "Steve! Come on in!" Sometimes, it's like that, but in this case it wasn't. He's like, "Alright..." and he goes in the back and starts playing pool and stuff. As it is Burlington, someone had some herbal hospitality; so he did that, went back to the bar and texted us, "Can you guys come pick me up right now?" He's like, "I'm freaking out." He expected to go back to that place with the people we were with, but that experience has come and gone and will never really happen again in the same way it happened.

You would think after three seasons he would learn that's the case.

TV Tango: But as we see on TV, he never learns.

Zane Lamprey: Yes, but that's the beauty of Steve.

Steve lives in Richmond, and we have our weekly podcast that we do where Steve calls in. He's supposed to go out and buy a new microphone or new headphones, and right before we're supposed to start, he's like, "Oh yeah, I forgot to get those headphones." I mean, it's always something. Josh, who's here and a co-host on the show....it just drives him nuts. He's like, "Can I punch Steve the next time I see him?" This is a conversation we have every day. He doesn't do what he says he's going to do, and then Steve gets on the show and he's like this gem. He's amazing. He says the most amazing things. He's wonderfully predictably unpredictable, but in a very charismatic way and we just love him. But the same reasons we love him are the same reasons we hate him.

TV Tango: If he was responsible and got all the microphones when he's supposed to, you wouldn't like him as much.

Zane in Vancouver.

TV Tango: If there is a Season 4 -- we had joked earlier about whether Canada was international or not -- do you plan on venturing outside of North America?

Zane Lamprey: I don't know. It's funny. There's enough to do in the U.S., where we don't have to go outside. There was a request from the network to go outside, and that's why we did Vancouver the year before and Montreal and Quebec City this year.

It's actually kind of a pain, as far as the coordination. In Quebec -- and even Montreal -- the language barrier was way more than we expected. There's a lot of things when you go through customs and bring all your equipment through customs. It's kind of a pain in the butt. It's why DRINKING MADE EASY is so much easier than THREE SHEETS.

Zane Lamprey (cont): I don't know. Likely, but it depends. If the network has a good presence up there, which is why we did it this year, then we would. And we certainly had a good time. It was amazing. Quebec and Montreal are really beautiful cities that a lot of our cities in the U.S. could learn from.

I think there's enough episodes to have in the U.S. if and when there's a Season 4.

TV Tango: So you don't mind repeating a few cities? You're doing Los Angeles twice, right?

TV Tango: For the Downtown L.A. episode, did you sneak out to Little Tokyo and the outskirts there where the beer garden is?

Zane Lamprey: We were going to, but...

A funny thing about DRINKING MADE EASY, for those people who have been watching us since Season 1 they would probably watch and say, "Man, these things go by so quickly. It just seems that every season is shorter than the first." That's actually true. When we started off in the first season, the episodes were about 27 minutes long, in Season 2 they were about 25 [minutes long], and then in Season 3, they're 22 [minutes long]. So we had to cut from seven to six to five locations [in each episode].

[For the Downtown L.A. episode], we wanted to do Olvera Street, which is like the oldest street in Los Angeles. It's like a Mexican-themed street, and it has a bunch of restaurants and stuff like that. People film there so much that if we did film there, they required us to go out and get all the permits and all that kind of stuff; so we decided not to do it.

For what we're doing, nowhere is really worth it unless we're received with open arms. If people really want us to come, and then we go, we just get the access that people expect from us and that people could hope for. You get someone who really wants to be in the show and who knows the show, then they're like, "Come back in the keg room and do a keg stand. Let's tap a barrel. Let's have some fun." Those are the best scenes, and the locations that benefit most from that are the ones that allow themselves to have fun.

.

DRINKING MADE EASY card games.

TV Tango: Thinking back through the first three seasons of DRINKING MADE EASY, what's the best bar game that's unique to a city/region?

Zane Lamprey: I think one of the most fun ones for the show is beer pong. It's played so much, and it's also a very big and visual game. There are a lot of games that we played internationally that are a lot of fun, but I don't know how much they translate to television.

So there's a lot of variations [locally] on them and stuff. That's what we've learned. Like beer pong. Some of the dice games, like Liar's Dice, people have their own ways of playing them that make these games all completely unique from one another.

Zane Lamprey (cont): From all of my travels doing THREE SHEETS, which was over 50 episodes, and DRINKING MADE EASY, which is over 50 episodes, I've learned a lot of drinking games. People are always asking me "What's your favorite drink?" or "What's your favorite beer?" or "What's your favorite drinking game?"; so I have my rum coming out at the beginning of next year, but we've been working on -- for just as long as we've been working on the rum, which is over a year -- we've been compiling drinking games.

We have card games, which come in a nice tin with cards that are waterproof. The cards are waterproof, and you can actually soak them in beer overnight and  they're not going to get ruined. Then, it comes with 10 different card drinking games. 

We have dice, which come with a variation of this cup that I saw over in Hong Kong, which they use to play Liar's Dice. We capped it, and now we have these 10 dice games.

Then we have beer pong. All these are made so they can travel well. It's a plastic tube that has 22 or 24 cups in it, three ping pong balls, and then the instructions for 10 different drinking games.

The design aspect of it took a while -- and going back and forth with China to really get the look and feel of these games that we wanted -- but also just the instructions of these games. Plus, we probably started with over 100 games, but then we realized that there are only like maybe 40 that we'd ever play and then we narrowed that down to 30 of the best ones. Then we used variations on some of them, because we played them. So we'd come in here -- and I have a staff of 12 people on a busy day here -- and we would just play drinking games to figure out which ones worked and which ones we didn't think worked. Really locking those games down was the toughest thing. Maybe this isn't the right word, but I'm very proud of the games we selected, because, since college, I've bought a lot of drinking games and you get a box -- or however they come. And then you're with your friends and you're like, "OK, let's play!" and you realize it did come with 50 drinking games or 20 drinking games but only two are really that fun. Then, you're like, "Oh, these are kind of fun, but I already knew these games." Guess the Number is not a fun drinking game, but they count it as one so they have 50.

We had to make some sacrifices in the end and cut some out, but there's 10 of each. Those are in the stores this week. We just got the final version of the cards and the dice, and they're really slick and really fun. We're just really excited about them here, because they are these things that you can take with you if you're going camping or to your friend's house for the weekend or going away for the holdiays. They're these three different things that you can bring with you, and each one has these 10 distinct games you can sit and play and drink beer. We're pretty excited!

THREE SHEETS "Jamaica"

TV Tango: If someone wanted to create a new cocktail called the Zane, what ingredients would they include?

Zane Lamprey: Well, it's pretty easy. It would have Monkey Rum in it.

That's a different way than I've had that question asked, and that's probably the question I've had asked the most, "What's your favorite drink?"

TV Tango: The Zane doesn't necessarily have to be your favorite drink. The Zane can concocted to represent your personality.

Zane Lamprey: But it should probably be my favorite drink. That's sort of part of the answer, coming up with, "Am I a vodka? Am I a whiskey? What am I like?"

Well, I think a drink has the ability to transport you. I had a drink that other day that I hadn't had [in a while]. It was this bottle I brought back from Italy, and I hadn't had it since I was there, which is five or six years ago. When we have people at the office work on their last day -- like editors, when we're done with a project -- I make them a shot at the bar. In the office we have a bar with my entire collection of alcohol. I made them a shot of this stuff from Italy, and I did this shot with them. When I tasted it, it immediately transported me back to where I was when I first had it. It had me more vividly remember being there than I ever had remembered. It was like this serum that whisks you back to this place where you last had it. 

With my drink, it'd be something of where would I transport myself to if I had that ability, which, in a sense, we do to some degree. It would probaby be a mojito and it would transport me back to any of the tropical destinations that I've been to -- just sitting there on the beach, drinking a mojito. That was why I created my Monkey Rum -- there's spice and then there's coconut. For me, I love the spiced rum and Coke; it's delicious. But if I'm going to make a mojito, I like it with the coconut rum, because it's just a hint of coconut.

I know a lot of guys are like, "No way, man! You're not like a shot of 151?" A lot of people expect me to be drinking beer, and I do love beer, but I also love mojitos.

TV Tango: What's the last thing you painted?

Zane Lamprey: That's so weird that you would ask that.

TV Tango: Why is that weird? You used to be a painter.

TV Tango: I thought you would've kept painting a little bit.

Zane Lamprey: Well, I haven't because I've been so busy. I do all of our graphics for all of my t-shirts. I design all of the products that we have, from soup to nuts. I do a lot of graphic design -- hours of it on a daily basis. When I get home, it's really like the last thing I want to do is do more creating and stuff like that. 

Now, a lot of those products are done and the designing is done. We ramp up for the holidays. Even though our online store is busier than it ever would be throughout the rest of the year, there's less work for me to do.

TV Tango: Right, because you need to be done by August to get everything in there.

TV Tango: OK, then that is kind of weird that you hadn't painted in years and then you painted again for the first time like last week.

TV Tango: If you could portray any fictional character in history, which one would you choose?

Zane Lamprey: I translate that into who would be the most fun to do. You know, Ben Franklin. Ben Franklin had a lot more fun that people know.

TV Tango: He did, but he's a real character. I was looking for a fictional character, like Sam Malone from CHEERS?

TV Tango: He was still kind of a geek, but just looked really cool doing it.