I’m Philippe Trinh, the cook and storyteller behind Whiskey & Booch, where I share the food I grew up eating with a community of more than 200,000 people who care deeply about flavor, culture, and family recipes done right.

My earliest memories of phở aren’t tied to restaurants — they’re tied to authentic home cooking. My dad had a pot of pho going almost every Saturday. Watching him build his pho broths taught me restraint early on: being lighter on the hands, balanced spices, and letting time do the work.

Years later, dad and I took that same curiosity back to Vietnam together. Bowl after bowl, from North Vietnam to South, we were on the hung for the home flavors that felt familiar to him. Those trips weren’t about finding something new. They were about dialing in what already lived in his memory and refining our family recipe with what we can find in the US.

That journey changed how we think about spices. Where they’re grown matters. How they’re handled matters. Whenever possible, we source Vietnamese-harvested spices because they carry the speficic aromas my dad recognizes — the ones that feel closest to the phở he remembers from back home. When that isn’t possible, we choose carefully, always prioritizing balance and overall flavor.

Phở Nam grew out of those weekends, those trips, and that shared goal. It’s a way to pass along my dad’s method — lighter, Northern-leaning, and measured — without asking people to guess or overthink it. The kits are built to help you cook with confidence, whether this is your first pot or your fiftieth.

Everything I do now sits at the intersection of food, memory, and community. Phở Nam is simply an extension of that — a way to bring our family’s approach to phở into more kitchens.

From our family’s phở pot to yours.