July 30, 2025 • 58 mins
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John Angus & The Distilled Edit
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
David Levine (00:00):
Hey folks, welcome to a new episode of The
(00:01):
whiskering podcast. This episodeis going to be a little bit
different than many of the onesI've done before. We're not
talking to, you know,distillery, somewhat of a
writer, I guess we'll say inthis case, but really, we're
talking to a chemist at heart,and someone who I first came
across on LinkedIn, where he'sbeen posting a lot of his work
(00:22):
with chemistry and chemistry ofspirits, and he now has a
newsletter that's going outweekly, the distilled edit. It's
become a much larger product andproject than I think even he
anticipated when he started. Soto talk about this, I'm
welcoming on Mr. John Angusagain, the creator and driving
force behind the distilled editand many more projects to talk
(00:44):
about. So John, welcome
Unknown (00:45):
on. Oh, thank you for having me. Anna, thank you.
David Levine (00:48):
So I want to just kind of start us off with
something you posted. This isabout three months ago, and you
posted it after six weeks ofdoing postings. So this is what
he wrote six weeks ago. Istarted posting about whiskey
flavor chemistry, not to start abusiness, not to sell anything,
just to learn. I was researchingand sketching visuals to help me
(01:11):
understand how flavor is shapedfrom grain to cask as I
transition into the distillingworld, I thought maybe a few
people would find itinteresting. I didn't expect
messages from students saying ithelped them study. I didn't
expect a master blender to askif you could use them for
apprentice training. I didn'texpect distillers educators and
flavor geeks to start followingalong. That's been humbling and
(01:32):
surprising. So clearly, thisproject's been going on for
about four and a half fivemonths at this point, and yeah,
I see more and more peoplereacting to the posts,
interacting with the newsletterand what's going on. So taking a
step back. Start with how doesyou know a chemist end up in UK
government now is the higherScientific Officer for
(01:54):
Department of Environment, Foodand Rural Affairs, and start
doing this work?
Unknown (02:00):
Yeah. Where to start, where to start? I think, like,
we've all good stories, maybe atthe beginning. So quite a long
time ago, I studied to become achemist, and at that time, I had
no inkling I would go down thisroute. I thought, I thought I
(02:20):
would be a lab chemist for lifeat that point. And then I
finished university, and Ithought, well, you know what?
I'll I'll steer into teachingfor a while. So I became a
teacher for about five years,where I learned how to how to
(02:44):
teach how to actually explaincomplicated scientific concepts,
hopefully, hopefully in a waythat my students understood. I
hope that they learned fromthat. But then, after five
years, I decided I wanted to getback into science. And this
story really starts when Iworked at my last workplace, and
(03:11):
there I was working on scalingup. It's called Bio renewable
technologies, so technologiesthat are purely centered around
valorizing biological waste, andin the in the course of that, I
got to work with fermentationtechnologies. I got to work with
(03:36):
anaerobic digesters, analyzers,reactors. I got to work with dis
distillation equipment, not justthe sort of distillation you
would do in a typicaldistillery, but separating some
very weird and wonderfulchemicals. But quite a few times
(03:59):
our work would see uscollaborating with local
businesses. Quite a few of thosewere breweries and distilleries
around the city where I live,and it was when doing that that
(04:19):
I got to go on site. I got tosee how the beer is made, see
how the vodka is distilled, andsee the passion, but not also
that it's also the chemistry.And I think there's a lot of
times when you speak to adistiller or a brewer and they
(04:39):
may say, oh, you know, we dothis for trial and error. We
added this, you know, it didn'twork. We changed the recipe a
bit, and it did. Or whendistilling, it's, you know,
well, we're trying maybe adifferent pressure or a
different temperature, or we'retrying a different angle on the
line arm, and I don't. Thinkthey quite realize just how much
(05:04):
chemistry they are inadvertentlydoing, and I found it so so
interesting, and it's an itchthat I just haven't been able to
scratch ever since. Andunfortunately, there was a
little bit of downsizing in mylast workplace, and now I moved
on. I am working for the UKGovernment, as you say, but it's
something I can't get out of mymind, and it's something that I
(05:27):
still am very eager totransition into. This whole
thing started initially as a wayfor me to try and network and
get to know the industry a bitmore and get to get to actually
speak people in it, speak topeople in it. And yeah, it,
(05:52):
yeah, it became something morethan I was initially
anticipating. And like, like Isaid in that post to begin with,
it was, it started off with mevery much learning out loud. I
would be listening to podcasts.I'd be reading books. I would be
(06:14):
looking at literature,scientific literature, any sort
of literature I can get my sortof hands on. And I would just
try and just translate that asbest as possible onto onto the
screen.
David Levine (06:28):
I mean, it's it's so needed and worthwhile. And
look, I'm a whiskey geek,spirits geek, proud of it. I
know a lot of people who listento this podcast are the same
way. And I was thinking aboutthis as I was looking through
your posts, and what firstcaught my eye is, um, I have the
background in my in biochemistryfrom a while back now, like it's
(06:51):
over a decade, but, you know, Iwas worked in a yeast lab, and
then I did a master's on on Oak.So, like, these things kind of
went way before I was intowhiskey, and then suddenly
they're relevant. But looking atsome of the resources that are
available, certainly to thegeneral public, even a kind of,
you know, step above generalpublic in terms of base
(07:12):
knowledge, you know, I'm lookingat some of the books on here.
We've got, you know, Adam Rogerswrote a book on proof, on the
science of of whiskey. There'smaybe one or two other ones that
are kind of trustworthy, if Ican put it that way. But then
you really have to go intoeither the these really heady
conversations with distillers,chemists and such, or you have
(07:36):
to go into textbooks to get thiskind of information. So for all
intents and purposes, it is notreadily available, particularly
on the kind of almost product byproduct, spirit by spirit, and
process by process basis thatyou are looking at. So I'm
curious as you, as you startedthis, what did you envision as
(08:00):
your initial scope, in terms of,like, how granular you're going
to get and how many areas youwant to so you know, breadth and
depth.
Unknown (08:11):
Truth be told, when I first started, I sort of it is
just a fun way to just justexplain some of these more
complicated concepts. And Inever really thought, oh, you
know, what level of detail am Igoing to go into? Am I going to
(08:32):
have some posts that are muchmore technical and some posts
that are a bit more fun? I neverthought that way to begin with,
I've, I've started, I've startedrefining it a lot more since
then. But to begin with, it was,yeah, it was just a, it was just
a thought experiment to beginwith. I
David Levine (08:54):
mean, it's fun just to kind of cross a bridge
here. You know you said thiskind of came out of your now
previous job. Does your currentjob intersect with this work at
all?
Unknown (09:11):
No, no, my current job is very much looking at Circular
Economy, how to make wastestream circular, how to reduce
dependence on natural resources.So this is very much tangent to
my actual work. It's, it's,yeah, it's nothing quite to do
(09:33):
with it. But I think yourprevious question, I was just
thinking then that I think, likeyou say there's Eva, you've got
to pick up some heavy textbooksthat go into this level of
detail. And I think for me, Ithink I don't know if it's
because of my teachingbackground or not, but I
certainly felt like when I'mtrying to explain these things,
(09:56):
I'm trying to bear in mind theaudience that I've got. Right?
And there is a mix. There's somechemists. There are some
chemists, arguably, that willunderstand this much better than
me. I don't pretend to be aparticularly good chemist. There
are distillers who have been inthe industry for decades, who,
(10:20):
surprisingly, say that theyactually appreciate the like
going into the chemistry. So Ihave to, I do try and be careful
just how much, how complicated Iwant to make it. So I, I am
always quite careful aboutmaking it accessible to all
(10:41):
differentiating for alldifferent levels,
David Levine (10:46):
with the just with the current day job, I just want
to close the loop on that aswell. I mean, there is, as I
said, it's tangential, but thereis potentially a connection
there in that we're seeing somedistilleries. I wish there were
more. But, you know, somedistilleries really looking into
how their bio waste is used, howthey can really have a full, you
(11:09):
know, circular economy, if youwill, about more than what we
hear. We hear about the we getthe green from the farmers, and
then we give them back the spentgrain for the cattle or the pigs
or whatever. And so that's kindof circular, and it leaves out
so many other steps and productsthat are made throughout the
process, like, what do you dowith the the heads and tails?
(11:32):
What do you do with any numberof things throughout the process
of distillation andfermentation, all of that. So
looking at some of thedistillers that are interested
in that, is that an area of,let's say, is that a potential
audience? I'll be at a small onethat you can look to as, hey,
(11:53):
maybe they'd be interested innot just the work that I'm
showing through theseinfographics, but also
potentially the work that I'mdoing for the UK Government. Oh,
absolutely and,
Unknown (12:07):
yeah, sustainability is another cornerstone of, like,
what I absolutely love talkingand doing. It's, you know, it's
not just, I uh, so quite oftenwhen we talk about waste, we
talk about a waste hierarchy. Sookay, so we take this spent
(12:31):
grain and we can give it tocattle as an example. Now that's
an example of quite a low levelway to deal with the waste. But
then what you could do is youcould potentially put that into
an anaerobic digester, and youcould generate electricity from
it, so you're producing likeanother valuable, valuable
(12:53):
resource from it. There's otherthings as well where it's still
got quite a bit of protein andstill quite a lot of other
nutrients that could still beextracted. So one thing I
absolutely love talking about isnot just what's the simple and
quick win to become moresustainable, but how can we
actually make this like let'snot do the bare minimum to
(13:18):
become more sustainable. That'sreally think it through. How can
we make sure that every step inour process is going to be as
green as possible? And that's sothat's another passion of mine,
and I've done a couple of postson it, here and there, but it is
something I'm thinking that Ineed to do more on. So I think
there's going to be more of thatin the in the upcoming
David Levine (13:40):
I love that, that it's, you know, it's
incorporated. It's front of mindfor you. Again, I think about if
you're feeding it to the spentgrain cattle, which is, I know
we're focusing on, this is aparticular example of that
process, but it's a big examplefor it. It's a big example,
right? It's the one that everydistillery says, Oh yeah, we're
green because we get rid of ourdraft this way, instead of just
throwing it away or something.But if you throw it into an
(14:02):
anaerobic digester, if you findother ways to extract the
proteins that are left overafter you remove the starches
and most of the other chemicalsthat you need, chemicals, you
know, you know, I mean, fromfrom the grain, there's a lot to
be used there, and if you'rejust feeding it to livestock,
which is already a very notgreen proposal to begin with,
(14:23):
then you're, you're not green.You're doing the opposite of
that. You're kind of helpingthat negative cycle continue
that negative feedback cycle. SoI, you know, I, I noticed that
there were a couple of postsabout that. So that's really
where that question of, like,does it interact with the
current day job come in? But Iget how it also has to be a
little bit split.
Unknown (14:43):
Yeah, yeah,
David Levine (14:47):
not to cause any extra consternation for your
boss if they were to listen tothis podcast. But you know you
said this is potentially atransition to you, moving into
the spirits, into. Industry writlarge, if you will, has if you
(15:09):
had your kind of perfect pathset out like, what would that
look like from what you're doingnow and where you would want to
be in the industry?
Unknown (15:20):
That is an excellent question, and it's one that if
you had asked me five monthsago, I would have said, without
a shadow of a doubt, I wouldjust love to go into a
distillery like work and trainmy way up, but also work on the
(15:41):
R and D side of things, the moreanalytical side of things, the
more sustainable side of things.But as this has progressed, I'm
not entirely sure it's one whereI would love to do that. But
(16:02):
also, is there a place in theindustry for this type of
trainings, for this type ofinformation? And that's
something I'm still answering,and it's something I I think
(16:23):
it'll take me quite a while toreally understand, but I'm
hoping that there's a place formy sort of voice in the
industry, and if there is, Iwould love to pursue that. So
yeah,
David Levine (16:36):
I was thinking about where there are. I mean,
there are some companies thatpush forward this idea that they
have chemists on hand, they havelabs. We it's not generally with
smaller distillers, just,there's just not enough funding
to go around and such. Butcertainly, like, you know, brown
Foreman is not shy about havingmany labs, you know, Dr Rachel
Barry leading several of them.You've, I know Victor's has a
(16:59):
lab because I've been inside it,you know, Diageo, I'm sure has a
bunch of I'm sure all the majorcompanies have them for, if
nothing else, for qualitycontrol purposes and making sure
things are are all good. But youdo see some of them, at least,
putting out more of this, andI'll keep referring to it as
(17:19):
nerdy material, and it's notmeant in a derogatory way. It's
really meant quite content. Ilove it. I love it. You know,
they'll put out more of thisnerdy detail about what they're
doing, so that, like, if brownForeman puts out the, oh, it's a
good example. So when theychanged the, wow, I'm blanking
(17:42):
on the brand name. Oh mygoodness, the Glenn dronac when
they change a couple years agofrom being non chill filtered to
chill filtering all but one ortwo of the expressions,
obviously. Dr Barry was askedabout what does that do to the
whiskey? What are the chemicalchanges involved, and what does
(18:02):
the taste end up being? And shewas pretty adamant, like,
there's no there's not gonna bea difference here. The whiskey
audience that had a voice onthis was like, Yeah, hell yes,
there's a difference on this.What are you doing? So this is
to say that there's certainly alarger than expected segment of
spirits drinkers, not justwhiskey, but spirits drinkers
(18:24):
who are interested in not onlywhat have what do these tastes
mean and flavors mean, but ifyou're making a change, what is
that going to mean for myproducts? You know that I buy
next week, versus the one, 510,years from now? I think there's
definitely room, like I said,you might have to go to a large
company to find that room, but,you know, there's, I think
(18:45):
there's definitely room, likeyou said, for your point of
view.
Unknown (18:48):
I think there's definitely something said as
well for the audience and thewhiskey enthusiasts. They I
don't know about yourself, but II've seen now so many reports
saying that the trend now ismoving very much to they want
(19:10):
much more transparency. Youknow. They want to know how it's
made. You know this whole ideayou know from back in the 40s
and the 50s that, you know what?No how we do it is proprietary.
I don't know why they botherdoing that. Who's got the money
(19:30):
to go and recreate a spirit?Because they liked it off the
shelf, I think, tell people howit's made. Tell people why the
subtle differences that you usein your distillery. Maybe it's a
slightly hotter fermentation,maybe it's slightly more refined
(19:50):
cuts. Maybe it's that you takeyour grain from a completely
different field and it's got atight, slightly different
terroir to. It. I think all ofthese things are what the
audience want to know about andhow it impacts their drink,
because too often I I see somany bottles in the supermarket,
(20:16):
and it's like hints of vanillaand caramel and toffee, and, Oh,
this one's got some coffee andsome smoke. And I think you know
what, they probably all tastegreat. And that little tasting
note is not doing anyone anyfavors. You can pick up two that
will say hints of vanilla andtoffee, but they will taste
(20:39):
different. It's not doingthemselves any favor. And I
think having that level oftransparency and explaining the
science behind it is exactlywhat consumers want, not to
mention the growing consumersthat want to know about the
sustainability of thedistilleries as well, which I
(20:59):
you know, I am starting to seemore and more distilleries
trying to become moresustainable, and it's great to
see that, but I think they theyneed to shout that a little bit
louder, the same with how theirprocess is different and why
their spirits different. What?What makes me pick up two
bottles with the same taste andnotes and think that's the one I
want to drink?
David Levine (21:21):
Yeah, you're absolutely right to, at the risk
of tooting my own horn, I'vetaken a couple of brands to task
over that in a few last fewyears. About, yeah, it all says
vanilla, baking, spice, brownsugar and caramel. Like, okay,
you've just described thegeneral flavor of bourbon.
Congrats. Or a bourbon cask, ifyou're doing a single malt, you
(21:43):
know, Asian a bourbon cask,great, but no one's going to say
that, like an Elijah Craig and aKnob Creek and a wild turkey,
three different distilleries.They're all going to have those
notes, but they're not going toall taste the same. I agree,
similar, but they're my chancesthat can be the same.
Unknown (22:03):
It's the same for things like rye whiskey, yeah.
Now, personally, I'm not amassive fan of the spicier
whiskies, but rye can be such aspectrum. I did a post on it
ages ago, but it's the fact thatyou it can undergo a chemical
(22:23):
change, and that chemical changecan take it from something
completely inert to your tastebuds to something that is spicy.
And if you control that, you candetermine just how spicy your
final product is going to be.And I there have been some 100%
rise that are barely spicy onthe tongue, and then there have
(22:43):
been some 20 percents that areoverwhelmingly and I think that
I don't see anything well maybe,maybe there are some that are
starting to tell you more aboutit, but I don't see anything
about why this is The case. Whydo you have 100% rye that isn't
spicy? And that's the sort ofinformation that would make me
(23:06):
go, I want to try that.
David Levine (23:09):
Agreed, agreed with the let's throw a
hypothetical out there with therye. I mean, I think just in
talking to producers, and you'regonna be, you know what I'm
gonna look let's see whatepisode this gonna come out as
this should be, I think episode197 unless something changes. So
(23:32):
almost, you know, we hit 200episodes, including bonus stuff.
But that's a lot of producersthat I talked to, and I'm very
proud of that fact, and what Ihave heard consistently from
them, particularly with rye, isthat many of the rye producers
feel more freedom with rye,you're not constrained to, okay,
this says bourbon on it's got totaste like a bourbon with rye.
(23:55):
Yes, people are expecting it tobe a little spicier, maybe a
little drier. If you're doing a95 five, a little more
herbaceous, you know, somethinglike that, but there is more
freedom and less inherentexpectation that it's going to
be sweet, caramel, vanilla, theflavors we just talked about,
and that's where you can reallyget into with the rye. Okay, how
(24:16):
much, how much glycol Do youhave? How much, how many usual
particles? What's your four VGratio? What? What are you
talking about here? And how doesyour, how does your still
production? How does thefermentation? How does that
change those concentrations?Like one of, one of my favorite
infographics you've created wasa thing. It's called a spider
(24:37):
chart of the six different kindof still types and still
combinations. And what those dofor flavors, and I loved it is
even though, of course, thereare exceptions to everything. In
general, it really showed okayif you have a pot still versus a
column still, or a hybrid, oryou're doing double pot, triple
(24:58):
pot, all. Column. These are thedifferent flavors you're gonna
get, a kind of basic level ofwhy you're gonna get those
flavors. Because, like you said,you're not, you don't want to go
too deep into the deep end, on,on these infographics. You don't
want a full essay on the back ofthe bottle. Now, right? Exactly,
because no one's gonna readthat. Well, I might, but that,
(25:19):
um, that's the problem. I'm thatone. I'm the 1% of the whiskey
drinker who might read that, butmost of them are not going to.
But to your point, though, youwant to know more information,
and if you can't fit on thebottle, maybe someone who is
interested in buying this bottlewould scan QR code. You know,
we've seen that be successfulwith a number of brands like, I
(25:41):
know Waterford, unfortunately,is in receivership right now,
but the idea of it, they had theQR code on there to see every
little detail if you wanted it.Of I love that. Yeah, the Yeah,
the field, the terroir, therelative humidity, the place in
the way, everything you couldpossibly imagine the numbers of
(26:02):
the cast, and there were 20 pluscasks in every you know,
batching. So you can balancethat. You can balance what's on
the shelf to reach a generalaudience, and I'm rambling at
this point, but what's on what'son a shelf to reach general
audience and then have itavailable this deeper
information for the people likeus who want to know that, who
(26:22):
want to know it. And the lastthing I'll say, and then I'll
let you talk, is thinking abouta recent guest. Might be the
episode before you actually,which was holding a company and
their old Potrero rye. So it's100% malted rye pot still
distillation. And even at, Ithink the single barrel I had
was around 135 proof, somethinglike that. It drank a lot lower,
(26:46):
drank close to, like, 1051, 10.And it wasn't spicy. You knew it
was a rye. You got enough blackpepper to know it was a rye, and
some of that classic rye flavor.But it was very drinkable. It
didn't beat you over the headwith any one chemical compound
or group of compounds, even thatwould fit into a box, let's say
(27:11):
yeah. So with so I'll ask you aquestion now, which was after so
with the brindiamo Spotlightthat was done on you in June of
25 one of the things theyhighlighted to your point was
this consumer seekingtransparency and that being a
(27:33):
main target audience. When youstarted this, what was that
initial audience that youenvisioned, and how has that
changed as you've gone over thelast couple of months?
Unknown (27:48):
Oh, when I first started, it seemed that most of
my audience was people workingdirectly in the sector,
distillers, blenders, monsters,even cooperages, that seemed to
(28:12):
be the majority of like thepeople that I was engaging with,
and I have started to see a bitof a shift in starting to see a
lot more students, like startingto actually engage with them,
which I think is great, youknow, like, like, you say
(28:33):
there's, there's only a fewplaces really that offer this
sort of level of detail. There'sthe, there's the what? There's
the wine and spirits, education,trust, I
David Levine (28:47):
think, yeah, the WCT, yeah,
Unknown (28:49):
yeah. And then there's the masters of whiskey over in
America, and, God Yeah, and theIBD as well, the cibd. So
there's not a great deal numberof places where people can go
for that sort of information.And I'm starting to see a lot
more students like looking but iin terms of consumers, I don't
(29:15):
know if maybe just LinkedIn isthe wrong platform. I'm not
really seeing any consumerscoming to me. But then I also
think it might be a bit tricky,as I don't have a brand that I'm
trying to actually explain away,so maybe that's the next step
David Levine (29:32):
that that was one of my questions, too. You know,
that's where I first found you.Was on LinkedIn. Yeah, I and so
I that's where I follow you, soI haven't really followed you on
other platforms. You answeredone part of the question, which
was for the work that you'redoing, the purposes you seek.
That seems to be one challengeis that students don't
necessarily use LinkedIn as muchmakes sense. They're not yet in
(29:55):
the professional sector a lot ofthe time. So have you. You said
students are just starting tointeract with this. Have you
thought about what otherplatforms you might want to use
to reach them?
Unknown (30:10):
Yeah, I carry on thinking about it, and I carry
on getting distracted all thetime, but I carry on thinking
that maybe I should start onFacebook and Instagram. You're,
you know, the regular ones, butI am also starting to think
(30:35):
about like, Are there any goodcollaborations that might be
worthwhile between some of theseeducators and myself, maybe
there's room for my voice therefor the next generation of
whiskey makers. I'm not sure I'mstill early days. I think in
David Levine (30:59):
your where you're located, you're in, in and
around York so north of it, ofEngland, I don't know how many
distilleries are around there,and spirit of Yorkshire was an
early guest on the podcast. So Iknow they are there, of course,
but you're, you know, closeenough to the Scottish border,
where there's some, I wouldthink cross border interest
(31:21):
there, you've got tourism andtraveling. So, yeah, I think I'm
not an expert on this, either ofusing the best platform or
finding the best platform, and Ifully admit that, but I agree. I
think there's this space,whether it's the IBD or W set to
(31:44):
have you talk about this,there's so this was also in the
brindiamo Spotlight that you'vebeen able to work with some
startups, some legacy brands. Iwon't risk an NDA by asking you
which ones you have beeninvolved with, unless you feel
(32:05):
free to share but turningtechnical language into brand
storytelling. So there's notjust for the nerds, if you will.
It's also for as the largeraudience who's now demanding.
Call it transparency. Call itmore information. I guess my
(32:25):
question there is, how did youidentify for yourself that that
was a skill you had and couldoffer to others?
Unknown (32:41):
Oh, I think, I think that came about just through me,
essentially blind, stumblingthrough all of this, when I
started it, I didn't really knowwhat I was doing, and just
(33:02):
putting some posts out there,and then started to get a lot of
people contacting me, looking toeither get to know a bit more
about what I do or what I canoffer, or if they can use some
of The graphics, or, you know,like if I can talk to a
(33:24):
particular part of the process,or something like that, but
terms of when I knew,
I'm not really sure it's morejust, yeah, I think I just
stumbled more into this, and I'mstill just getting my legs
underneath me at the moment. Butyeah, yeah,
David Levine (33:50):
many of the people I've talked to on the podcast
and off the podcast will comeinto this industry from let's
say they get into whiskeybecause they worked in brewing
or they worked in sales, and no,they'll have different paths to
where they get to. Don't thinkI've spoken to someone who spent
significant time as a teacherbefore this, and to me, that was
(34:14):
kind of where my mind wentimmediately in terms of
translating difficult conceptsinto something that is easily
understood, because that'sultimately what you know. What
teaching is. You're teachingsomething someone doesn't know,
make it understandable, and thenhoping that they can then
transmit that knowledge further.So I guess to ask it very
(34:37):
broadly, bluntly, call it whatyou will, do you think we should
have more teachers being addedinto this industry? Oh,
Unknown (34:49):
frankly, yeah, yeah, I teaching at the moment. I've
it's i. Won't go too much intoit, but dark days, essentially,
David Levine (35:03):
it's a safe place.
Unknown (35:06):
And there is, I think, that there's a lot of teachers
that are thinking or alreadyhave moved out of the industry
and well, for a bit of context,years ago, before I even thought
that I would love to work in ain a distillery, I when I wanted
(35:26):
to move out of teaching and intoa lab setting, I remember God. I
I contacted recruiters. Icontacted Len God. It must have
been over 50 people on LinkedInthat were like, might be able to
help me get a job or somethinglike that. And I remember being
(35:49):
told by one of them, it standsout my mind, and I won't say
who, but it stood out in mymind. And it just goes, you've
spent five years teaching, it'snot going to happen. You're not
going to get back into the lab.And I, as soon as I got into my
new job, they heard that I usedto be a teacher. Oh, you'd be
(36:09):
great for the public facing bit.Or it's, it's also just teachers
are bloody hard workers. I justthink you'd be Miss if, if a
teacher came to you and it toyour distillery, and you didn't
(36:32):
hire them purely because theydon't have a formal distilling
background, you're missing out.I think that teachers can be
some fantastic employees. So Ithink hire them, because there
are many available to hire atthe moment. So hire them.
David Levine (36:51):
It's, we've got contacts and teachers over here
too. It's unfortunately asimilar situation where they're
just extremely hard workers.Most are, you know, incredible
people who want to do a goodthing make a good impact. And
they're, they are not treated asthey should be. Let's put it
that way, yeah, at the risk ofgoing on a much deeper rabbit
(37:11):
hole on that, yeah, but, but Iagree. I mean, I'm, I think of
as quote, I hope I don't butcherit from, you know, Greg Davies.
So for those who don't, he's acomedian out of Scottish or
English, English, English. He isEnglish, yeah. Or he said, like,
you know, I he doesn't think ofhimself as a great teacher in
(37:33):
the past, but he was a teacher.He's got this very imposing
presence. He's a big guy, verytall and but he's like, that
prepared me for whatever else Iwanted to do, because even if it
wasn't great teacher, I had tostand in front of a class of
students, and if I could makethem laugh, if I could make them
understand something, then I wasgolden. That's the hardest thing
(37:54):
I've ever had to do. And eventhough it's been two decades
since he's been in teaching, hefrequently references that as a
cornerstone of how you became,how we became. You know,
comedian, public speaker,outward facing, any of these,
you know, any of these skillsthat are wholly transferable to
(38:14):
any industry, and especially onelike this, where people, instead
of wanting more information, youknow, in that, in the post that
I referenced in the intro, likethat, people don't want more
technical depth. They want moreclarity. So it's not just about
providing that information inthe name of the enzymes, the
name of the chemical pathway, toa particular flavor. It's
(38:38):
connecting it to flavor. It'sit's making it understandable,
yeah, and I hate using this pun,but it comes up far too often on
the podcast. You know,distilling it down into
something that is digestible.And, yeah, so I am curious
Unknown (39:01):
about puns. I called my newsletter the distilled edit,
so I can't talk about funds.
David Levine (39:07):
Okay, so, so do you have heads and tails that
you cut off every week, just ordo you or, you know, things you
can recycle on the next one?
Unknown (39:17):
Yeah, I
David Levine (39:20):
am. I am I am curious. So, you know, we've
talked through most of thisabout the the positive side of
this, the increased interaction,the way that your audience has
changed, the way that your theproducts project. I keep saying
that the project scope haschanged. I'm curious, though,
has there been any any pushback?Yeah,
Unknown (39:49):
nothing that really comes to mind. If I'm being
honest, I'd say one thing aboutthe industry is that people. Are
really friendly, like, even ifthey don't, you know,
necessarily want to, like,engage in a big conversation,
(40:12):
or, you know, actually it. Ijust think people in this
industry are just really quitenice. I've noticed it's seems
like a very sharing and caringindustry. So yeah, I haven't
really received any pushback.I'd say,
David Levine (40:30):
now I'm very glad to hear that, and it's what I
hoped you would say. A reason Iasked that is mainly because,
because, I mean, what you'reputting out there is, it's
factual information. It's it's,you can maybe debate a couple of
things around the extent tosomething is happening in a
(40:52):
barrel, maybe the variables thatare around that with weather,
pressure, all those kinds ofthings. But ultimately, if you
put a picture of a chemicalchain, you know, a molecule that
says, Okay, this is, this is avanillin. It's a vanilla like
that. It's accepted worldwide,scientifically, that this
(41:13):
chemical that I'm showing righthere, this image is that. So on
that side, I was like, shouldn'tbe much pushback to that. But I
feel like someone always finds away to push back against
something, even if it's factualinformation. Do you, I guess, to
sort of flip the question, then,do you anticipate areas where
(41:34):
there could be pushback in thefuture?
Unknown (41:39):
Maybe, maybe I don't pretend to be the absolute
authority on all thingschemistry when it comes to this,
and it's frankly, I'm surprisedI haven't made a mistake yet, if
I'm being honest, frankly, I'mwaiting for the day when someone
(42:01):
goes, actually, this. Thisdoesn't happen. And I think,
well, as you'll know, but thething as a scientist that you
are trained to do is that if youare shown evidence that shows a
(42:24):
counterpoint is actuallycorrect, you don't the thing
that you shouldn't do is youshouldn't argue. You evaluate
the evidence that you're given,and then if it is sufficient
enough to actually show that youare wrong, then you change your
(42:46):
viewpoint. And I'd like to saythat I do that all the time in
my life. Absolutely I can be astubborn my partner would attest
to that. I can be very stuck,but when I'm dealing with
anything scientific, I alwayslike to keep an open mind, and I
(43:08):
think that when the day happensthat someone tells me that I am
wrong, I will just go with itlike I it's I'm not going to be
right. 100% of the time, no oneis. I just move on. Learn from
it to move on, I think,
David Levine (43:29):
and I hope, the when that day inevitably comes
when you make mistake is you arehuman. Everyone's human. That
the the person who ultimatelywants to correct you, I hope
that, well, actually is eitherdone, you know, through private
channels, because that's just, Ithink, how it should be done, or
(43:52):
it's something a way that isrespectful and follows, really,
what you've tried to do withthis, which is, you're trying to
create dialog and knowledgetransfer. You know, you end a
lot of your posts with aquestion, like, if you change
this, what would happen if youdid this in a different still,
or had a different concentrationof this grain? What would
(44:13):
happen? You know, it's meant tobe didactic, for sure, but not
you know, authoritarianlydidactic, you're not telling
people what it is going forwardnow with with this project, I
know it's it's changing veryquickly in the last five months
(44:35):
or so, and the intent that allthis has changed. I keep saying
that, have you? Have you gottenanybody reaching out to you
about maybe doing like a formalseries or a book, even
Unknown (44:50):
in terms of formal series? No, not yet, fingers
crossed. But I. Yeah, the book'san interesting one. I, I
wouldn't say every post, but Icarry on hearing it. I carry on
hearing that this would workgreat in a book. And I can, I
(45:13):
can absolutely see that workingout. I mean, if it's my own
book, God, God, reading my ownthoughts. It would be a living
nightmare, but I think it'ssomething I carry on thinking
about much more is potentiallywriting a book, and then every
time I do it, the scary thinghappens, where I go, how do I
(45:37):
start a book? So I think I needto, God, speak to someone,
learn. I think I need to sitdown and force myself to at
least start writing something.But I think that in the future,
and I can't say when, but Ithink there could very well be a
book on the horizon, or booksmaybe don't just stop at
(46:02):
Whiskey. And that's what I'mtrying to do with some of these
posts as well, is also show thatall of this applies to a whole
wide range of other drinks aswell.
David Levine (46:13):
Yeah, to that, to that point, I'll come back to
the book in a second. One of theone of my other favorite posts
is about absent. It's really,it's a really under appreciated
spirit, especially on the sideof the Atlantic, because it was,
it was outlawed for so long. Soall we had was this fake green
stuff, not true, absent. And nowwe do have some producers making
(46:34):
real, I won't say homemade,because that's not quite
accurate, but real, reallyauthentic, yeah, the really
authentic absence, if you will.Some are even aging it. You
know, I have a an aged absence,like four years old, 130 proof
or something, and it's justbeautiful. It is delicious. I
love it. I can't share with manypeople, because, like, even if
(46:57):
you've liked licorice, it's,it's a lot. But in in
describing, in that infographic,the idea of you have the pre
distillation herbs that are inthe steeping or or in the pot,
then you've got the postdistillation roots and herbs and
why you would use different onesat different times. It was
(47:18):
spoken about that at times overthe course of the podcast, when
someone makes an Absinthe solike with copper and kings or or
Alan Bishop, but it's prettyrare, you know? And I, I do love
this idea that while thisparticular host, like I'm more
(47:39):
focused on whiskey most of thetime that a lot of these
concepts are applicable acrossspirits, absolutely, a
distillation of a whiskey and anAbsinthe or a brandy has a lot
of commonalities between thosethings, especially if the
Absinthe base is a grain or afruit, let alone if it's, you
(48:02):
know, potato or something youknow it. And yes, that does
exist, but I don't know where,but I'm sure it does exist. If
you can make alcohol out of it,it exists. So with so with the
book idea I hear you on that,like starting the book is That's
the hardest thing, even if, inyour case, you've already got a
(48:24):
lot of the information you'd putin there, and, you know, a
template, if you will, for thekinds of like a page or a
chapter, what you have in there.One of the things that I really
appreciate about this industryis that while there's a barrier
to entry, to get into theindustry in one way, there's
(48:46):
also a willingness of a lot ofproducers and people on the
production side to Self Publishor to publish under some of the
more esoteric publishing houses,or arms of Public publishing
houses that will do this kind ofwork. So the book I mentioned
earlier, by Adam Rogers, proofthat was a more mass market
(49:07):
book. It was intended to bedigestible by really, anyone who
has even a passing interest in
Unknown (49:15):
alcohol, yeah,
David Levine (49:17):
and it was a really good book for that. It it
balanced it really well. Youalso got books that, like Matt
Strickland was on earlier thisyear, and I'm gonna have him
back to talk more about hiswriting, in particular, where
it's talking about barrelmanagement and different
elements of distilling that youdon't think about unless you're
(49:40):
on that side and have done itand have in his words, then he
said, like, basically just, youknow, if you've messed up or
messed around with things andyou're like, Okay, this is why
we don't use this, this barrel,this way. You don't match that
barrel type with the spirit orthings like that, similarly with
storytelling. You know, DavidStark, who I'm I'm working. An
on interview with has writtenmultiple books about, you know,
(50:03):
Campbelltown and the newdistilleries in Scotland that
have come up over the last fewyears, and both are with
publishers, but it's very smallruns and things that's very
specialized audience, of course,but still, having that available
is such a resource. And I knowit's asking a lot, it ends up
(50:24):
being a major labor of love alot of the time, as opposed to
something you can retire onearly but I guess from from my
perspective as a consumer, as anerd, geek, of this stuff, this
is definitely something that Iwould love to have available as
a resource that I can point toand say, Hey, you're interested
in this. Here's a readilyavailable thing. But then again,
(50:50):
yeah, you've got it on you'vegot it on the internet. So that
might be more readily available
Unknown (50:55):
than a book. It's, it's, yeah, it's, the internet
provides the easy accessibilityof it, but at the same time, I
also need to think of the variedaudience. And one thing that I
do like the idea of when itcomes to a book, is being able
to go a bit deeper, go a littlebit more into the weeds of the
(51:18):
actual science behind it, andbeing able to explain, you know,
talk a little bit more aboutexperimentation. What if? What
if you do this? And I think thatthat's where, certainly
something like a book could bequite useful. I think hope,
well, hopefully it
David Levine (51:38):
becomes a scientific Choose Your Own
Adventure, yeah, I love thatidea. So, you know, as I
indicated, I don't remember ifit was when I was talking to you
before start we startedrecording or in the beginning,
but I think it was before westarted recording. This is your
first major long form interviewon this stuff. Yeah, yeah. So it
(52:03):
was not a lot of research to doother than just looking at the
posts and what you've writtenand like a spotlight here or
there. So I'm not going to, youknow, I don't want to draw this
out too much, because I thinkwe've gotten a lot of good
information just to start with.And I want to have you back on
in, you know, a year or two andsee what's happened since then.
(52:26):
Great. But as you're so as aswe're starting to close out this
chapter, no pun intended, ofthe, oh, actually, sorry, before
that question, I had one more,which was of the infographics
and posts that you've made overthe last couple months. Can you
say what have been under themost use this word, the most
(52:51):
popular ones, like, Are peoplemost interested in the ones that
have the the chemical names? Arethey interested in the process?
Are they interested in theflavors and what? What's
catching people the most?
Unknown (53:04):
Think the ones that have caught the most attention.
I think by far the top one ismaturation. That got the biggest
attention. Anything to do withcascade and people seem to love,
and there's a lot to talk about,because, frankly, whiskey spends
(53:25):
most of its life in the cask, soI think it's deserves to be
talked about. So I am planningon coming back to that and
expanding that series, butdefinitely maturation was the
one that got the most attention.And then grains, so different
(53:47):
types of grains, I think,particularly in America, that
caught a lot of attention, rye,wheat, oats, all sorts of corn,
caught a lot of attention. Thenfermentation and distillation
were about the same, because Idid a series on each and there
was quite a bit of interest inthose two. And I think again,
(54:14):
two big cornerstones of it. Soit makes absolute sense. There
have been some that haven'tgained as much traction, but I
can, can maybe understand why.You know, going into the details
of molting, yeah, it's anessential part of how you, you,
you prepare your grain. Butmaybe not everyone wants to hear
(54:36):
the exact details of that. I getit. I get it. But, yeah,
maturation and the grainchemistry have been the biggest
ones by far. I'd say it's
David Levine (54:46):
funny to me to think that the malt has not
gotten malting process has notgotten as much traction. It's
Unknown (54:54):
well, roasting got it quite a bit the other week, but
I did see that, yeah, yeah.Yeah, yeah. But as a whole, it
seems like maturation, I thinkis the main one. But I think
that that does make sense,considering the length of time
stays in the barrel.
David Levine (55:16):
And so just to give people a little more
insight into you know who youare, who's making these posts. I
thought I'd end this one alittle bit differently, a little
early to ask my usual legacyquestions. So I'm going to do a
little differently, which is,what do you drink?
Unknown (55:34):
Oh, well, as this is a whiskey podcast, I'll start with
the whiskey to begin with. But Iam going through a phase at the
moment where I love some nicetriple distilled Irish whiskeys
at the moment, the the smoothones that That for me is for me.
(55:58):
People love peatiness. Peoplelove spiciness. I love
smoothness, and I'm drinking oneat the moment. What's it called?
Green spot from a lovely Irishdistillery. It's fantastic.
Recommend it if you haven'ttried it, and if you have tried
it, you know why I love it? It'sfantastic.
David Levine (56:21):
Do you love the spots? Yeah, yeah.
Unknown (56:24):
But then wider than that, God, I love a lot of
things. I really quite like myliqueurs. Limoncello is my
favorite. Every time I go toItaly, I drink too much in the
winter. I absolutely love portand Sherry. I love to experiment
(56:47):
and I love trying new things.But yeah, I'd say those are my
favorites. I'd say,
David Levine (56:55):
Love it. Love it. Yeah. I mean, the spots are
great. The liqueurs definitelydon't get as much love as much
love as they need to in theport, and the port and cherry
don't get as much love as theyneed to. That's usually used as
most of it's going into justseasoning the casks now, as
opposed to being drunk. So
Unknown (57:13):
we're I love it. I'm currently reading like, a 500
page book on how ports produced.And could not be happier.
David Levine (57:22):
I I honestly might want the title of that, because
that sounds nerdy enough for meto want to look into, hey, if
it's going to be used to finishsome of my whiskey that I'm
going to be drinking, I want toknow where why it's made, and
why I tend to like the Ruby morethan the tawny, yeah. But
anyway, so this will be,hopefully, the first of many
interviews that you do. I'm justreally appreciative again, from
(57:45):
both the consumer and a whiskeynerd side of of what you're
doing here, and really glad Icould have you on to talk about
it with you've got multiple lifeevents coming up. So is that to
squeeze this in before that aswell?
Unknown (58:00):
Yeah, it's going to be a busy couple of weeks Exactly.
David Levine (58:03):
So with that, hang on with me for just a minute
after I finished the recording.John, again, thank you for
coming on, for talking aboutyour passion here. What is
driving you to create thiscontent that we're enjoying and
hopefully more will enjoy, andI'll be definitely sharing links
to not only your profile to thedistilled edit so people can
(58:24):
subscribe and follow. Pleaselike follow and subscribe the
podcast if you're listening andif you haven't already. It makes
a huge difference for us, andI'll see you all next week. You.
Hey folks, welcome to a new episode of The
(00:01):
whiskering podcast. This episodeis going to be a little bit
different than many of the onesI've done before. We're not
talking to, you know,distillery, somewhat of a
writer, I guess we'll say inthis case, but really, we're
talking to a chemist at heart,and someone who I first came
across on LinkedIn, where he'sbeen posting a lot of his work
(00:22):
with chemistry and chemistry ofspirits, and he now has a
newsletter that's going outweekly, the distilled edit. It's
become a much larger product andproject than I think even he
anticipated when he started. Soto talk about this, I'm
welcoming on Mr. John Angusagain, the creator and driving
force behind the distilled editand many more projects to talk
(00:44):
about. So John, welcome
Unknown (00:45):
on. Oh, thank you for having me. Anna, thank you.
David Levine (00:48):
So I want to just kind of start us off with
something you posted. This isabout three months ago, and you
posted it after six weeks ofdoing postings. So this is what
he wrote six weeks ago. Istarted posting about whiskey
flavor chemistry, not to start abusiness, not to sell anything,
just to learn. I was researchingand sketching visuals to help me
(01:11):
understand how flavor is shapedfrom grain to cask as I
transition into the distillingworld, I thought maybe a few
people would find itinteresting. I didn't expect
messages from students saying ithelped them study. I didn't
expect a master blender to askif you could use them for
apprentice training. I didn'texpect distillers educators and
flavor geeks to start followingalong. That's been humbling and
(01:32):
surprising. So clearly, thisproject's been going on for
about four and a half fivemonths at this point, and yeah,
I see more and more peoplereacting to the posts,
interacting with the newsletterand what's going on. So taking a
step back. Start with how doesyou know a chemist end up in UK
government now is the higherScientific Officer for
(01:54):
Department of Environment, Foodand Rural Affairs, and start
doing this work?
Unknown (02:00):
Yeah. Where to start, where to start? I think, like,
we've all good stories, maybe atthe beginning. So quite a long
time ago, I studied to become achemist, and at that time, I had
no inkling I would go down thisroute. I thought, I thought I
(02:20):
would be a lab chemist for lifeat that point. And then I
finished university, and Ithought, well, you know what?
I'll I'll steer into teachingfor a while. So I became a
teacher for about five years,where I learned how to how to
(02:44):
teach how to actually explaincomplicated scientific concepts,
hopefully, hopefully in a waythat my students understood. I
hope that they learned fromthat. But then, after five
years, I decided I wanted to getback into science. And this
story really starts when Iworked at my last workplace, and
(03:11):
there I was working on scalingup. It's called Bio renewable
technologies, so technologiesthat are purely centered around
valorizing biological waste, andin the in the course of that, I
got to work with fermentationtechnologies. I got to work with
(03:36):
anaerobic digesters, analyzers,reactors. I got to work with dis
distillation equipment, not justthe sort of distillation you
would do in a typicaldistillery, but separating some
very weird and wonderfulchemicals. But quite a few times
(03:59):
our work would see uscollaborating with local
businesses. Quite a few of thosewere breweries and distilleries
around the city where I live,and it was when doing that that
(04:19):
I got to go on site. I got tosee how the beer is made, see
how the vodka is distilled, andsee the passion, but not also
that it's also the chemistry.And I think there's a lot of
times when you speak to adistiller or a brewer and they
(04:39):
may say, oh, you know, we dothis for trial and error. We
added this, you know, it didn'twork. We changed the recipe a
bit, and it did. Or whendistilling, it's, you know,
well, we're trying maybe adifferent pressure or a
different temperature, or we'retrying a different angle on the
line arm, and I don't. Thinkthey quite realize just how much
(05:04):
chemistry they are inadvertentlydoing, and I found it so so
interesting, and it's an itchthat I just haven't been able to
scratch ever since. Andunfortunately, there was a
little bit of downsizing in mylast workplace, and now I moved
on. I am working for the UKGovernment, as you say, but it's
something I can't get out of mymind, and it's something that I
(05:27):
still am very eager totransition into. This whole
thing started initially as a wayfor me to try and network and
get to know the industry a bitmore and get to get to actually
speak people in it, speak topeople in it. And yeah, it,
(05:52):
yeah, it became something morethan I was initially
anticipating. And like, like Isaid in that post to begin with,
it was, it started off with mevery much learning out loud. I
would be listening to podcasts.I'd be reading books. I would be
(06:14):
looking at literature,scientific literature, any sort
of literature I can get my sortof hands on. And I would just
try and just translate that asbest as possible onto onto the
screen.
David Levine (06:28):
I mean, it's it's so needed and worthwhile. And
look, I'm a whiskey geek,spirits geek, proud of it. I
know a lot of people who listento this podcast are the same
way. And I was thinking aboutthis as I was looking through
your posts, and what firstcaught my eye is, um, I have the
background in my in biochemistryfrom a while back now, like it's
(06:51):
over a decade, but, you know, Iwas worked in a yeast lab, and
then I did a master's on on Oak.So, like, these things kind of
went way before I was intowhiskey, and then suddenly
they're relevant. But looking atsome of the resources that are
available, certainly to thegeneral public, even a kind of,
you know, step above generalpublic in terms of base
(07:12):
knowledge, you know, I'm lookingat some of the books on here.
We've got, you know, Adam Rogerswrote a book on proof, on the
science of of whiskey. There'smaybe one or two other ones that
are kind of trustworthy, if Ican put it that way. But then
you really have to go intoeither the these really heady
conversations with distillers,chemists and such, or you have
(07:36):
to go into textbooks to get thiskind of information. So for all
intents and purposes, it is notreadily available, particularly
on the kind of almost product byproduct, spirit by spirit, and
process by process basis thatyou are looking at. So I'm
curious as you, as you startedthis, what did you envision as
(08:00):
your initial scope, in terms of,like, how granular you're going
to get and how many areas youwant to so you know, breadth and
depth.
Unknown (08:11):
Truth be told, when I first started, I sort of it is
just a fun way to just justexplain some of these more
complicated concepts. And Inever really thought, oh, you
know, what level of detail am Igoing to go into? Am I going to
(08:32):
have some posts that are muchmore technical and some posts
that are a bit more fun? I neverthought that way to begin with,
I've, I've started, I've startedrefining it a lot more since
then. But to begin with, it was,yeah, it was just a, it was just
a thought experiment to beginwith. I
David Levine (08:54):
mean, it's fun just to kind of cross a bridge
here. You know you said thiskind of came out of your now
previous job. Does your currentjob intersect with this work at
all?
Unknown (09:11):
No, no, my current job is very much looking at Circular
Economy, how to make wastestream circular, how to reduce
dependence on natural resources.So this is very much tangent to
my actual work. It's, it's,yeah, it's nothing quite to do
(09:33):
with it. But I think yourprevious question, I was just
thinking then that I think, likeyou say there's Eva, you've got
to pick up some heavy textbooksthat go into this level of
detail. And I think for me, Ithink I don't know if it's
because of my teachingbackground or not, but I
certainly felt like when I'mtrying to explain these things,
(09:56):
I'm trying to bear in mind theaudience that I've got. Right?
And there is a mix. There's somechemists. There are some
chemists, arguably, that willunderstand this much better than
me. I don't pretend to be aparticularly good chemist. There
are distillers who have been inthe industry for decades, who,
(10:20):
surprisingly, say that theyactually appreciate the like
going into the chemistry. So Ihave to, I do try and be careful
just how much, how complicated Iwant to make it. So I, I am
always quite careful aboutmaking it accessible to all
(10:41):
differentiating for alldifferent levels,
David Levine (10:46):
with the just with the current day job, I just want
to close the loop on that aswell. I mean, there is, as I
said, it's tangential, but thereis potentially a connection
there in that we're seeing somedistilleries. I wish there were
more. But, you know, somedistilleries really looking into
how their bio waste is used, howthey can really have a full, you
(11:09):
know, circular economy, if youwill, about more than what we
hear. We hear about the we getthe green from the farmers, and
then we give them back the spentgrain for the cattle or the pigs
or whatever. And so that's kindof circular, and it leaves out
so many other steps and productsthat are made throughout the
process, like, what do you dowith the the heads and tails?
(11:32):
What do you do with any numberof things throughout the process
of distillation andfermentation, all of that. So
looking at some of thedistillers that are interested
in that, is that an area of,let's say, is that a potential
audience? I'll be at a small onethat you can look to as, hey,
(11:53):
maybe they'd be interested innot just the work that I'm
showing through theseinfographics, but also
potentially the work that I'mdoing for the UK Government. Oh,
absolutely and,
Unknown (12:07):
yeah, sustainability is another cornerstone of, like,
what I absolutely love talkingand doing. It's, you know, it's
not just, I uh, so quite oftenwhen we talk about waste, we
talk about a waste hierarchy. Sookay, so we take this spent
(12:31):
grain and we can give it tocattle as an example. Now that's
an example of quite a low levelway to deal with the waste. But
then what you could do is youcould potentially put that into
an anaerobic digester, and youcould generate electricity from
it, so you're producing likeanother valuable, valuable
(12:53):
resource from it. There's otherthings as well where it's still
got quite a bit of protein andstill quite a lot of other
nutrients that could still beextracted. So one thing I
absolutely love talking about isnot just what's the simple and
quick win to become moresustainable, but how can we
actually make this like let'snot do the bare minimum to
(13:18):
become more sustainable. That'sreally think it through. How can
we make sure that every step inour process is going to be as
green as possible? And that's sothat's another passion of mine,
and I've done a couple of postson it, here and there, but it is
something I'm thinking that Ineed to do more on. So I think
there's going to be more of thatin the in the upcoming
David Levine (13:40):
I love that, that it's, you know, it's
incorporated. It's front of mindfor you. Again, I think about if
you're feeding it to the spentgrain cattle, which is, I know
we're focusing on, this is aparticular example of that
process, but it's a big examplefor it. It's a big example,
right? It's the one that everydistillery says, Oh yeah, we're
green because we get rid of ourdraft this way, instead of just
throwing it away or something.But if you throw it into an
(14:02):
anaerobic digester, if you findother ways to extract the
proteins that are left overafter you remove the starches
and most of the other chemicalsthat you need, chemicals, you
know, you know, I mean, fromfrom the grain, there's a lot to
be used there, and if you'rejust feeding it to livestock,
which is already a very notgreen proposal to begin with,
(14:23):
then you're, you're not green.You're doing the opposite of
that. You're kind of helpingthat negative cycle continue
that negative feedback cycle. SoI, you know, I, I noticed that
there were a couple of postsabout that. So that's really
where that question of, like,does it interact with the
current day job come in? But Iget how it also has to be a
little bit split.
Unknown (14:43):
Yeah, yeah,
David Levine (14:47):
not to cause any extra consternation for your
boss if they were to listen tothis podcast. But you know you
said this is potentially atransition to you, moving into
the spirits, into. Industry writlarge, if you will, has if you
(15:09):
had your kind of perfect pathset out like, what would that
look like from what you're doingnow and where you would want to
be in the industry?
Unknown (15:20):
That is an excellent question, and it's one that if
you had asked me five monthsago, I would have said, without
a shadow of a doubt, I wouldjust love to go into a
distillery like work and trainmy way up, but also work on the
(15:41):
R and D side of things, the moreanalytical side of things, the
more sustainable side of things.But as this has progressed, I'm
not entirely sure it's one whereI would love to do that. But
(16:02):
also, is there a place in theindustry for this type of
trainings, for this type ofinformation? And that's
something I'm still answering,and it's something I I think
(16:23):
it'll take me quite a while toreally understand, but I'm
hoping that there's a place formy sort of voice in the
industry, and if there is, Iwould love to pursue that. So
yeah,
David Levine (16:36):
I was thinking about where there are. I mean,
there are some companies thatpush forward this idea that they
have chemists on hand, they havelabs. We it's not generally with
smaller distillers, just,there's just not enough funding
to go around and such. Butcertainly, like, you know, brown
Foreman is not shy about havingmany labs, you know, Dr Rachel
Barry leading several of them.You've, I know Victor's has a
(16:59):
lab because I've been inside it,you know, Diageo, I'm sure has a
bunch of I'm sure all the majorcompanies have them for, if
nothing else, for qualitycontrol purposes and making sure
things are are all good. But youdo see some of them, at least,
putting out more of this, andI'll keep referring to it as
(17:19):
nerdy material, and it's notmeant in a derogatory way. It's
really meant quite content. Ilove it. I love it. You know,
they'll put out more of thisnerdy detail about what they're
doing, so that, like, if brownForeman puts out the, oh, it's a
good example. So when theychanged the, wow, I'm blanking
(17:42):
on the brand name. Oh mygoodness, the Glenn dronac when
they change a couple years agofrom being non chill filtered to
chill filtering all but one ortwo of the expressions,
obviously. Dr Barry was askedabout what does that do to the
whiskey? What are the chemicalchanges involved, and what does
(18:02):
the taste end up being? And shewas pretty adamant, like,
there's no there's not gonna bea difference here. The whiskey
audience that had a voice onthis was like, Yeah, hell yes,
there's a difference on this.What are you doing? So this is
to say that there's certainly alarger than expected segment of
spirits drinkers, not justwhiskey, but spirits drinkers
(18:24):
who are interested in not onlywhat have what do these tastes
mean and flavors mean, but ifyou're making a change, what is
that going to mean for myproducts? You know that I buy
next week, versus the one, 510,years from now? I think there's
definitely room, like I said,you might have to go to a large
company to find that room, but,you know, there's, I think
(18:45):
there's definitely room, likeyou said, for your point of
view.
Unknown (18:48):
I think there's definitely something said as
well for the audience and thewhiskey enthusiasts. They I
don't know about yourself, but II've seen now so many reports
saying that the trend now ismoving very much to they want
(19:10):
much more transparency. Youknow. They want to know how it's
made. You know this whole ideayou know from back in the 40s
and the 50s that, you know what?No how we do it is proprietary.
I don't know why they botherdoing that. Who's got the money
(19:30):
to go and recreate a spirit?Because they liked it off the
shelf, I think, tell people howit's made. Tell people why the
subtle differences that you usein your distillery. Maybe it's a
slightly hotter fermentation,maybe it's slightly more refined
(19:50):
cuts. Maybe it's that you takeyour grain from a completely
different field and it's got atight, slightly different
terroir to. It. I think all ofthese things are what the
audience want to know about andhow it impacts their drink,
because too often I I see somany bottles in the supermarket,
(20:16):
and it's like hints of vanillaand caramel and toffee, and, Oh,
this one's got some coffee andsome smoke. And I think you know
what, they probably all tastegreat. And that little tasting
note is not doing anyone anyfavors. You can pick up two that
will say hints of vanilla andtoffee, but they will taste
(20:39):
different. It's not doingthemselves any favor. And I
think having that level oftransparency and explaining the
science behind it is exactlywhat consumers want, not to
mention the growing consumersthat want to know about the
sustainability of thedistilleries as well, which I
(20:59):
you know, I am starting to seemore and more distilleries
trying to become moresustainable, and it's great to
see that, but I think they theyneed to shout that a little bit
louder, the same with how theirprocess is different and why
their spirits different. What?What makes me pick up two
bottles with the same taste andnotes and think that's the one I
want to drink?
David Levine (21:21):
Yeah, you're absolutely right to, at the risk
of tooting my own horn, I'vetaken a couple of brands to task
over that in a few last fewyears. About, yeah, it all says
vanilla, baking, spice, brownsugar and caramel. Like, okay,
you've just described thegeneral flavor of bourbon.
Congrats. Or a bourbon cask, ifyou're doing a single malt, you
(21:43):
know, Asian a bourbon cask,great, but no one's going to say
that, like an Elijah Craig and aKnob Creek and a wild turkey,
three different distilleries.They're all going to have those
notes, but they're not going toall taste the same. I agree,
similar, but they're my chancesthat can be the same.
Unknown (22:03):
It's the same for things like rye whiskey, yeah.
Now, personally, I'm not amassive fan of the spicier
whiskies, but rye can be such aspectrum. I did a post on it
ages ago, but it's the fact thatyou it can undergo a chemical
(22:23):
change, and that chemical changecan take it from something
completely inert to your tastebuds to something that is spicy.
And if you control that, you candetermine just how spicy your
final product is going to be.And I there have been some 100%
rise that are barely spicy onthe tongue, and then there have
(22:43):
been some 20 percents that areoverwhelmingly and I think that
I don't see anything well maybe,maybe there are some that are
starting to tell you more aboutit, but I don't see anything
about why this is The case. Whydo you have 100% rye that isn't
spicy? And that's the sort ofinformation that would make me
(23:06):
go, I want to try that.
David Levine (23:09):
Agreed, agreed with the let's throw a
hypothetical out there with therye. I mean, I think just in
talking to producers, and you'regonna be, you know what I'm
gonna look let's see whatepisode this gonna come out as
this should be, I think episode197 unless something changes. So
(23:32):
almost, you know, we hit 200episodes, including bonus stuff.
But that's a lot of producersthat I talked to, and I'm very
proud of that fact, and what Ihave heard consistently from
them, particularly with rye, isthat many of the rye producers
feel more freedom with rye,you're not constrained to, okay,
this says bourbon on it's got totaste like a bourbon with rye.
(23:55):
Yes, people are expecting it tobe a little spicier, maybe a
little drier. If you're doing a95 five, a little more
herbaceous, you know, somethinglike that, but there is more
freedom and less inherentexpectation that it's going to
be sweet, caramel, vanilla, theflavors we just talked about,
and that's where you can reallyget into with the rye. Okay, how
(24:16):
much, how much glycol Do youhave? How much, how many usual
particles? What's your four VGratio? What? What are you
talking about here? And how doesyour, how does your still
production? How does thefermentation? How does that
change those concentrations?Like one of, one of my favorite
infographics you've created wasa thing. It's called a spider
(24:37):
chart of the six different kindof still types and still
combinations. And what those dofor flavors, and I loved it is
even though, of course, thereare exceptions to everything. In
general, it really showed okayif you have a pot still versus a
column still, or a hybrid, oryou're doing double pot, triple
(24:58):
pot, all. Column. These are thedifferent flavors you're gonna
get, a kind of basic level ofwhy you're gonna get those
flavors. Because, like you said,you're not, you don't want to go
too deep into the deep end, on,on these infographics. You don't
want a full essay on the back ofthe bottle. Now, right? Exactly,
because no one's gonna readthat. Well, I might, but that,
(25:19):
um, that's the problem. I'm thatone. I'm the 1% of the whiskey
drinker who might read that, butmost of them are not going to.
But to your point, though, youwant to know more information,
and if you can't fit on thebottle, maybe someone who is
interested in buying this bottlewould scan QR code. You know,
we've seen that be successfulwith a number of brands like, I
(25:41):
know Waterford, unfortunately,is in receivership right now,
but the idea of it, they had theQR code on there to see every
little detail if you wanted it.Of I love that. Yeah, the Yeah,
the field, the terroir, therelative humidity, the place in
the way, everything you couldpossibly imagine the numbers of
(26:02):
the cast, and there were 20 pluscasks in every you know,
batching. So you can balancethat. You can balance what's on
the shelf to reach a generalaudience, and I'm rambling at
this point, but what's on what'son a shelf to reach general
audience and then have itavailable this deeper
information for the people likeus who want to know that, who
(26:22):
want to know it. And the lastthing I'll say, and then I'll
let you talk, is thinking abouta recent guest. Might be the
episode before you actually,which was holding a company and
their old Potrero rye. So it's100% malted rye pot still
distillation. And even at, Ithink the single barrel I had
was around 135 proof, somethinglike that. It drank a lot lower,
(26:46):
drank close to, like, 1051, 10.And it wasn't spicy. You knew it
was a rye. You got enough blackpepper to know it was a rye, and
some of that classic rye flavor.But it was very drinkable. It
didn't beat you over the headwith any one chemical compound
or group of compounds, even thatwould fit into a box, let's say
(27:11):
yeah. So with so I'll ask you aquestion now, which was after so
with the brindiamo Spotlightthat was done on you in June of
25 one of the things theyhighlighted to your point was
this consumer seekingtransparency and that being a
(27:33):
main target audience. When youstarted this, what was that
initial audience that youenvisioned, and how has that
changed as you've gone over thelast couple of months?
Unknown (27:48):
Oh, when I first started, it seemed that most of
my audience was people workingdirectly in the sector,
distillers, blenders, monsters,even cooperages, that seemed to
(28:12):
be the majority of like thepeople that I was engaging with,
and I have started to see a bitof a shift in starting to see a
lot more students, like startingto actually engage with them,
which I think is great, youknow, like, like, you say
(28:33):
there's, there's only a fewplaces really that offer this
sort of level of detail. There'sthe, there's the what? There's
the wine and spirits, education,trust, I
David Levine (28:47):
think, yeah, the WCT, yeah,
Unknown (28:49):
yeah. And then there's the masters of whiskey over in
America, and, God Yeah, and theIBD as well, the cibd. So
there's not a great deal numberof places where people can go
for that sort of information.And I'm starting to see a lot
more students like looking but iin terms of consumers, I don't
(29:15):
know if maybe just LinkedIn isthe wrong platform. I'm not
really seeing any consumerscoming to me. But then I also
think it might be a bit tricky,as I don't have a brand that I'm
trying to actually explain away,so maybe that's the next step
David Levine (29:32):
that that was one of my questions, too. You know,
that's where I first found you.Was on LinkedIn. Yeah, I and so
I that's where I follow you, soI haven't really followed you on
other platforms. You answeredone part of the question, which
was for the work that you'redoing, the purposes you seek.
That seems to be one challengeis that students don't
necessarily use LinkedIn as muchmakes sense. They're not yet in
(29:55):
the professional sector a lot ofthe time. So have you. You said
students are just starting tointeract with this. Have you
thought about what otherplatforms you might want to use
to reach them?
Unknown (30:10):
Yeah, I carry on thinking about it, and I carry
on getting distracted all thetime, but I carry on thinking
that maybe I should start onFacebook and Instagram. You're,
you know, the regular ones, butI am also starting to think
(30:35):
about like, Are there any goodcollaborations that might be
worthwhile between some of theseeducators and myself, maybe
there's room for my voice therefor the next generation of
whiskey makers. I'm not sure I'mstill early days. I think in
David Levine (30:59):
your where you're located, you're in, in and
around York so north of it, ofEngland, I don't know how many
distilleries are around there,and spirit of Yorkshire was an
early guest on the podcast. So Iknow they are there, of course,
but you're, you know, closeenough to the Scottish border,
where there's some, I wouldthink cross border interest
(31:21):
there, you've got tourism andtraveling. So, yeah, I think I'm
not an expert on this, either ofusing the best platform or
finding the best platform, and Ifully admit that, but I agree. I
think there's this space,whether it's the IBD or W set to
(31:44):
have you talk about this,there's so this was also in the
brindiamo Spotlight that you'vebeen able to work with some
startups, some legacy brands. Iwon't risk an NDA by asking you
which ones you have beeninvolved with, unless you feel
(32:05):
free to share but turningtechnical language into brand
storytelling. So there's notjust for the nerds, if you will.
It's also for as the largeraudience who's now demanding.
Call it transparency. Call itmore information. I guess my
(32:25):
question there is, how did youidentify for yourself that that
was a skill you had and couldoffer to others?
Unknown (32:41):
Oh, I think, I think that came about just through me,
essentially blind, stumblingthrough all of this, when I
started it, I didn't really knowwhat I was doing, and just
(33:02):
putting some posts out there,and then started to get a lot of
people contacting me, looking toeither get to know a bit more
about what I do or what I canoffer, or if they can use some
of The graphics, or, you know,like if I can talk to a
(33:24):
particular part of the process,or something like that, but
terms of when I knew,
I'm not really sure it's morejust, yeah, I think I just
stumbled more into this, and I'mstill just getting my legs
underneath me at the moment. Butyeah, yeah,
David Levine (33:50):
many of the people I've talked to on the podcast
and off the podcast will comeinto this industry from let's
say they get into whiskeybecause they worked in brewing
or they worked in sales, and no,they'll have different paths to
where they get to. Don't thinkI've spoken to someone who spent
significant time as a teacherbefore this, and to me, that was
(34:14):
kind of where my mind wentimmediately in terms of
translating difficult conceptsinto something that is easily
understood, because that'sultimately what you know. What
teaching is. You're teachingsomething someone doesn't know,
make it understandable, and thenhoping that they can then
transmit that knowledge further.So I guess to ask it very
(34:37):
broadly, bluntly, call it whatyou will, do you think we should
have more teachers being addedinto this industry? Oh,
Unknown (34:49):
frankly, yeah, yeah, I teaching at the moment. I've
it's i. Won't go too much intoit, but dark days, essentially,
David Levine (35:03):
it's a safe place.
Unknown (35:06):
And there is, I think, that there's a lot of teachers
that are thinking or alreadyhave moved out of the industry
and well, for a bit of context,years ago, before I even thought
that I would love to work in ain a distillery, I when I wanted
(35:26):
to move out of teaching and intoa lab setting, I remember God. I
I contacted recruiters. Icontacted Len God. It must have
been over 50 people on LinkedInthat were like, might be able to
help me get a job or somethinglike that. And I remember being
(35:49):
told by one of them, it standsout my mind, and I won't say
who, but it stood out in mymind. And it just goes, you've
spent five years teaching, it'snot going to happen. You're not
going to get back into the lab.And I, as soon as I got into my
new job, they heard that I usedto be a teacher. Oh, you'd be
(36:09):
great for the public facing bit.Or it's, it's also just teachers
are bloody hard workers. I justthink you'd be Miss if, if a
teacher came to you and it toyour distillery, and you didn't
(36:32):
hire them purely because theydon't have a formal distilling
background, you're missing out.I think that teachers can be
some fantastic employees. So Ithink hire them, because there
are many available to hire atthe moment. So hire them.
David Levine (36:51):
It's, we've got contacts and teachers over here
too. It's unfortunately asimilar situation where they're
just extremely hard workers.Most are, you know, incredible
people who want to do a goodthing make a good impact. And
they're, they are not treated asthey should be. Let's put it
that way, yeah, at the risk ofgoing on a much deeper rabbit
(37:11):
hole on that, yeah, but, but Iagree. I mean, I'm, I think of
as quote, I hope I don't butcherit from, you know, Greg Davies.
So for those who don't, he's acomedian out of Scottish or
English, English, English. He isEnglish, yeah. Or he said, like,
you know, I he doesn't think ofhimself as a great teacher in
(37:33):
the past, but he was a teacher.He's got this very imposing
presence. He's a big guy, verytall and but he's like, that
prepared me for whatever else Iwanted to do, because even if it
wasn't great teacher, I had tostand in front of a class of
students, and if I could makethem laugh, if I could make them
understand something, then I wasgolden. That's the hardest thing
(37:54):
I've ever had to do. And eventhough it's been two decades
since he's been in teaching, hefrequently references that as a
cornerstone of how you became,how we became. You know,
comedian, public speaker,outward facing, any of these,
you know, any of these skillsthat are wholly transferable to
(38:14):
any industry, and especially onelike this, where people, instead
of wanting more information, youknow, in that, in the post that
I referenced in the intro, likethat, people don't want more
technical depth. They want moreclarity. So it's not just about
providing that information inthe name of the enzymes, the
name of the chemical pathway, toa particular flavor. It's
(38:38):
connecting it to flavor. It'sit's making it understandable,
yeah, and I hate using this pun,but it comes up far too often on
the podcast. You know,distilling it down into
something that is digestible.And, yeah, so I am curious
Unknown (39:01):
about puns. I called my newsletter the distilled edit,
so I can't talk about funds.
David Levine (39:07):
Okay, so, so do you have heads and tails that
you cut off every week, just ordo you or, you know, things you
can recycle on the next one?
Unknown (39:17):
Yeah, I
David Levine (39:20):
am. I am I am curious. So, you know, we've
talked through most of thisabout the the positive side of
this, the increased interaction,the way that your audience has
changed, the way that your theproducts project. I keep saying
that the project scope haschanged. I'm curious, though,
has there been any any pushback?Yeah,
Unknown (39:49):
nothing that really comes to mind. If I'm being
honest, I'd say one thing aboutthe industry is that people. Are
really friendly, like, even ifthey don't, you know,
necessarily want to, like,engage in a big conversation,
(40:12):
or, you know, actually it. Ijust think people in this
industry are just really quitenice. I've noticed it's seems
like a very sharing and caringindustry. So yeah, I haven't
really received any pushback.I'd say,
David Levine (40:30):
now I'm very glad to hear that, and it's what I
hoped you would say. A reason Iasked that is mainly because,
because, I mean, what you'reputting out there is, it's
factual information. It's it's,you can maybe debate a couple of
things around the extent tosomething is happening in a
(40:52):
barrel, maybe the variables thatare around that with weather,
pressure, all those kinds ofthings. But ultimately, if you
put a picture of a chemicalchain, you know, a molecule that
says, Okay, this is, this is avanillin. It's a vanilla like
that. It's accepted worldwide,scientifically, that this
(41:13):
chemical that I'm showing righthere, this image is that. So on
that side, I was like, shouldn'tbe much pushback to that. But I
feel like someone always finds away to push back against
something, even if it's factualinformation. Do you, I guess, to
sort of flip the question, then,do you anticipate areas where
(41:34):
there could be pushback in thefuture?
Unknown (41:39):
Maybe, maybe I don't pretend to be the absolute
authority on all thingschemistry when it comes to this,
and it's frankly, I'm surprisedI haven't made a mistake yet, if
I'm being honest, frankly, I'mwaiting for the day when someone
(42:01):
goes, actually, this. Thisdoesn't happen. And I think,
well, as you'll know, but thething as a scientist that you
are trained to do is that if youare shown evidence that shows a
(42:24):
counterpoint is actuallycorrect, you don't the thing
that you shouldn't do is youshouldn't argue. You evaluate
the evidence that you're given,and then if it is sufficient
enough to actually show that youare wrong, then you change your
(42:46):
viewpoint. And I'd like to saythat I do that all the time in
my life. Absolutely I can be astubborn my partner would attest
to that. I can be very stuck,but when I'm dealing with
anything scientific, I alwayslike to keep an open mind, and I
(43:08):
think that when the day happensthat someone tells me that I am
wrong, I will just go with itlike I it's I'm not going to be
right. 100% of the time, no oneis. I just move on. Learn from
it to move on, I think,
David Levine (43:29):
and I hope, the when that day inevitably comes
when you make mistake is you arehuman. Everyone's human. That
the the person who ultimatelywants to correct you, I hope
that, well, actually is eitherdone, you know, through private
channels, because that's just, Ithink, how it should be done, or
(43:52):
it's something a way that isrespectful and follows, really,
what you've tried to do withthis, which is, you're trying to
create dialog and knowledgetransfer. You know, you end a
lot of your posts with aquestion, like, if you change
this, what would happen if youdid this in a different still,
or had a different concentrationof this grain? What would
(44:13):
happen? You know, it's meant tobe didactic, for sure, but not
you know, authoritarianlydidactic, you're not telling
people what it is going forwardnow with with this project, I
know it's it's changing veryquickly in the last five months
(44:35):
or so, and the intent that allthis has changed. I keep saying
that, have you? Have you gottenanybody reaching out to you
about maybe doing like a formalseries or a book, even
Unknown (44:50):
in terms of formal series? No, not yet, fingers
crossed. But I. Yeah, the book'san interesting one. I, I
wouldn't say every post, but Icarry on hearing it. I carry on
hearing that this would workgreat in a book. And I can, I
(45:13):
can absolutely see that workingout. I mean, if it's my own
book, God, God, reading my ownthoughts. It would be a living
nightmare, but I think it'ssomething I carry on thinking
about much more is potentiallywriting a book, and then every
time I do it, the scary thinghappens, where I go, how do I
(45:37):
start a book? So I think I needto, God, speak to someone,
learn. I think I need to sitdown and force myself to at
least start writing something.But I think that in the future,
and I can't say when, but Ithink there could very well be a
book on the horizon, or booksmaybe don't just stop at
(46:02):
Whiskey. And that's what I'mtrying to do with some of these
posts as well, is also show thatall of this applies to a whole
wide range of other drinks aswell.
David Levine (46:13):
Yeah, to that, to that point, I'll come back to
the book in a second. One of theone of my other favorite posts
is about absent. It's really,it's a really under appreciated
spirit, especially on the sideof the Atlantic, because it was,
it was outlawed for so long. Soall we had was this fake green
stuff, not true, absent. And nowwe do have some producers making
(46:34):
real, I won't say homemade,because that's not quite
accurate, but real, reallyauthentic, yeah, the really
authentic absence, if you will.Some are even aging it. You
know, I have a an aged absence,like four years old, 130 proof
or something, and it's justbeautiful. It is delicious. I
love it. I can't share with manypeople, because, like, even if
(46:57):
you've liked licorice, it's,it's a lot. But in in
describing, in that infographic,the idea of you have the pre
distillation herbs that are inthe steeping or or in the pot,
then you've got the postdistillation roots and herbs and
why you would use different onesat different times. It was
(47:18):
spoken about that at times overthe course of the podcast, when
someone makes an Absinthe solike with copper and kings or or
Alan Bishop, but it's prettyrare, you know? And I, I do love
this idea that while thisparticular host, like I'm more
(47:39):
focused on whiskey most of thetime that a lot of these
concepts are applicable acrossspirits, absolutely, a
distillation of a whiskey and anAbsinthe or a brandy has a lot
of commonalities between thosethings, especially if the
Absinthe base is a grain or afruit, let alone if it's, you
(48:02):
know, potato or something youknow it. And yes, that does
exist, but I don't know where,but I'm sure it does exist. If
you can make alcohol out of it,it exists. So with so with the
book idea I hear you on that,like starting the book is That's
the hardest thing, even if, inyour case, you've already got a
(48:24):
lot of the information you'd putin there, and, you know, a
template, if you will, for thekinds of like a page or a
chapter, what you have in there.One of the things that I really
appreciate about this industryis that while there's a barrier
to entry, to get into theindustry in one way, there's
(48:46):
also a willingness of a lot ofproducers and people on the
production side to Self Publishor to publish under some of the
more esoteric publishing houses,or arms of Public publishing
houses that will do this kind ofwork. So the book I mentioned
earlier, by Adam Rogers, proofthat was a more mass market
(49:07):
book. It was intended to bedigestible by really, anyone who
has even a passing interest in
Unknown (49:15):
alcohol, yeah,
David Levine (49:17):
and it was a really good book for that. It it
balanced it really well. Youalso got books that, like Matt
Strickland was on earlier thisyear, and I'm gonna have him
back to talk more about hiswriting, in particular, where
it's talking about barrelmanagement and different
elements of distilling that youdon't think about unless you're
(49:40):
on that side and have done itand have in his words, then he
said, like, basically just, youknow, if you've messed up or
messed around with things andyou're like, Okay, this is why
we don't use this, this barrel,this way. You don't match that
barrel type with the spirit orthings like that, similarly with
storytelling. You know, DavidStark, who I'm I'm working. An
on interview with has writtenmultiple books about, you know,
(50:03):
Campbelltown and the newdistilleries in Scotland that
have come up over the last fewyears, and both are with
publishers, but it's very smallruns and things that's very
specialized audience, of course,but still, having that available
is such a resource. And I knowit's asking a lot, it ends up
(50:24):
being a major labor of love alot of the time, as opposed to
something you can retire onearly but I guess from from my
perspective as a consumer, as anerd, geek, of this stuff, this
is definitely something that Iwould love to have available as
a resource that I can point toand say, Hey, you're interested
in this. Here's a readilyavailable thing. But then again,
(50:50):
yeah, you've got it on you'vegot it on the internet. So that
might be more readily available
Unknown (50:55):
than a book. It's, it's, yeah, it's, the internet
provides the easy accessibilityof it, but at the same time, I
also need to think of the variedaudience. And one thing that I
do like the idea of when itcomes to a book, is being able
to go a bit deeper, go a littlebit more into the weeds of the
(51:18):
actual science behind it, andbeing able to explain, you know,
talk a little bit more aboutexperimentation. What if? What
if you do this? And I think thatthat's where, certainly
something like a book could bequite useful. I think hope,
well, hopefully it
David Levine (51:38):
becomes a scientific Choose Your Own
Adventure, yeah, I love thatidea. So, you know, as I
indicated, I don't remember ifit was when I was talking to you
before start we startedrecording or in the beginning,
but I think it was before westarted recording. This is your
first major long form interviewon this stuff. Yeah, yeah. So it
(52:03):
was not a lot of research to doother than just looking at the
posts and what you've writtenand like a spotlight here or
there. So I'm not going to, youknow, I don't want to draw this
out too much, because I thinkwe've gotten a lot of good
information just to start with.And I want to have you back on
in, you know, a year or two andsee what's happened since then.
(52:26):
Great. But as you're so as aswe're starting to close out this
chapter, no pun intended, ofthe, oh, actually, sorry, before
that question, I had one more,which was of the infographics
and posts that you've made overthe last couple months. Can you
say what have been under themost use this word, the most
(52:51):
popular ones, like, Are peoplemost interested in the ones that
have the the chemical names? Arethey interested in the process?
Are they interested in theflavors and what? What's
catching people the most?
Unknown (53:04):
Think the ones that have caught the most attention.
I think by far the top one ismaturation. That got the biggest
attention. Anything to do withcascade and people seem to love,
and there's a lot to talk about,because, frankly, whiskey spends
(53:25):
most of its life in the cask, soI think it's deserves to be
talked about. So I am planningon coming back to that and
expanding that series, butdefinitely maturation was the
one that got the most attention.And then grains, so different
(53:47):
types of grains, I think,particularly in America, that
caught a lot of attention, rye,wheat, oats, all sorts of corn,
caught a lot of attention. Thenfermentation and distillation
were about the same, because Idid a series on each and there
was quite a bit of interest inthose two. And I think again,
(54:14):
two big cornerstones of it. Soit makes absolute sense. There
have been some that haven'tgained as much traction, but I
can, can maybe understand why.You know, going into the details
of molting, yeah, it's anessential part of how you, you,
you prepare your grain. Butmaybe not everyone wants to hear
(54:36):
the exact details of that. I getit. I get it. But, yeah,
maturation and the grainchemistry have been the biggest
ones by far. I'd say it's
David Levine (54:46):
funny to me to think that the malt has not
gotten malting process has notgotten as much traction. It's
Unknown (54:54):
well, roasting got it quite a bit the other week, but
I did see that, yeah, yeah.Yeah, yeah. But as a whole, it
seems like maturation, I thinkis the main one. But I think
that that does make sense,considering the length of time
stays in the barrel.
David Levine (55:16):
And so just to give people a little more
insight into you know who youare, who's making these posts. I
thought I'd end this one alittle bit differently, a little
early to ask my usual legacyquestions. So I'm going to do a
little differently, which is,what do you drink?
Unknown (55:34):
Oh, well, as this is a whiskey podcast, I'll start with
the whiskey to begin with. But Iam going through a phase at the
moment where I love some nicetriple distilled Irish whiskeys
at the moment, the the smoothones that That for me is for me.
(55:58):
People love peatiness. Peoplelove spiciness. I love
smoothness, and I'm drinking oneat the moment. What's it called?
Green spot from a lovely Irishdistillery. It's fantastic.
Recommend it if you haven'ttried it, and if you have tried
it, you know why I love it? It'sfantastic.
David Levine (56:21):
Do you love the spots? Yeah, yeah.
Unknown (56:24):
But then wider than that, God, I love a lot of
things. I really quite like myliqueurs. Limoncello is my
favorite. Every time I go toItaly, I drink too much in the
winter. I absolutely love portand Sherry. I love to experiment
(56:47):
and I love trying new things.But yeah, I'd say those are my
favorites. I'd say,
David Levine (56:55):
Love it. Love it. Yeah. I mean, the spots are
great. The liqueurs definitelydon't get as much love as much
love as they need to in theport, and the port and cherry
don't get as much love as theyneed to. That's usually used as
most of it's going into justseasoning the casks now, as
opposed to being drunk. So
Unknown (57:13):
we're I love it. I'm currently reading like, a 500
page book on how ports produced.And could not be happier.
David Levine (57:22):
I I honestly might want the title of that, because
that sounds nerdy enough for meto want to look into, hey, if
it's going to be used to finishsome of my whiskey that I'm
going to be drinking, I want toknow where why it's made, and
why I tend to like the Ruby morethan the tawny, yeah. But
anyway, so this will be,hopefully, the first of many
interviews that you do. I'm justreally appreciative again, from
(57:45):
both the consumer and a whiskeynerd side of of what you're
doing here, and really glad Icould have you on to talk about
it with you've got multiple lifeevents coming up. So is that to
squeeze this in before that aswell?
Unknown (58:00):
Yeah, it's going to be a busy couple of weeks Exactly.
David Levine (58:03):
So with that, hang on with me for just a minute
after I finished the recording.John, again, thank you for
coming on, for talking aboutyour passion here. What is
driving you to create thiscontent that we're enjoying and
hopefully more will enjoy, andI'll be definitely sharing links
to not only your profile to thedistilled edit so people can
(58:24):
subscribe and follow. Pleaselike follow and subscribe the
podcast if you're listening andif you haven't already. It makes
a huge difference for us, andI'll see you all next week. You.
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