Production & Process

Are We Ready for Accelerated Aging?

“There is hope that 1-year-old whisky may soon rival 16-year bonded liquor in taste and smell and at a vastly lower cost. … Chemists are glad Prohibition is over so they no longer have to listen to bootleggers for...

Read Like a Pro

A list of essential books recommended by ADI president and founder Bill Owens: Bitterman’s Field Guide to Bitters and Amari: 500 Bitters; 50 Amari; 123 Recipes for Cocktails, Food & Homemade Bitters by Mark Bitterman. Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2015. ISBN 1449470696. Bitters and...

Leafy Lemon

Lemon, like vanilla and salt, is an ingredient so ubiquitous in food and drinks that it is sometimes more apparent in its absence, manifested as something lacking, because it is such a good harmonizer of disparate ingredients and adds...

What the Heck Is Fast Fourier Molecular Rotation Spectroscopy? 

The Distilling Research Grant (distillingresearch.org) Advisory Committee recently funded research into “A Novel Real Time Quantitative Analytical Spectroscopy Technique for Analyzing All the Congeners Emerging from a Distillation Process” by Robin Felder, Ph.D. If you don’t have a doctorate in chemistry, you may be...

Spiritual Training: How to Get a Formal Education in Distilled Spirits

In the spirits field, it’s rare to find someone with a formal education in distilling. While many master distillers have a strong chemistry background, most have learned the bulk of the job by working at a larger distiller, from...

What’s in a Glass?

Sensory perception is such an intangible thing. There are so many variables at play in evaluating a spirit, from the emotional and environmental factors to our own inherent biases, that it is a wonder that there is any kind...
Karen Hoskin of Montanya Distillers

Taking Sustainability Deep

In this day and age of jargon and dubious news, we hear terms such as green, sustainable, carbon footprint, renewable and eco-friendly daily. We rarely share a definition for these terms. A company might implement one sustainability practice and then...

Native Nuts: Liqueurs and Bitters

As autumn arrives in America, one of the great seasonal pleasures is seeing a scattering of nuts across a path and looking up to see the tree that made them. Nut liqueurs and nut bitters might seem opposite expressions,...

Math or Money and The Electric Sombrero of Death

Of all the things in a distillery that could spark (pun intended) a fire or explosion, electrical systems and equipment are at the top of the list, followed closely by static electricity and open flames. The solution to the...

“The One Thing I Didn’t Build Myself Was the Still”

It was nearly six months to the day since he had pushed his burning body across the floor to the fire  extinguisher, and Peter Martorelli was about to begin distilling again. With his hand on the switch to his...