interview
In the last five years, there are few American companies that have carved out a spirits niche quite like Found North. A non-distilling producer, the brand specializes in blended Canadian whisky at cask strength, which often includes a wide range of aged components in addition to intricate cask finishes. Perhaps most impressively, they’ve grown by…
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Tiffanie Barriere is on a hot streak. After building her name as a mixologist and the driving force behind one of the world’s most beloved airport bars — Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta’s One Flew South — she spread her wings to the media realm, which included a guest judge appearance on Netflix’s Drink Masters. In 2023, she…
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Marianne Eaves likes to stay busy. Since she left Castle & Key Distillery — where she was widely regarded as the first American woman to hold the title of Master Distiller — Eaves has consulted and blended for a wide range of distilleries and non-distilling producers. Indeed, her Eaves Blind series has seen her partner…
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Aspiring distillers have been known to take big risks to get into the industry. For husband and wife team Marsh & Jan Mokhtari, that moment came in 2016, when they sold their house to finance Golden State Distillery and start a new gin brand. After hundreds of batches, they launched Gray Whale Gin with a…
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Alan Kennedy is a busy man these days. An experienced sommelier, chef, and bar manager, Kennedy is also a relatively new father in addition to spending much of his time on the road for spirits work. In June 2023, he was announced as Redemption’s new Master Blender, a crucial role for a brand originally built…
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Whiskey is (usually) a slow business. New categories develop only sporadically as distillers explore corners of the market while introducing consumers to new flavor profiles. While emerging categories like American Single Malts and Indiana Rye are creeping into our drinking vocabularies, one relatively new category is getting its moment in the sun with a new…
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As Benedicte Hardy likes to tell it, when she took the helm of Hardy Cognac nearly 30 years ago, Cognac was in a very different place compared to today. There was little international education around the spirit. A post-millennium cocktail revolution had yet to break the Cognac from its perception as an after-dinner drink for…
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In his 26-plus years in distilling, George Teichroeb has seen whisky booms in two different countries. Now the General Manager of Alberta Distillers — known in the U.S. for their Alberta Premium 100% Rye releases — Teichroeb also spent years in Kentucky under the tutelage of figures like Fred Noe. Jim Beam and Alberta Distillers…
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Fifty years ago, most French enjoyed rosé during summer holidays. And the rest of the year, it was a dead category, forgotten for months until the beaches opened once more. At least, that’s according to Olivier Fayard, a second-generation winemaker at Sainte Marguerite en Provence. Fayard’s father started with three hectares to produce his own…
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A hotter climate will impact every branch of the beverage world, but nowhere is the change being felt more quickly than wine. Warming temperatures, new pests, and extreme weather events have already pushed winemakers to rethink how they approach everything from vine cultivation to blending. That’s especially challenging for heritage winemakers at scale, as they…
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