Eric kicks off 2026 with an audio essay rant targeted at the ham-fisted "percentage" math that people use to answer the question:

"How much of a whiskey's flavor comes from the barrel?"

In the censored words of George Carlin: "It's all BS, and it's bad for ya." To demonstrate this, we sift through GC-MS whiskey sample results, human neurobiology, and behavioral economics.

In the end, it's a poorly posed question invented to solve a problem that doesn't exist, and it colors our expectations about flavor in harmful ways.

This time around, we'll be taking a look at drinking rituals from around the world.

A few months back, my friend Reece Sims asked me to write an article about drinking rituals for her new publication, The Flavour Report. She has graciously agreed to let me read the article on-air and give you all a bit of a "Director's Cut" version of the article, entitled: Sacred Serves: The Rituals That Make Drinking Human.

For those of you who have the opportunity to enjoy a few drinks with family and friends this holiday season, I hope some of these thoughts about the importance of ritual, hospitality, gratitude, and the sometimes radical act of coming together can help you to appreciate some of those moments even more.

Please remember, as always, to drink responsibly and experiment boldly.

Additional Resource: Video of Queimada Ritual (WARNING: DO NOT ATTEMPT AT HOME)

Eric interviews Toby Maloney (@tobycocktail) about his award-winning book, The Bartender's Manifesto.

Some of the topics covered in this conversation include:

• How Toby thinks about cocktail development, including the importance of inspiration, intention, comfort, and curiosity
• The importance of curated attention in the creative process, allowing you to notice aspects of the world around you that can be used as inspiration and structural components for cocktail building
• A live cocktail development case study, where Toby and Eric riff on a menu prompt and create their very own custom cocktail worthy of inclusion on a seasonal menu.
• Along the way, they explore the Fall-friendly flavors of pisco and tequila, the strange betrayal of curried potatoes, the speculative physics of anti-gravity cocktails, and much, much more.