In this American, singular, and distinctly malty conversation with Tyler Pederson (@cerealdistiller), master distiller at Westland Distillery, some of the topics we discuss include:

• How Tyler came to be an American Single Malt distiller and what it’s like to develop a resilient supply chain of farmers and malt houses that can sustain itself year after year.

• Why distillers use the “hot steep” method to conduct sensory analysis of different barley strains, plus a hands-on demo where we compare three different samples from Westland’s barley portfolio.

• The difference between a “single malt whiskey” versus a true single varietal whiskey, plus what it takes to get a farmer to take a risk cultivating a varietal they’ve never grown before.

• And what the rules and standards submitted for approval to the TTB by the American Single Malt Whiskey Commission could mean for the styles and varieties of spirits that will be available on shelves and behind bars for the foreseeable future.

• Along the way, we pursue other interesting tangents, like why you don’t see much barley growing in the South, how the Japanese concept of Kaizen plays into running a distillery, Tyler’s personal thoughts on whether or not Bigfoot is real, and much, much more.

It’s entirely possible that this hot steep experiment and side-by-side tasting is the first time the process has been laid out and recorded for the public to see outside of a distillery or a brewery or a malting house. And because I’m super excited about that, I carefully recorded the whole process, and that video will be live on our YouTube channel within an hour or so of when this episode hits the podcast apps.

Featured Cocktail: Malted American Trilogy

This episode’s featured cocktail is the Malted American Trilogy. To make it, you’ll need:

• 1 oz American Single Malt Whiskey

• 1 oz Applejack

• A couple dashes of Orange bitters

• Some kind of dark, brown sugar - either a quarter-to-half an ounce of rich demerara or panela syrup, or a dark brown sugar cube.

Combine these ingredients in a cocktail mixing glass with ice - and of course, if you’re using that sugar cube, do your muddling with the bitters and a splash of soda water first. Give everything a good stir, mixing until the drink is properly diluted and chilled, then strain into a rocks glass over a single large cube, garnish with an orange twist, and enjoy.

The American Trilogy cocktail was developed at the famous NYC cocktail bar, Little Branch, in 2006, and it traditionally employs rye whiskey, rather than American Single Malt. But simple cocktail formats like this modified Old Fashioned are a great opportunity to test the character of a whiskey - so why not give it a shot with American Single Malt (which is beginning to play the role today that rye whiskey played when the drink was invented)?

In this RTD redux with Keli Rivers, David T. Smith, and Joe Barber, some of the topics we discuss include:

• Emerging trends in the post-pandemic RTD (ready to drink) and RTS (ready to serve) cocktail space, including more bottled RTS SKUS, continued innovation by small producers, and marked improvements across the board in stability and flavor.

• Thoughts on the very real limitations of launching an RTD, such as flavor drift, limited off-premise shelf space, and market saturation.

• Increased adoption of RTDs by event venues and airlines, including a stunning demo of flight attendant choreography by David.

• A breezy romp through some of the more “populist” categories of RTDs, including boozy iced teas and vibrantly colored mermaid lemonades.

• And some discussion about the pros and cons of using a malt alcohol (i.e. fermented) base, versus employing distilled spirits in RTDs and RTSs.

• Along the way, we explore the use cases for “urinal cake” as a tasting note, the color “bleen” (coming to a crayon box near you), a spicy debate about sidecars and dividends, and much, much more.

This is a light-hearted departure from our normal, buttoned up interview format, but don’t let our casual rapport and bubbling excitement fool you: there’s a ton of great insights here for anyone who’s interested in producing or enjoying RTDs in the year 2024 and beyond.

In this Seattle cocktail retrospective with Paul Clarke, Editor in Chief of Imbibe Magazine, some of the topics we discuss include:

• How Paul began his drinks journey in the early days of the cocktail renaissance and became a regular at the ZigZag Cafe, a Seattle cocktail den that rose to prominence thanks, in large part, to a bartender named Murray Stenson.

• The fascinating gravitational pull that Murray exerted, both within professional hospitality circles and on the community of cocktail enthusiasts who congregated at his bar.

• How Murray resurrected The Last Word cocktail from the pages of a forgotten 1950s cocktail book and why his quest for the weird, wonderful, and esoteric extended far beyond cocktails.

• We also examine hospitality through the lens of an old-school bartender, someone who understood that the people are more important than the drinks - and we try to collect some takeaways for young bartenders who are just starting out on their hospitality journey.

• Along the way, we consider the merits of large vinyl collections and a lifelong fascination with music, the simple pleasure of spilling “your unique weirdness” to the bartender after a couple drinks, why Murray was “too cool” for awards ceremonies, and much, much more.

Paul and I pulled up a seat during our recent spirits judging stint at the American Distilling Institute’s annual International Spirits Competition to explore the legacy of one of the cocktail renaissance’s most beloved bartenders: Murray Stenson.

Upon his passing in September of 2023, Murray was memorialized for the major part he played in bringing The Last Word cocktail back onto the world stage after decades of obscurity, but he also played a massively important role in stewarding the overall cocktail culture of Seattle for many years.

So this conversation, like its cocktail namesake, is an equal parts mix of history, elegy, technique, and idiosyncrasy.

Featured Cocktail - The Industry Sour

This episode’s featured cocktail is the Industry Sour. To make this Last Word variant, you’ll need either ¾ oz or 1 oz each of the following:

• Fernet Branca (A minty, alpine amaro from Italy)

• Green Chartreuse

• Simple Syrup

• Fresh Squeezed lime juice

Combine these ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice, give ‘em a good, hard shake until the drink is properly chilled and diluted, then strain into a stemmed cocktail glass and enjoy.

Developed by St. Louis bartender Ted Kilgore in 2011, I think of the Industry Sour as an offspring of The Last Word, designed, as its name implies, specifically for nerdy cocktail bartenders who are “in the know” about esoteric ingredients like Chartreuse and Fernet.

In this case, the Fernet kind of stands in for the gin, which works (since it’s a dry botanical liqueur). And instead of the double-shot of sweetness AND nuttiness from the usual Maraschino liqueur, the Industry Sour takes a half-step back with the use of plain ol’ simple syrup--something that any good cocktail bartender will have within arm’s reach

For me, the only real shame is that the pearlescent green color of The Last Word is replaced by a kind of muddy brown in this riff - but again, it seems fitting. Anyone can walk up to something as beautiful as The Last Word and understand they’ve got something special, but it takes a true cocktail acolyte to really appreciate the complex, aggressive symphony contained in the brownish soup of the Industry Sour.