SPIRITS 

can you talk a little bit about your background in spirits and how it connects to the ones in the selection massale portfolio? When I was coming up in the spirits world 10 or so years ago prior to joining SM, the conversation was mostly focused around Bourbon, or other whisk(e)y, with some nerds going crazy over amaro, gin, and Cognac/Armagnac. But really, if it wasn't brown or from Kentucky, it was a difficult sell. Well, except for vodka. Don't get me wrong, I like Bourbon on occasion, but since I was into wine first it was a little hard to wrap my head around why a product that was so place-less was so exciting. People would talk about the rickhouses and humidity and barrel toast and all that, but to me ultimately there was nothing romantic about sourcing random GMO corn from God-knows-where, Nebraska, trucking it to Kentucky for processing (if they even did that), then putting it into a charred barrel for five years. Nor did I think there was anything particularly worth talking about the fact that back then the majority of Bourbon on the market was made by just a handful of distilleries; all those brands, with all these stories behind them that are basically made up by a marketing department somewhere. All of this is to say that I found the whole thing pretty boring. So, I suppose the SM spirits portfolio is just a natural extension of my boredom with the majority of the spirits world as a whole. That's why with the spirits we represent I wanted to go off the deep end into exploring whether or not the concept of terroir could be expressed by a spirit and to be able to show that, much like wine, spirits can exist in the world on a human scale and not just by these monolithic, multinational brands. Those are the two driving ideas behind the lineup. But it's definitely an ongoing investigation with a constantly moving target.

jeff wrote a nice piece on the defense of drinking and I feel like we talked about the joys of subtle inebriation and how sometimes that is left out completely in the conversation around wine/tasting. When thinking about booze do you think there is a different culture around consuming liquor? I really liked Jeff's piece. I do think there is a difference, though it's sort of hard to pin down. And maybe in the US, it's not as apparent from a cultural standpoint as in other countries which makes it that much more difficult. Drinks bring people together, no matter what category, which is an amazing thing. But at the end of the day maybe the real difference is the simple fact that it's much easier to drink a few beers or glasses of wine than it is to drink a few cocktails and therefore the category needs to be considered in a different regard with respect to consumption. There's always just going to be the elephant in the room that drinking liquor is a fast track to going beyond subtle inebriation. I don't know many people that can sit down to dinner and have a few Martinis the way the rest of us would casually pour wine throughout the meal. But when you travel to the places where some of the products, we work with are made, it's a very different outlook on how much you drink and of what. For a metaphor, to me, I guess it's like wine is salt and it's often a necessary ingredient no matter the occasion, while spirits are more like a spice that you need to figure out how to best integrate without allowing it to overpower.

cocktail culture vs. drinking it neat? When thinking about the long history of booze how much do cocktails fit into the storyline of spirits like Puro, Clairin, and even the Menaud Vodka? That's a tough one and is certainly a topic that could be discussed at length. But I'll try to boil it down into a few sentences. 

On one hand, you have spirits like Puro and Clairin. Both these spirits are at once integral to the cultural fabric of Ecuador and Haiti, but they are also looked down upon by a large part of the population as something low-class. If it is consumed at all, historically it's neat with a disk of lime peel, or it's macerated with whatever you want and then generally has some sugar added to it to make it more 'palatable'. These macerations are also used for medicine, depending on the ingredient. Be it fever, stomach pain, or, very commonly, male potency. Whatever ails you, there's always some type of rum/plant concoction to save you. Cocktails made from these products are almost entirely a creation of them being exported, with a few minor exceptions. 

Then you have something like Menaud Vodka, which is part of a category that is drunk the world over, with many places still consuming it neat. But most Americans would never conceive of pouring a stiff one of pure vodka, no mixer. Again, the cocktail culture surrounding one of the most widely known spirit categories stems from it being exported from where it is produced. This Vodka in particular makes a strong case for returning back to drinking something neat or even from the freezer if you feel so inclined. Maybe I wouldn't feel the same way about Grey Goose, but where there's historical precedent, it's best to at least take this into consideration as you would with any drink.

In both cases, cocktails are a much more modern chapter of the story for each spirit. And while that could be said about many spirits in general, these specific categories you mentioned have always gotten a bad rap for one reason or another. I love a great Daiquiri as much as the next person, but ultimately these are spirits to be drunk neat to experience them as perhaps they were intended to be enjoyed

What if any is the through line in the spirits book?  We really strive to take our views on wine and extrapolate them onto spirits. It doesn't always fit neatly and I'm sure there are a bunch of times when we are contradicting ourselves, but the basic questions that drive our search for new products are always why can't a spirit reflect the place it's made and the person that is making it? Why can't we talk about farming when we talk about, say, rum or vodka? Why can't a distiller make a more transparent, unadulterated product? These really steer the direction of the book and everything else that comes after.

It seems that logistics play a big role in spirits importing. Is it more complicated than wine and if so, why? It's a bit more complicated for a couple reasons. First, the TTB has all sorts of rules for categories, and you have to submit a formula/recipe for the products for many of those categories, or especially if there is a lack thereof. I think it mostly has to do with different ingredients interacting with a high-alcohol spirit creating some potentially dangerous substances that you can't ingest. There're all sorts of ingredients that are barred from alcohol production, even seemingly harmless ones. A bad batch of wine generally won't be able to kill you, but a bad batch of booze very well could. Other than those types of restrictions, it can also depend on how high the ABV is on a particular product. If it's over a certain threshold, then it falls into hazardous goods since it's flammable and that definitely hinders the logistics process. Other than that, it's about the same as wine.

Selection Massale now has eight spirits producers in our book...what are some of the joys of working with spirits producers in a book that is primarily wine? Just being able to keep an open mind about the products we import, and sell is a big part of why it's refreshing to work with spirits. Also, being able to work with people in countries that aren't even on the radar for wine production will never stop being exciting. It's a cultivation of new knowledge that will forever be ongoing.