Whenever I’m at a dinner party, function, or just trying to have a quiet drink in the local pub, as a matter of discourse I’ll be asked “what do you do for a living?” by someone I barely know making small talk. After the long line of questioning and the remarks of “Oh, I like Rum!”, the topic is eventually laid to rest on “If you ever need a taster! Haha…”
The hundreds of times I’ve been through this conversation makes me realise; distilling is shrouded in mystery, lore and romanticism – It’s one of those industries where the reality isn’t well known because, well, marketing.
I’m here to give you a glimpse into the reality of making spirits (and the majority of my conversations); the good, the bad, the sticky, by answering some of the most common questions.
Perhaps I should print a copy of this and just hand it out next time I’m asked what I do… hmm…
“So how is Rum different to say, Vodka?”
Spirits are very clearly defined in legislation (mostly EU, but some spirits have PGI’s and other protections), and are strict on what you can and can’t do whilst keeping the name, such as Rum.
Rum has to be made from Cane sugar or a derivative – usually molasses, a bi-product of sugar refining which is thick and black as syrupy. There are lots of other rules, but this is the main one. If you’re really interested, click here.
“How are you not permanently drunk?”
Maybe I am…?
In all seriousness, there is a big difference between drinking and tasting.
In production I am regularly tasting the spirit as it’s coming off the stills – this is usually around 85% ABV, too. You wouldn’t want to drink that, but it’s fine to taste. I dip my pinkie finger into the laminar flow of liquid gold and pop it into my mouth. The high strength alcohol evaporates on the tongue and there is a burst of all the flavours that fill my mouth, but I never actually swallow any alcohol.
When product and batch testing, I sip very, very small amounts, and take a good amount of time over it.
“Can you get it totally wrong?”
Yes, and that usually means causing people serious harm.
It’s one thing to get it wrong and make a spirit that just isn’t tasty – that’s self-rectifying in that nobody will buy your booze and you probably won’t have a job for very long – It’s another to get it fundamentally wrong and be temporarily blinding customers with the wrong alcohols, sending them for a stomach pump with product that’s bottled at the wrong strength or perhaps giving them cancer with ethyl carbamate!
Those last few are a little ‘scaremonger-ish’ and very unlikely. There is good reason why we have food standards, trading standards & environmental health organizations that are set up to make sure these things doesn’t happen, and believe me, there is a lot of red tape in the spirits industry.
“Is that why alcohol is a controlled substance?”
Somewhat.
Ethanol (booze) is a poison that attacks the nervous system and effects our judgement, reasoning, balance etc – makes us DRUNK.
My job is essentially to make the poison as tasty as possible, and ensure it’s not too poisonous.
Because of the effects on people’s health (and because they know people enjoy it) the government controls alcohol. This makes my job a mathematical challenge as every month, HMRC want to know what has happened to every drop of alcohol I’ve made, so they can tax it, and oh boy do they tax it (and then tax the tax)!
“Sounds like a nightmare.”
Yeah, pretty much – but most fun things are, right? Imagine trying to run a skydiving school!
Once you’ve jumped through all the hoops and got the pieces of the puzzle in the right place, it’s easy to keep sight on the whole picture.
It’s also nice to have clear boundaries in which to get inventive, just as the legislation boundaries referred to earlier.
“Surely it’s a great job though, right?”
Whilst it’s not the romantic scene most people would think of (big hot machines, dripping sweat, scolding, compressors) it is still pretty damn cool, and good fun for the most part. The working day is varied, there’s plenty of manual work, maths, record keeping, tasting, thinking, mopping, desperately trying not to spill things, more mopping… Come to think of it, there is rather a lot of cleaning – it could be worse though, I could be a brewer (if you know, you know).
I take great joy in the creative aspect of writing a recipe, honing the flavours and coming up with a product that is delicious and that I can be truly proud of.
The best bit is seeing your product on shelves in shops, in the optics in bars and witnessing people ordering something you made and enjoying it. That, I will never tire of.
“If you ever need a taste tester!”
Haha… ha..
