Hear in Spirit

Tracie Franklin has been an invaluable and well-recognized member of the whisky community for years, but more than that, she’s been a pioneer and a voice for change and diversity. She is a remarkable human being, possessing not only an savant like appreciation of the spirit and industry, but to reuse the word in another context, possessing a spirit infectious in not only the way it challenges you to think, but in the way it challenges you to smile.

Raj Peter Bhakta, founder of Whistle Pig has started a love affair with a different brown liquor - Armagnac.  In typical Bhakta style, this is no regular brandy. Bhakta 50 is a premium spirit inspired by idea of revival. A great story teller, Raj takes me through his time on the Apprentice and getting fired by Trump, his failed run for Congress which ended with his crossing the Mexican/American boarder on an elephant, and he even gives me a never before heard story about the legend Dave Pickerell.

Maryland Rye was once one of the country’s earliest and most sought after expressions of regionalized whiskeys. A flavor profile, a mash bill largely lost to us, but Sagamore Spirit of Baltimore is among a select group of American distilleries attempting to revive this once dominant category.  One of the founders, Brian Treacy, joins me to taste our way through the line and talk about the history of Sagamore Spirits and the amazing but elusive category he and his team have dedicated themselves to restori

Brian Crompton AKA @Bookersbrye is essentially running a whisky-based variety show out of his kitchen where he personally performs some combination of sketches, balancing acts, trick shots and dirty poetry every day for your viewing and drinking pleasure.  And what’s more, the toughest trick he’s ever pulled off, he’s been able to figure out to how to do this full-time.

No sooner had Sam Green - author of the new book "A Beginner's Guide to Whiskey" - scheduled our interview did the world change dramatically and face to face interviews became impossible, but we fought through the logistics. Sam recorded his track in L.A. and I recorded mine in Orange County, and considering that, I’m pretty pleased with the results.  Sam and I discuss his introduction to the ultimate spirit as well as his take on the controversial Whiskey Sommelier program.

Denver Cramer of Denver & Liely & Koray Özdemir of Paul John are two of my guests at my first ever Whiskey Roundtable in San Francisco recorded live at the Nihon Whisky Lounge. We discuss top whiskey drinking glasses including Turkish tea glasses as well as the rise of celebrity ownership and endorsement in the whisky world.

Karl Schoen grew up around whisky & entrepreneurship, so when he struck out on his own, naturally he’d gravitate toward scotch. The Perfect Fifth is the brand he founded, & he let me try the award winning scotch he’s bottled, but he didn’t drink it with me.  You can find out why this on this episode of Hear in Spirit.

Plus, the mastermind behind the scotchminisz IG account invited me to his home to view his collection of over 3k bottle of mini single malt scotch whiskies.

Dan Garrison of Garrison Bros Whiskey stopped by the studio on a recent trip to Southern California to tell me about how his Texas Bourbon brand was an idea born out the of pain and frustration of watching his years of dedication to another industry vanish overnight.

Plus, Gina Ruccione is a food and beverage industry alum as well as the host of a popular podcast called “A Series of Unfortunate Dates”. She hosts me for an Old Fashioned Conversation.

#3 in my founders series, a continued evolution. In this episode, I’m talking with Matt Hoffman of Westland Distillery of Seattle who brings the ideas of "terroir" and "regionalization" full circle & explains how these 2 concepts are not only linked from a geological sense, but for Westland, a cultural sense - the Pacific Northwest.

Wally Dyer @scotchnsniff joins me to give us the story of how he got into whiskey, the origins of his YouTube channel and to discuss topics ranging from the peat of Orkney to the Russian oligarchy, which has nothing at all to do with whiskey, but it comes up way too many times.  We also go live on IG WHILE recording the podcast.  It’s a lot of fun trying to keep up with this guy.

Wally's weekly show with @drinkingcaveman is called Whiskey Untitled and can be seen every Tuesday night on YouTube.