Amanda and I could not have done this without each other. We bring unique perspectives that compliment one another. I had a vision of accomplishing what the best single malt distilleries in the world do back home in Texas. Amanda was the one who could see all the steps along the way. For example, I greatly enjoy fly fishing and came up with the idea of cooling our condensers to the same temperature as the River Spey (a common cooling source for distilleries in Speyside, Scotland). Amanda was able to plumb and insulate our cooling tank to make this idea into a reality!
The same can be said for many changes made at the distillery. I’ll spend months researching an idea, and we’ll sometimes even travel to see things first hand. But before anything is ever implemented, Amanda will setup a small & medium scale blind testings. A perfect example of this was trying all sorts of costal sea salts. At any detectable level they contributed “off” flavors (so much for my big idea!). In the early days, there were endless varietals of barely arriving in from every region of the UK and Ireland to undergo testing. Now, there’s always a barrel stave that needs to be sawed down to the correct surface ratio for her next experiment.
This is a dream for us. We gave up our jobs to invest everything we had in finding the highest quality ingredients the world over. There was a lot of sweat equity, and continues to be, to get this off the ground. And between Amanda & I, we can assure you they’ll never be any of the gimmicks found far too often on the shelves today. I’ll continue to research and collaborate with great distillers and vintners… to whom I am indebted. While Amanda will keep our innovations in check through her rigorous testings and engineering.
Producing the best tasting, highest quality American Single Malt in our favorite styles is the ultimate goal.
—Nick