Decoding Cocktails Chris LeBeau

Jeremy Wochnick and Erin Nysse work for The Barrel Mill (website, Instagram), a barrel cooperage in Minnesota. We met when they were exhibiting at the American Craft Spirits Association’s conference in Denver this year and had a great conversation. They agreed to sit down to talk all things barrels, infusion spirals, sustainability, and more.
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While I am pretty darn educated on spirits and cocktails, I am a geek for unaged spirits, so I don’t know as much about aged spirits as I should. Thankfully, Erin and Jeremy gave me a crash course.
I used one of their infusion spirals to attempt a reposado-ish tequila. It says the spiral will impart flavor for roughly two weeks, but I found that after 24-ish hours it had taken on nice aromas and flavor without running over the tequila’s vegetal and earthy essence.
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Last week Mexican authorities raided the home and office of Tequila Matchmaker (TM), also known as the Additive Free Alliance. For many years, their forum has been a place for agave distillate fanatics to visit along with their work to certify tequilas that are free of approved additives that are not required to be listed on a bottle’s label.
Their work has begun to affect sales of major brands that are not shown to be additive-free. One agave influencer, @tequilajaybaer, cited 9 and 14 percent drops in sales of Casamigos and Don Julio respectively (see it here).
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The situation is complex. Not simple. Some people say that the push for additive-free tequila is overshadowing other issues that are important like sustainable farming practices, labor wages, preservation of Mexican heritage, and more, but everyone seems to agree that Grover and Scarlet Sanschagrin of TM have been forces for good in agave. While it cannot be fully linked, it is likely the government has taken such dramatic action because powerful forces have seen their income impacted.
* Vinepair article documenting the raid
* Emma Janzen wrote a bit on the Matchmaker situation and has said more is coming.
* The history of tequila
* Support Grover and Scarlet here


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André Darlington (website, Instagram) is the author of 12 books, including the one we discussed, Cowboy Cocktails.
In 2020, André became the first cocktail writer to circumnavigate the globe since Charles H. Baker a hundred years ago. A record of his journey became Booze Cruise: A Tour of the World’s Essential Mixed Drinks.
A few things worth noting that I found fun from our conversation
• There was heavy Spanish and Mexican influence in cowboy culture. For example, the term I’ve always heard as “ten-gallon hat”, is actually “tan galan”, which means very handsome.
• In many western towns there was no shortage of luxurious goods (champagne, Grand Marnier, Chartreuse, etc.) because as people came into large amounts of money, they craved indulgences to spend them on. Pairing this with long periods of deprivation while cowboys were out on the plains, they often liked sweeter drinks. Modern-day staples like sugar and eggs were also luxuries.
• While whiskey was popular on the plains, mezcal (Tequila did not become an official designation until l1974) was common because agave is more at home in dry climates.


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Heyward Gualandi works for Root Shoot Malting (website, Instagram), a 5th-generation family farm in Loveland, Colorado. We sat down to talk about their investments that helped them leave the commodity-farming market, which is good for the business but also allows them grow more flavorful crops, which ultimately creates better tasting beer, whiskey, and food.
There is a lot of talk these days about the impact of terroir on agave and sugarcane distillates. Root Shoot wants us to know that whiskey and beer are influenced by it as well. We just haven’t farmed our grains in a way that has allowed the land to play as large of an impact. They and others are working to change that story. Working with a small farm also gives the brewer/distiller more control and visibility into the process as opposed to buying from a large wholesaler.
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As part of their commitment to the land and the future they’ve had a conservation easement placed on their land to ensure it remains farm land. Watch the short documentary produced about it and their farm.
* The grain flavor wheel that was mentioned.
* More on regenerative agriculture
* The Rye Resurgence Project
* For me, this conversation has many parallels with the interview I had with Blue Hill Farm.
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Marten Lodewijks is the Director of Consulting for the Americas for IWSR (website). So what is IWSR? What do they do? As their website says, “For over 50 years, IWSR has been the leading source of data on the global beverage alcohol market.”
We discussed the importance of data, analysis, and where the beverage industry might be headed. We also discussed the importance of not allowing data to cause analysis paralysis and the reminder that data is never perfect.
We discussed two trends that have been at play for the past twenty-plus years. Marten was quick to point out that trends have lots of nuance, so they should be studied, but also not taken as doctrine.
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* Health & Wellness: people have been and continue to be more aware of what they put into their bodies. This has led to concerns about additives, calories, and overall levels of drinking.
* With this comes the growth of the low and no-alcohol drink movements. As things often change from one generation to the next, it has been shown that younger generations are not as engaged with alcohol as a category.
* Marten and I briefly discussed the rise in Cannabis consumption. I mused how many people are simply trading one mind-altering substance for another. Marten says that data historically shows that cannabis users are lower income, but anecdotally on my end, many of the cannabis users I know do quite well financially, and are using those products much more now, and booze less than they used to.
* Premiumization: while they are not tied at the hip, premiumization and health & wellness can bounce off one another. As people aspire to be healthier, one signal for this, although not always true, is that more expensive products are often, or are at least thought to be made with better ingredients. Marten’s comments about people deciding to “Drink less but drink better” echoed those of Nicolas Palazzi of PM Spirits.
When I told Marten that a retailer in St. Louis, The Wine and Cheese Place, had begun displaying the additive-free tequila information created by Tequila Matchmaker, and that had notably shifted sales away from some of the beloved big brands he said, “I don’t doubt it.”
For me, there are a few important takeaways for smaller brands and bars
* Turn your wait staff, bartenders, or sales team into survey administrators. You already know how much you’re selling, taking time to ask customers or retailers a question or two to gain more data, may help you make better decisions.
* Turn questions into hypotheses. Marten pointed out that questions almost always lead to more questions. Turn a question into a hypothesis and then test it or use it to challenge your thinking.
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Chris Tunstall co-founded A Bar Above with his wife Julia in 2013. They were early into the online content game with their YouTube channel and broke into the podcast space in 2014, the same year they released the first online Mixology Certification course. They’ve gone on to create several other classes on subjects like batching, syrups, infusions, and more.
In 2016, they moved into the barware world, designing and manufacturing tools that looked great and more importantly, didn’t fail (or “suck”, my word) during the middle of service. Chris pointed out that because of manufacturing faults, things as basic as the 1 oz mark on a jigger, can at times be off the mark by 20%, which is wild. And even worse, what if the 1 oz mark is spot on but the 1/2 or 1/4 oz mark is? Then one measurement may be off while the other is on.
* Note: during our conversation, Chris mentioned that when he tested jiggers, Oxo was one of the worst offenders when it came to inaccurate measurement markings. Since I use them, I was alarmed. It appears that this error was corrected by the time I purchased mine. I weighed out a 1/4, 1/2, and an ounce worth of water in them in grams on my scale and they checked out.
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He also explained to me why A Bar Above’s original Boston shaker, a combination of a weighted and unweighted shaker, helps keep egg white from foaming out of the shaker, which is a problem I have faced for years.
Another flaw, as Chris pointed out, is how pieces of metal are fused. A Bar Above welds things like their jiggers and shakers completely around the perimeter. Whereas others (see photos) are only spot welded. This makes it easier for them to break or for water to seep in and ultimately corrode the tool from the outside in.
Chris also spent some time talking about the financial and social importance of bars cultivating regulars. They’ll help keep your seats filled and often make your space more welcoming, and when a bartender is in the weeds, regulars can keep each other occupied as opposed to needing to lean on the bartender for social support.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit decodingcocktails.substack.com