Dear Curious Reader,

When I switched career from contemporary art to the art of spirits making, former acquaintances were sometimes coming to me with a lot of surprise in their eyes and ask “are you a medium now?”.

The first time I heard that, I was quite astonished as I never thought of the homonymy between spirits and medium.
Ghosts are definitely not part of my world and divination neither.
However when I am not writing about liquors, most of my activities are...

Dear curious reader,

You like learning about spirits, that is why you are here.
And you are not taking yourself very seriously, this is also why you are here.
And you do not want to suffer while  you learn, you want to enjoy it.
This is what spiritsfully is about.

And this is also what Grain d'Ivresse is about and this is the website and You tube channel I'd like to draw your attention upon today.
It is in French but with English subtitles.

I love what they do as I love their light and unpretentious tone, I feel it totally complements what I'm doing here with spiritsfully as they draw emphasis on the cocktail world and the bar scene (which I decided not to cover) and they go and look outside of the spirits world from tea to wines or beer and coffee.

Why do not go and check it right now?

Same but different was the name of the Hall where many craft spirits were gathered at Prowein this year. The “Same but different" Hall welcome new trends,, or innovations in the wine and spirits world at Protein since 2015. And this year it was “craft”. 
There were still many brands (think cognac) in the French Hall. If you were into spirits this year, better have brought good running shoes to go from one hall to the other, even if anyway this is the only way to survive Prowein. A lot of water and good shoes.

But the question is: How was it?

Dear curious reader,

Destille returned March 3rd and 4th, 2018. It was one of the coldest weekend of the year in Berlin but the warmest spirits connoisseurs of the city all joined.
Here is spiritsfully's snapshots.

Lately at the remarkable Feminist Food Club of Berlin, I discussed how the way we speak about drinks is still very full of stereotypes and what we can do about it.
In 2017 ? Yes, in 2017.

Because if men and women palates are not different, the choices of drinks according to gender are still very much made by social norms and expectations. And it makes no sense !

This is probably why it was the topic of many conversations in the industry's gathering lately (great talk about it at the last Paris Cocktail Week last June or at Bar Convent in October).

Anyway both my short talk and this as well short text will, I hope, contribute to unravel how the idea of gendered drinks is very much embbeded in our society, why and what we can do about it.

But first : a video !

Dear curious reader, 

IS THERE SUCH A THING AS URBAN DISTILLERIES OR ARE THEY URBAN LEGENDS? 
To find out : let’s start right now with a new series focusing of URBAN DISTILLERIES, and let’s start with BROOKLYN.

Dear curious reader,

You want to learn and discover more about the world of spirits and fine liquors, and you’re also on a budget, or/and you want a moderate (recommended) consumption of alcool ? What to do ? Try BOXES ?
But there are so many boxes so which one to choose ?
Follow the guide !

Dear curious reader,

Wonder about craft spirits ? How would you define it though ? Is it handmade or made in smaller batch ? Is it reviving traditions and reawakening all spirits? What is exactly that makes the definition starts and ends ? As far as I know most of the industrially manufactured spirits need a human’s hand. And as far as I also (unfortunately) know, many “craft spirits” as being the brainchild of rich guys who give 10K to another distillery another 5K for great graphic design and cleaver marketing launch and call themselves crafts (See the great interview of Theo Ligthart about that subject HERE)

The definition is unclear, often claimed by the wrong persons for the wrong products hiding artisan spirits makers and real innovators. So where and how  will the future be ? My intuition is ….

Dear curious reader,

And so started the POUR symposium at the Cocktail Spirits Paris 2017 this year (to learn about Pour this is HERE)

"If the bar scene always looks up to the gastronomie for examples, in terms of diversity and openness to address social issue, it is slightly more advanced….”

Dear curious reader,

I promised you last week to give you a glimpse of a presentation I did at Destille Berlin on April 1st, 2017. I talked about women distillers. And I started back to 1200 BC...