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#022 Brewbird - Going Behind The Professional Curtain
655 Plays4 years ago
Brewbird has been making "behind the scenes" youtube videos from commercial distilleries since she went pro around 2 years ago. In that time she has worked at 4 distilleries making a range of different products. Make sure you check out Brewbirds content: https://www.youtube.com/c/MissBrewbird
Chase The Craft Store: https://chasethecraft.com
Adventures In Home Brewing: homebrewing.org/ctc
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Transcript
Sponsorship and Promotions
00:00:00
Speaker
How's it going chasers? I hope you're having a kick-ass week. Today's podcast is brought to you by Adventures in Home Brewing, a sweet brick and mortar, but also online home brewing store in America. For most of you, you're going to find that if you spend over $50, you're going to get free shipping, which is awesome. And you can pick stuff up for the home brewer, home winemaker, home cider maker,
00:00:23
Speaker
And yes, even home distillers as well. They've got consumables, ingredients and equipment, all of which come with a great service, good prices, and like I said, free shipping. So go to homebrewing.org slash CTC, that'll let them know that I sent you and you'll be helping the podcast out a little bit.
00:00:39
Speaker
The podcast is also brought to you today by Gladfield. Awesome malt made right here in New Zealand. I use it all the time. If you haven't seen it yet or you haven't checked it out, you can go to gladfieldmalt.co.nz to find out more. And lastly, the podcast is brought to you. Bye.
00:00:57
Speaker
The Chase the Craft merch store. Honestly guys, the only thing in there right now are the Chase the Craft Glen Can glasses. But we're working on getting a whole bunch more stuff in there as soon as possible.
Meet Brewbird: Distiller and YouTuber
00:01:10
Speaker
Today's guest is interesting. I've been looking forward to talking to this person for some time. She's a professional distiller who's worked at four different distilleries over the last two years.
00:01:19
Speaker
And she transitioned into distilling after training as a brewer. But the interesting thing is, is she's also a YouTuber. And she's been highlighting the interesting things that these distillers and distilleries do behind the scenes as she's been working in those places. Which is pretty freaking cool. That's unique. There's no one else on YouTube doing this. There's no one else that has done it, as far as I can tell. Not in exactly the same way anyway.
00:01:45
Speaker
So that's kind of special and I thought it really deserved to put a little bit of a spotlight on it and see what Brewbird has been up to. All right, ladies and gents, we are here with Miss Brewbird or Brewbird. We were just having a conversation about this beforehand and you can't decide which to roll with. That's right.
00:02:08
Speaker
I'm just worried if the channel is like exists for like a long time and then I can't be like 10 years from now still Miss Groober like that's a little bit weird I should think oh I see what you're saying yeah yeah yeah yeah you don't want to restrict your future options it's like I'm sorry no I love you but I can't because of my youtube channel
00:02:34
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know. I must admit that I have thought of you as Brewbird for a while now, rather than Miss Brewbird. And when I checked into the channel a couple of days ago, just to double check all of the specific information to make sure that I don't say anything silly
Transition to Distilling Content
00:02:55
Speaker
in the podcast, I realized that in fact I was incorrect of it as Miss Brewbird.
00:03:01
Speaker
So I don't know. I think maybe I'll just change it. I think I'll probably change it after this to be honest. Anyway, um, for those of you that, for those listeners out there that don't know who you are, um, maybe let's give people a quick rundown on, on who you are and what you do rather than talking about super niche stuff. That's kind of like, uh,
00:03:26
Speaker
You have a YouTube channel and first got in contact. I think we worked out, it was about a year and a half ago. Yes, in Scotland. I was still in Scotland. Yeah, cool. All right. So maybe, do you want to give us a rundown on what the YouTube channel is, what the YouTube channel is about? And I guess the
00:03:45
Speaker
the larger, you know, how you got into the space, what it is you're doing, why you got a YouTube channel. And yeah, we can go from there. Oh, okay. Okay. Well,
Brewbird's Career Journey
00:03:56
Speaker
that's a lot. Um, yeah. Uh, so
00:04:01
Speaker
I studied brewing in Canada and then afterwards I was very interested in distilling. So I applied to a bunch of distilleries in the UK and then I got a job at a Scotch whisky distillery in Scotland.
00:04:17
Speaker
And I worked there for about a year or so on a contract basis. But then my visa for the UK was two years. So after that, I just decided to keep contacting other distilleries and see if they would hire me. So that's why I've worked at four distilleries in around two years. Yeah. And then originally I had wanted to start a YouTube channel for a while.
00:04:47
Speaker
And I'm like, all my friends say like, oh, you're a really good cook. You're good at baking. So I started like a cooking and baking channel on YouTube.
00:04:58
Speaker
I didn't know this. Interesting. Yeah, yeah, because I really like cooking and baking. And I always have. And so I did that. And the channel did so badly, like it was just sad. And then one day I was at work in the distillery. And I just thought, oh, you know, there's not a lot of videos about, you know, distilleries and like scotch whiskey.
00:05:24
Speaker
So maybe people would be interested in seeing that. So then I filmed one video called A Day in the Life of a Scotch Whiskey Distiller.
00:05:35
Speaker
And then I did a couple more, but then I was still doing cooking videos. And then I only had like 50 subscribers after six months. And so I was pretty disheartened at that number. So I went to the marketing specialist at the distillery. And I said, oh, can you do me a favor? Can you please look at this YouTube channel and see what I need to fix? Like, how can I make it grow?
00:06:02
Speaker
And then he looked at it, and we talked for about an hour. And he said, do you notice that all your distilling videos get a lot more views than any of your cooking videos? If
Finding a Unique Voice in Distilling
00:06:16
Speaker
you're going to be a cooking channel, there's millions and millions of people who want to have a cooking channel on YouTube. And there's buildings full of people where all they do all day long is make cooking videos.
00:06:30
Speaker
So you have to be so special. Whereas you're working in a Scotch whiskey distillery now, like very, very few people allow you to film inside a distillery. So that's super rare. So you should take advantage of that and just pivot and focus to distilling is basically what he told me to do. And then
00:06:56
Speaker
I thought about it for a while. I was quite sad because I was quite invested in the channel. But now, looking back, he was totally right. And I'm glad I was able to make that change. And now I only do distilling videos. Yeah, sometimes it's hard as a... Here's an interesting question, actually, before I get into that. Do you think of yourself as an artist, as a YouTuber? Yes.
00:07:22
Speaker
You do? Interesting. Okay. I've always kind of hated the term artist. I've got a long term disdain for it and I refuse to think of myself as it since the photography did. Anyway, I completely agree with everything you said. And sometimes as a artist, the hardest thing you have to do is kill your babies, right? But sometimes the best thing you can do as an artist is kill your babies. And let's face it, if you're in the cooking space, if you're not binging with Babish, good.
00:07:53
Speaker
You're going to find it pretty hard. There's so many people. Yeah. I mean, you've touched on one of the things that I really wanted to talk to you about though, which is the fact that you have this insane opportunity with access that no one else has. Or people have it, but they have no interest or no skill set or no platform to share it with other people.
00:08:16
Speaker
And looking around on YouTube right now, there is like, I can tell you who is doing this sort of stuff. The people that I've found anyway. And I don't know. I mean, I'm kind of in a similar space. So I feel like I'd find them pretty easily. And that's you. The Whiskey Tribe.
00:08:31
Speaker
who really are a whisky channel that were forced into the distilling space because that's what they, not forced, but they've moved into that space because that's what their crew wanted. So they're still really focused on the whisky itself and kind of ass-hattery and community.
00:08:51
Speaker
and the distillery side of what's been thrown into that a little bit. And Mark from Silver Fox Distillery in Canada who started out as a home distiller and then a YouTuber and the YouTube channel kind of documented him going into a pro distiller.
00:09:11
Speaker
But that's different because he's working for himself and the video seems to have slowed down a little bit now because he's, from what I can tell, been quite successful as a professional commercial distiller. So shout out to you, man. Nice work. So that, like, as far as I can tell, you are completely unique on YouTube, which dude, like, you don't
00:09:37
Speaker
It's really freaking hard to find that, right? At this day and age when everyone wants to be a YouTuber, that's pretty special. Thank you. It really is, it's cool. And the fact that you kind of fell into it, but also worked really freaking hard for it. I don't know, that's cool to me. Anyway, that out of the way. The other thing that I wanted to talk to you about was how do people perceive you
00:10:06
Speaker
when you apply for a job and I'm assuming you mention when you apply for the job that you're going to be recording things, right? Like, do you say that now when you're applying for another job or do you just kind of get the job and then, you know, show up first and ask permission later?
00:10:25
Speaker
Right. So it's not on my CV when I initially reply or send an email out. But then if they reply me and are interested, then I will mention it at that time. Yeah. Yeah, that's really how it works. And they've
Growing Support in Distilleries
00:10:44
Speaker
all been OK with it so far. Yeah.
00:10:48
Speaker
Yeah, I'll say, yeah, like I mentioned before when we talked previously that when I first started the channel, it had like only like about 10 subscribers and they were all my friends and family. So that wasn't really like an advertising opportunity for the distillery. It was just something I wanted to do. So I had vacation days and I would take those vacation days and then I would come into work specifically to film my coworkers.
00:11:17
Speaker
And then the next distillery I went to, I mentioned it before I came, so they were okay with it. But still, I felt quite embarrassed about filming. It's like, oh, I need to get all my work done. And then if there's some extra time, I'll take out the camera and I'll do it.
00:11:38
Speaker
And I'd usually only take out the camera if like no one else was there because I felt, you know, kind of ashamed of doing it. I was like, oh, this is such a sad channel with like only 200, 100 people subscribed. Yeah. And then the third one, I was a bit shocked because it would be David would sometimes they turn to me and say like, oh,
00:12:03
Speaker
don't you want to film this? Don't you want to go grab your camera? And that was the first time like someone from a distillery had actively like just a well, how do I say actively encouraged me to to film at the distillery while I was working. Yeah. Whereas the other times I was just like so embarrassed and like slightly ashamed of doing it, to be honest.
00:12:31
Speaker
So that's why actually you can see a shift from the first two distilleries to the third one where I show a lot more stuff because if they're cooperative, then I can just always be filming and I can show everything, the whole process a lot more clearly. That is really cool. And I think for people that are listening to this,
00:13:00
Speaker
If you're listening to this, you have some interest in spirits, right? I mean, that's what my channel is about. That's what the podcast is about. And as a consumer, you very, very rarely get the opportunity to take a peek behind the curtain. In a more natural way, you kind of get the
00:13:18
Speaker
the tour experience. Does that make sense? Like, you know, you show up at the Stiller and they show you exactly what they want to show you. There's a guy standing there ready to do whatever it is, his job is, and he knows that you're coming and so on and so forth, which is a very, very different thing to you being on site as an employee. And you kind of being a guide for us watching the channel to be able to see what happens.
00:13:44
Speaker
and be able to show things kind of warts and all. I mean, I was the last media you put up where you end up with some molasses all over the place. It's like little things like that. That's interesting, man. That's interesting just for people that enjoy drinking the product and want to know more about the distillery. But for people that are interested in the process, and especially if there's people that are interested in taking a step from a hobby into the industry, I think seeing really behind the curtain like that,
00:14:15
Speaker
It's just cool because it's real, right? I mean, yeah, it's fun. So I think, I think there's a lot of people listening to this that.
00:14:28
Speaker
deep down inside would love to go pro one day. Whether that be to start their own distillery, work for someone else or maybe to find an apprenticeship or work for someone else for a while and then start their own place. Do you have any tips based on what you did to get started in the industry and now also based on being in the industry and seeing how it works a little bit more? Do you have any tips?
00:14:59
Speaker
on what you could encourage people to do to make that step to get into the industry? For brewing, if you're looking to get work in a brewery, then it really helps if you're a home brewer. They like that a lot, especially if you can, during the interview, bring one of your home brews in. They love that. For distilling.
00:15:24
Speaker
Well I didn't actually have any distilling education or background prior to going to Scotland. I was just studying brewing at the time and then I had that interest and I thought like oh maybe I'll just try to email a lot of distilleries in the UK. So that's all I did was just
00:15:41
Speaker
sent emails to people. So for me, it's just, just ask. Just ask people and don't be afraid to get shut down because I mean, they're just emails. They can't see your face. If they reject you or don't reply, it's fine. You know, move on. Yeah. Uh, and I remember watching the video that you had, uh, talking, we mentioned the emails and stuff and just to put this perspective for people,
00:16:10
Speaker
We're not talking about you sitting down and planning on, oh, I kind of like this distillery. I might send them an email. Like you did this properly, right? You had spreadsheets and you were tracking responses the way they responded. And you were contacting a lot of distilleries. And I mean, the reason I mentioned that is if there's people out there and they want to get into the industry and they want to start a job, treat finding the job like a job, right?
00:16:39
Speaker
It sounds like that's what you did. Like you went after it, you were contacting like 70, I think you said you were planning on contacting, was it 70, 80 distilleries? 70 or 80 distilleries, yeah. Yeah. Uh, and that's, that's not, um, just an afternoon's work, right? That's some commitment, but it paid off for you just out of interest. Uh, how many people did you actually contact in the end before you got the job? And how many, like, what was kind of the,
00:17:08
Speaker
the averages of responses with just, they never got back to you. Sorry, no, go away. We'd love to be able to work with you, but sorry, we don't. What was the distribution of responses that you got from the people you contacted?
00:17:27
Speaker
Yeah, I had this actually all calculated out, but it was so long ago. I think I got around, I want to say 25% that actually replied to me, which is more than I expected. Like even if it was just a rejection, like they still took the time to write an email and say no. Yeah. And then I think it was number 30 or 34,
00:17:57
Speaker
was the one that I actually got a job at in the end. Yeah. So it wasn't too bad. Yeah. No, that's pretty good, man. Nice work. So I'm interested to know in the email when you contacted people, did you play up, like, did you sort of advertise the fact that you were trained as a brewer?
00:18:22
Speaker
Yes, I did. I made sure to stress that, you know, because that's really all I had going for me. I thought I need to push this. Yeah, for sure. The selling is an interesting thing, right? Because it's a very interesting hobby and profession, I feel, because it's almost one of those things that it doesn't matter what background you've got.
00:18:48
Speaker
as long as you've
Diverse Skills in Distilleries
00:18:49
Speaker
got some set of skills, some set of experience, some set of
00:18:55
Speaker
something that you can offer, it applies to distilling. It's really interesting. If you're an electrician, I'm sure there's a lot of distilleries, maybe not every distillery, but I guarantee you there's a distillery out there that would be really interested to talk to someone who wants to be a distiller, who is a kick-ass, sparky accountant. I don't know, it's just interesting.
00:19:20
Speaker
Does that, do you see a lot of that? Cause it seems like you've had a, an interesting mix of places you've worked at in terms of slightly larger operations, smaller operations where it's just cause the, the, um, uh, the, the last place you're at, sorry. Um, uh, yes, with the eye still, right? That seemed like quite a small operation. It was always, uh, you and Dave. Yeah, that's right.
00:19:51
Speaker
It just seemed like it was always the two of you. Was that just because he was happy to work with you on camera or was it just because that's sort of the way it was at the distillery? That's the way it was. Whereas the Irish
00:20:05
Speaker
Sorry, the Scotch distillery you worked at at the beginning seemed like a much larger operation. Yeah, that was huge. That was huge. One fermenter fit 25,000 litres. One fermenter. And we had eight fermenters. That was really big. That was so cool. Yeah. I'm really interested to see what your
00:20:27
Speaker
experience was working at those two places and I guess the benefits and the drawbacks of working in companies that are small versus huge. But did you see at both of those? I have to imagine the small place, Shakespeare, is just kind of like anyone that's there has to do everything, right? The head mill is the chief bottle washer and probably the accountants as well. Everyone has to wear multiple hats.
00:20:57
Speaker
Sorry, and to go back to my original point, I guess, especially in a place like that, if you can walk into a place like that with another set of skills, even a marketing background or something is going to be advantageous there. The thing that is interesting to me though is, was it kind of the same at the Scotch? Sorry, what was the name of the Scotch distillery again? The Borders Distillery.
00:21:22
Speaker
borders. That's right. Yeah. Was it kind of the same at the borders where a lot of people wore a lot of different hats? Or was
Small vs. Large Distillery Roles
00:21:28
Speaker
that much more specialized? Like if your job was one thing, that's all you did. Yeah, it was more like that. I would say at the borders. And then yeah, you had to do a more variety of things at the Shakespeare distillery just because it was smaller, as you would expect. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, what, what do you feel the
00:21:53
Speaker
advantages and disadvantages were for you working at a place like that. Either just purely for enjoyment of being an employee there, but also it almost seems like you've decided to put yourself on a bit of a pilgrimage to learn everything you can about distilling, working at these different places. So I'm interested to see
00:22:16
Speaker
the advantages and disadvantages, just the enjoyment side of being there and just having a job, but also in terms of what you can learn and grasp and understand from people working at those two different places.
00:22:29
Speaker
Yeah, so at the Borders Distillery, we actually made the alcohol. We had the mash tun and the fermenters, whereas all the other places, they just had neutral grain spirit brought in. So yeah, when you're doing a mash, that's a completely different aspect to it.
00:22:50
Speaker
Um, so yeah, and it was just fun to learn how to work with such big, uh, equipment and such a large capacities. Um, yeah. And then it was more traditional. Whereas at the Shakespeare distillery, we had the eye still and the eye still it's nice because it's just very kind of like you just turn it on and then you walk away and forget about it almost. Uh,
00:23:19
Speaker
So yeah, it kind of feels like there's not much really distilling or there's not a lot of work for you to do as a distiller, to be honest. So you're just kind of doing other things, packaging, labeling, bottling most of the time. And then but luckily we had that big ROM project we were working on. So that took a lot of time. Yeah.
00:23:45
Speaker
the eye still is a interesting thing for me. And I think you've touched on what I see being its biggest advantage, but also its biggest downfall or like at the same time, right? It's kinda, I don't know. I've never talked to someone face to face, face to face that has used one of these things in a commercial setting. So this is a cool opportunity for me to discuss it with you.
00:24:14
Speaker
And I'm torn on these things because it's partially it takes, like you said, it takes all of that out of the distiller's hands. But then at the same time, if the only reason that's a problem to you is for this weird sort of nostalgic or artistic point of view, you know, the way that it was created is just as important as the way it tastes. Then that only applies to a certain part of the
00:24:43
Speaker
the consumer group, right? There are people out there that do care about that. It has to be made in a certain way and they enjoy the story of the product and they enjoy the handcrafted aspect of it. Conceptually, they're willing to pay for that. Some people just don't care. Give me the thing that tastes the best for the best price. I don't know if it, what are your thoughts? Like, do you think there's something, is there an X factor
00:25:12
Speaker
with the human element of doing it the old school traditional way and just having your hands on at every step of the process. Do you think there's something that automation just destroys or not destroys, but does it, does it kind of, uh, take the soul out of the whiskey or the rum or whatever you're making. If you can't have a distiller with their hands on the whole time.
Does Automation Affect Spirit Quality?
00:25:38
Speaker
Hmm. I think like that, again, just would matter to a specific group of consumers. And then like you said, for the majority of people, they might not care so much. So it doesn't really make a difference to them. But I mean, I'm sure
00:25:59
Speaker
that I still will be popular with a lot of up and coming distilleries just because it is cheaper to purchase. Um, yeah, that's a lot cheaper than buying a copper still. Yeah. So you don't, you're thinking it doesn't really affect the actual product at all. Oh, of course it does affect the product. Yeah. Um,
00:26:27
Speaker
But you can still make a good product from it. Interesting. I mean, yeah, I guess.
00:26:36
Speaker
any alteration and stills gonna affect the product in some way, right? I guess what I was saying is if you designed a still that was exactly the same shape or the same materials, but you took all the automation out and you ran it manually, is there any magic there? Do you know what I mean? Like is automation itself something that reduced, like objectively changes the taste of the spirit?
00:27:06
Speaker
Um, I don't think so, but I think probably you drink a lot more than me. So maybe that's something you would have to tell me. I almost, I don't drink a whole lot anymore to be perfectly. Uh, I, I drink less now than I have since I started drinking. I, it's interesting that the more I get into it, the more I enjoy it, the more I really enjoy
00:27:36
Speaker
tasting spirits, the less I enjoy drinking spirits. Does that make sense? Oh, no, that makes total sense. Yeah. It's interesting. It happened to me with beer, too. As I got into beer, I stopped drinking beer and just started sort of, you know, spending way too much money on a couple of bottles rather than a dozen and sampling it.
00:28:03
Speaker
Yeah, like I said, there's no distilleries I know here in New Zealand that are running in iStill. I don't think I've ever actually had a commercial product created on an iStill, or any other automated still, as far as I know. Anyway, what would they like to work with? That's interesting to me because it seems like
00:28:28
Speaker
The thing that really intrigues me with those kinds of products is that you can set parameters very, very specifically and know that most things have gone through exactly the same process and then change a parameter
00:28:47
Speaker
for testing purposes, right? Which is kind of what you guys were going through, the rum situation. How is that functionally when you're actually using it, did you find that quite freeing in a way that you could dial in as many parameters as you could and then just change something?
00:29:09
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it gives you a lot more room to experiment with. I think one of the problems we had was that the instruction manual that comes with the iStill isn't very good. So then it was like, okay, there's this function on the still.
00:29:27
Speaker
But what does that actually mean? Like, what does it actually do? Like, it doesn't really clearly explain all the different functions and settings on the eye still. So you just kind of are like, OK, we'll just we'll just try it this time. Press that button, see what happens. Yeah, that's what it was like. Yeah, maybe that was I'm guessing that was a translated version into English, right?
00:29:54
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I assume so. Mm-hmm.
00:29:58
Speaker
Yeah, I had a very similar experience with the Genio, which is kind of a similar product, I guess, coming out of Poland. And the instruction manual, especially the instructions for assembling it and putting it together, it was really, really obvious that English was not the native language. And I actually gave up in the end. I looked at pictures because I think the text was actually making it worse.
00:30:27
Speaker
You know, especially when you know that something's been translated and you're reading it and there's a word that's kind of odd. So then you try and translate the translation. Do you know what I mean? And you're reading into every little word. Oh, maybe it means this, maybe it means that. Yeah. It led me down the garden path. I had to throw the thing away and just look at pictures in the end. Yeah. So what is next for you? What are you doing right now? And how long is that contract?
00:30:56
Speaker
okay well um it's not up on the channel yet but the next video will be of me in Manchester at the new distillery um and that was like quite an interesting job because actually it was one of my subscribers who gave me a job
00:31:16
Speaker
Yeah, so we hung out for a little bit and then actually because they had this mandatory hotel quarantine in Canada for all travelers arriving back and it started on February 22nd and you have to like pay $2,000 to spend three days in a hotel room and I didn't want to do that so I came back home a little bit early so I'm right now in Canada
00:31:43
Speaker
And I've for a long time, I've wanted to go more into beer because again,
00:31:50
Speaker
I went to a brewing school and so I know actually a lot of brewers at different breweries in Vancouver. So I approached a lot of them and I asked them if I could film them working for a day making something. So I've just filmed two of those with them. Yeah, so I'm really excited. That'll be come out after the Manchester distillery videos are
00:32:18
Speaker
I'm finished posting those and then we'll go and do a brewing series. Pretty cool man. What is the craft brewing scene like in Vancouver and is that starting to cross over with the craft spirits scene? Are there
Vancouver's Craft Brewing and Distilling Scene
00:32:35
Speaker
craft breweries that have been craft breweries for a while starting to delve into the spirits world?
00:32:43
Speaker
Yeah, there's a couple craft breweries here. Actually, one of the craft breweries that my friend works at is also a craft distillery. So I'll be showing both of those things. Yeah, beer is pretty getting more and more popular here, and it has been for several years.
00:33:06
Speaker
Yeah, but they have a lot of crazy ideas. Like once I heard they put like crap, they made like a crab beer or like a cask of beer and then they threw gummy bears into the cast to see what would happen. So it's like, it's like the wild, wild West here. It's just everything's going on. That's kind of cool. I see the distilling world heading that way more.
00:33:34
Speaker
Which is actually kind of cool too, because I like that about the craft beer world. I like that it has turned into this thing where... I mean, the main goal obviously of any business is to make money, right? But it seems like the craft beer industry has managed to create an environment, create an industry where the people that patronize those businesses have almost come to expect
00:34:01
Speaker
a slight level of creative craziness. You know what I mean? Like they want it. They want that stuff. Like, yeah, I'm going to show up somewhere and I want a freaking APA. So many APAs on tap. It's kind of disgusting to go over APAs, but you know, they want all the standards. They want maybe a stout and a porter and a bunch of APAs, but having something on tap or having something sitting there ready to go. That is like you say, off the wall is, is, uh,
00:34:31
Speaker
It's good for business, which is cool. I don't know, man. I haven't seen a whole lot of that in the spirits world. Uh, have you, have you, have you come across anything like that? Like anything just out there happening? There was like that gin. Uh, what is it? They put like glitter in the gin.
00:34:52
Speaker
It's an out there thing I can think of. And then it's like purple or like neon green and they put glitter. So when you drink it, have you seen that? Have you had those?
00:35:03
Speaker
I haven't had the gin, no. Actually, I haven't actually had any. I've seen the hazy IPAs that are just full of, I don't know if it's glitter, but they look like almost like gold flecks and stuff in it. And when they sit in the glass, they swirl and kind of change. Yeah. I think I know what you mean, but no, I haven't tried it.
00:35:27
Speaker
Yeah, no someone like offered it to me during a job interview and I drank it like So like I don't want to drink this glitter liquid Green and it's like glittery. This is bad. It was bad. That was the weirdest thing probably It's hilarious I
00:35:52
Speaker
Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens with that, right? Whether the spirits world is going to follow really closely after the craft beer world. It'd be interesting to hear your thoughts on this, actually. I mean, I felt down here in New Zealand, especially, but I guess kind of.
00:36:08
Speaker
As a trend, it feels like Craft Spirits is maybe five to ten years behind craft beer on a lot of different aspects. I guess just the boom, the growth, the way it's branded and marketed, the types of people that are getting into the industry.
00:36:29
Speaker
that just idea of, especially out of California, where there was just a huge explosion of people that suddenly cared about beer, that were brewing it in their basements, in their backyards, in their sheds, realized they were kind of good at it. And then that became the new wave of craft distiller, which brought the industry and the hobbyists so much closer together
00:36:56
Speaker
I feel like that hasn't really happened yet with spirits and I guess the legality is a big issue. I don't know, just the feeling of the industry that is based on the industry is there because these people actually give a shit and that these people are the hobbyists and are making what they wanted to see in the industry.
00:37:17
Speaker
And it feels like spirits are going there now. Like there's some really good examples of new businesses, new distilleries that really embody that whole ethos about how to do business, I guess. But I'm interested to hear your thoughts too, because one, you're actually in the industry and I'm not, I'm just like peeking in through windows and getting insight into people when I talk with them.
00:37:44
Speaker
But also it's a different place like I've never been to the UK. So yeah, what do you think? How do you feel that the spirits world is compared to the beer world?
00:37:55
Speaker
I just feel like the beer world, it's just easier to be more creative. Whereas distilling,
Creativity in Brewing vs. Distilling
00:38:03
Speaker
I don't know, for a lot of it, it's just like, it's just like, oh, we're gonna buy in some NGS and then we'll distill it with some botanicals or something. Whereas I don't know, beer, I feel it's just more flexible.
00:38:18
Speaker
It's just easier to be creative, whereas distilling, I don't really actually feel what you're talking about with it getting more creative. I can't say that's something that I really felt. I guess that's kind of what I'm saying, right? That used to be what beer was. Beer used to be
00:38:38
Speaker
It was really, really hard to buy any commercial beer that actually tasted good on today's standards, right? Getting a beer that was actually made with a really high hopperoma and hot flavor was just non-existent because that cost a lot of money and no one wanted to do it. And that wasn't the model that worked. Big beer didn't provide that.
00:39:02
Speaker
And I guess it's kind of the same with spirits. And I think that's, I think that's a little bit what I'm saying in terms of it being behind, right? Like it's starting to get that point. Now you're seeing people experiment with, um, different fermentables, different grists, they're experimenting with specialty malts. They're experimenting with different yeasts, different, um, aging,
00:39:28
Speaker
techniques, regimes, different woods, different blends, all of that sort of stuff. It feels like it's catching up, but at the same time, especially if it's a brown spirit, right? It takes you, it might take you four years to figure out if you've done something good or not. Whereas B8, you can experiment with something and you can know within what, two, three weeks that you did good or you didn't. Yeah, that's very true.
00:39:55
Speaker
I don't know. It's interesting. I'd like to see it more. Texas was fun. If you ever get a chance to go to Texas on your distilling travels, I think you should give that a go. Yeah. Do you know the whiskey tribe? Do you know the whiskey vault? Oh yes. I've seen them on YouTube. Okay, cool. Have you seen their new fancy still? No, I haven't. I need to check them out again. Yeah. Speaking of people that are going to be doing some weird stuff, I'm sure that's going to happen.
00:40:21
Speaker
They're going to be doing all sorts of crazy stuff. All right, so what are your plans long-term for the channel? And do you see yourself, like, what are your long-term goals here? Are you wanting to open your own distillery? Are you wanting to go full-time on the channel? Are you just chilling and playing it by ear? I'm going to see what happens.
00:40:39
Speaker
I'd
Future Exploration in Brewing and Distilling
00:40:41
Speaker
still like to continue working, gaining more experience and distilling maybe in brewing as well. We'll see how things go and then just make more videos to document my journeys. I'd like again to move into beer more on this channel. And then I'd like to move into other spirits and other drinks and maybe eventually into non-alcoholic drinks as well, actually.
00:41:09
Speaker
interesting. So what sort of stuff would you be looking at there? Beverage production, like behind the scenes of how drinks are made. That's really what I'd like to do. So like any kind of spirit, any, any kind of drink, like even tea, like we go to a tea field and see how
00:41:28
Speaker
Like that's grown from the start to finish because I actually love tea. That's my favorite drink. So yeah. So just behind the scenes production of any beverage. So I'm hoping to grow the channel in that way. And then if I could, if that's something I can just do full time, that'd be awesome. It's pretty cool. Isn't it crazy that we live in a time where that is literally possible? Like if you've got a camera and a decent internet connection, you've got the opportunity to
00:42:03
Speaker
Oh, man, how long has the channel been going for now? I want to ask a few YouTube questions because I've been getting more and more people asking me about this sort of stuff and more and more people getting in touch and saying that they're thinking of starting it themselves. And to be honest, for me, the memory of what it was like in that first sort of year is my memory is shocking. I'm starting to kind of forget what that was like.
00:42:22
Speaker
to do this as a job.
00:42:30
Speaker
So how long have you been running for now and what has been the hardest thing for you to keep going? Like the thing that's made you want to stop or quit the most.
Challenges of Starting a YouTube Channel
00:42:45
Speaker
So the YouTube channel, I started, I posted the first video September 2019, September 16th, 2019. Exactly. I love how you just know that.
00:42:58
Speaker
A year. Okay. I'm impressed to carry on.
00:43:04
Speaker
um so i think it's about a year and that would make it a year and six months or so um yeah the hardest thing yeah the beginning for me was the absolute worst probably because it was a cooking channel and i had so much competition and then you post a video and you hope someone's gonna watch it and it's like 10 views all from your family members and it's just sad and you spent like
00:43:34
Speaker
over 100 hours working on this video. It's just it's really depressing and it's hard to keep going. And I think that's where you see a lot of people stop and fail. It's just they can't see.
00:43:48
Speaker
They can't see the long term of it. They're just they're just looking at the immediate like no one's watching it at this moment. Like this is stupid. I should just give up. And then all of those thoughts build up. And then finally, you just give up at the start. So you really need to.
00:44:05
Speaker
push through that. Yeah, and that's really tough. And at the beginning, even my mom was like, Oh, you're never gonna make it as big as this other youtubers. You need to think about it because it can never happen. She said that to me and she said I should give up.
00:44:24
Speaker
Oh, that's it? Yeah, that was quite depressing as well. Yeah. That must be odd, man, when you've got people that, you know, you love your respects, that you appreciate their opinion. If they're not being supportive, that could be really tough. I mean, I was very, very lucky in that my parents just don't really care what I do, as long as I'm happy. I've always been really supportive like that. And my wife's been really, really amazing in supporting me.
00:44:55
Speaker
Uh, so I guess I never, I never really had that. Um, what I do get now a lot still is, uh, so when are you, when are you going to find a real job? Basically like straight up ask me that, but you can, you can feel people, uh, thinking it it's, it's interesting. I guess it's, uh, it's a, uh, a vocation, a job description that is not.
00:45:19
Speaker
immediately obvious that it's actually a job, right? It's kind of like, I don't know. Yeah, it's interesting. I think you're 100% right, though. That first part of, yeah, I thought that was coming from the scene for a second. You got a plane going past. Yeah, there's a plane going past. It's quiet now. It's quiet now.
00:45:42
Speaker
Yeah, that first chunk of time where you're building a snowball that no one cares about. That's tough, man. That really is tough. It's hard because I see so many people say, you've got to treat it like a job from the beginning. I completely agree with that.
00:46:02
Speaker
You know, if you're treating it entirely like a job in a conventional sense of what people think a job is like, you know, I show up, I put my time in, I get paid, I go home. That's not going to happen. It's just not, you're not going to get anything, any recognition at all for the first few videos you put up, right? And it might take, it might take you 10, 15 videos to find your groove. It might take you thousands of videos to find your groove.
00:46:28
Speaker
And then there's the opposite side of it. Oh, just do it like a hobby. It's like, okay, that's great. You won't get all bummed out about it when, when it doesn't work out, but you can't really expect to grow something massive or grow something meaningful. If you're just kind of doing it for fun and whenever, whenever you don't feel like it, you don't show up. So that that's tricky, man. But, uh, I don't know. I think you're at a point now where you're going to start growing.
00:46:54
Speaker
a lot quicker. Have you started to notice your, the velocity of growth tick up a little bit? Yeah. It's starting to go like this. It's like, Oh, that's a good sign. Yeah. Yeah. So for those of you that don't know, basically what happened is when, when we first, uh, how did we first get in touch? I think you just reached out didn't you and see that I'm starting a channel. I'm a big fan of just randomly emailing people. Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:23
Speaker
I basically said keep grinding and when you get to a thousand subscribers, we'll do a collaboration and here we are. If you're listening to this guys, Brewbird, formerly known as Miss Brewbird, apparently.
00:47:41
Speaker
is doing some really cool stuff, like I said, behind the scenes, and she's only got a thousand subscribers, which you need more. So if you're listening to this, go and check her out. Where's the best place to find you? Just YouTube? Great to YouTube. Yeah. Yeah. If you just type in Bluebird or Miss Bluebird, it'll come up.
00:47:57
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get in touch over there. Check the videos out. If anyone is running this, listening to this and happens to run a distillery, I'm sure you would be interested to hear from them. Oh, I would be interested, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I think you could position yourself quite interestingly. You could have a nice
00:48:21
Speaker
It's a nice advantage to an employer to be able to bring someone like you in, right? You get a distiller or whatever position you're going to fill, a brewer, and some built-in marketing along with it. That's pretty cool. Let's face it, man, a lot of places now are wanting to start YouTube channels purely as marketing opportunities. Like we just talked about, it's not exactly easy to just do that.
00:48:44
Speaker
to be able to bring someone in like you. You dodged my question before. Do you have any aspirations to start your own distillery sometime? It could be down the road, but not immediately, no. Not at all. The passion for you is just the learning at the moment.
00:49:05
Speaker
Yes, I just like learning things like you and making things. That's really my hobby. I'm usually very good at like cooking, like art related things. That's why I really edit my videos so much because I just love playing with different like looks and designs and that's why.
00:49:25
Speaker
Yeah, very cool. All right. Well, this has been an absolute blast. Thank you for coming and joining us. Let's set another milestone. When you get to 10,000, let's do this again. Oh, okay. Sure. That sounds fun. You got to go kill it now. Yeah.
00:49:42
Speaker
You're always giving me so much motivation. First it was like, when I get to a thousand subscribers, still it will collaborate with me. And now it's when I get to 10,000, still it will collaborate with me again. Yeah. No, I think it'd be fun. It's a nice excuse for me to talk. I mean, this is by far the biggest reward of being in this, I don't know what to call it, industry job. The biggest bonus of me doing what I do is being able to talk to cool people like you.
00:50:13
Speaker
and not feel like I'm just screwing off while I'm doing it. Like anywhere else that I would be working, this would be me not doing my job and neglecting my duties. And somehow I get to not feel like I'm being a complete motherfucker while I'm doing this sort of thing, which is awesome. I'm just going to say too, I'll keep in touch because I plan on
Post-COVID Travel Plans for Distilling
00:50:37
Speaker
when the COVID thing disappears. I plan on traveling. At least, I don't know, it'd be nice to do it like once a year, a solid trip somewhere and get out and about and try and sort of, I guess, do what you're doing, like get a peek behind the curtain in the industry, in a specific area.
00:51:00
Speaker
and find out what kind of makes it tick there. What, what those people in that area are doing that makes it different than other places and how, sorry, excuse me. Um, how what those people are doing can be interesting and beneficial for the, for the hobby distiller. Yeah. I do want to ask like for your channel, are you going to stick with distilling or do you want to branch out as well?
00:51:29
Speaker
Uh, so I think for me, for the, for the, for still it, it makes sense to stick with stilling, not distilling, sorry. Uh, the podcast, this, this part, which I, uh, I do put now the full podcast up as a video on the still it channel. I get that a little bit more leeway. Uh, so, um, more than happy, like I've talked to people that produce yeast mainly for the beer industry and hang with him. Um, you know, like I talk with brewers or.
00:51:58
Speaker
Even, I guess, like I said before, I did more than happily talk to people that are in marketing, for example, and just sort of talk about how that applies to distilling. I guess that...
00:52:11
Speaker
I wanted to create the podcast with an excuse to be able to just talk to anyone that I find interesting and then vaguely relate it back to distilling and call it distilling content. But for the main stuff, for what I do, it's going to be all distilling related.
00:52:29
Speaker
But part of the reason that I rebranded from Just Still It, I was Just Still It in the beginning, and then I rebranded a while ago. Well, not rebranded, but restructured it. So the channel is still Still It, but the company that Still It is part of is Chase the Craft. And the reason I did that was to leave my options open in the future. No, I see. So maybe I'll kind of go the Linus Tech Tips route sometime in the...
00:52:56
Speaker
distant future of starting, you know, multiple YouTube channels under the chase the craft banner that are related. So maybe they'd be a brewing channel. Um, I want to be in that craft scene. And when I say, I don't mean like the wanky small batch, all of those sort of words that mean nothing now, because that's the way the industries, the industry and marketing has spoiled them. But what I mean is that anything where the person doing it is chasing the craft. They, uh,
00:53:27
Speaker
learning, assessing, adjusting, improving, repeating the cycle over and over again. So in my mind, like someone who makes furniture is a craftsman and they're chasing the craft. Someone who's making, you know, cheese or pizzas or a photographer, they're all chasing the craft.
00:53:53
Speaker
Yeah, there could be potential for other things to pop up down the track right now. So, oh, for people that don't know, we did kind of a reciprocal kind of deal where I did a podcast slash interview, whatever you want to call it on your channel. Is that video out yet? Not yet. I'm going to post it today. Are you going to post it today? Okay, good to me. So when this video goes out, there'll be a link in the description down below to go and see that video if you want to see it.
00:54:20
Speaker
But in that video, we talked about the fact that I'm still a one man band at the moment, and I just don't have scope to really even do what I'm doing now. I can't keep up with everything. I can keep up with the business side of it.
00:54:35
Speaker
Or I can keep up with production, but I find it pretty hard to get both done, you know, to sort of work on the business, to try and expand it, to work in the business and get all the, you know, get the accounting done and keep up on emails and all that sort of stuff and create the content. It's just, yeah, I'm struggling at the moment. But one day if I can expand to a bigger crew, yeah, it'd be really cool to start creating content on different topics as well. That'd be fun.
00:55:03
Speaker
But we will see. Anyway, you've distracted me, which is fine. It was fun. But what I wanted to ask is, how do you feel about the industry and how do you think they would they be receptive to a big hairy guy like me showing up and saying that I want to come and see what they do?
00:55:25
Speaker
your channels chase the craft which is also very good as well because those probably big distilleries they don't need you maybe to do like marketing and advertising um whereas the small ones are a lot more receptive of people coming in and filming so yeah i think yeah you'll be fine with the craft distilleries and just yeah craft anything
00:55:51
Speaker
Interesting.
Collaboration Opportunities in Craft Distilling
00:55:52
Speaker
Yeah, that was kind of the feeling I had as well. Yeah, LeFrog don't need my help. I can't even like saying that that would be a drop in the bucket is just ridiculous. I'd be like, yeah, an atom in the drop in the bucket.
00:56:10
Speaker
But yeah, okay. I see what you mean. But if it's a small craft distillery that's, uh, you know, working in hundreds of liters, thousands of liters, right. Okay, cool. Well, uh, one day I will definitely get to the UK and one day I will definitely get to Canada. Uh, I want to go and see Mark up in Canada. I've got some, uh, other whiskey related friends in Canada, Canada, I would love to see as well. So if I ever hit head that way, I'll be hitting you up for, uh, for contacts.
00:56:38
Speaker
Yeah, sure. It'll be awesome. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you very, very much for doing this. I appreciate it. I'm really, really happy to see that you stuck with the YouTube thing because I think you're adding something to the community that no one else is. So nice work. Keep crushing it. And we'll see you back again when you've got 10K.