Dear friends and fans —

First of all, Happy Easter, or Happy Passover, to those who celebrate the respective holidays.

And, most importantly, Happy 2nd Anniversary of Single Malt Frontier!

I’ve been meaning to send some kind of an anniversary email about the podcast for a long time, but could never quite decide what date felt right, but since our podcast activities are in a time of transition and today happens to be the anniversary of the launch of the Single Malt Frontier YouTube channel, this felt like the right time.

This podcast has been a blast, and there’s so much ground and so many products yet to cover that we’re going to keep on doing it as long as there’s interest. However, you may have noticed a slightly reduced schedule of content.

After 2 years of running the show as a part-time, passion-project, “professional hobby” as they say, side-gig, on about 1.25 people worth of time on a good week, even with a regular co-host, and on a relatively shoestring budget, life has decided to stop granting me the grace to fill all my idle hours with production, tasting, and networking.

The biggest change: it’s really, finally, time to write the book.

Importantly, despite the reduced frequency of published content, we’re not going anywhere so much as shifting priorities for a bit.

Since it’s the 2nd anniversary of the channel, I wanted to reflect a bit on how we got to where we are.

Reflecting on the last 2 years led me to reflect back even farther.

We’ve just recorded an interview with Balcones, which took me back to my first ever (unpublished) interview, just days after the TTB published the proposed rules for American Single Malt. Jared Himstedt was kind enough to grant me an in person interview at Balcones on August 2nd, 2022, from a cold email, with next to no notice, on a referral from Joseph O’Sullivan and the good faith promise that I wasn’t a (total) weirdo.

Going back from there, relatively speaking, it wasn’t very long before that that my journey as a “whiskey media person” began.

I started reviewing whiskey in September 2020 as a pandemic hobby, and published my first review in November 2020 after I’d figured out a style. I joined The Whiskey Lodge in January 2021, and over the course of 2021, I published about 60 reviews. I’ve been reviewing at a relative trickle since 2022, now up to 113 published reviews.

In late 2021, I created the subreddit for ASMW, /r/AmericanSMW, and while we were all waiting on TTB to publish the proposed standard for ASMW, I launched the inaugural ASMW Advent event, encouraging the community to taste and review ASMW during the month of December while we waited for the regulation. In ASMW Advent 2021, I reviewed 27 ASMW in as many days, producing the first large opus of ASMW reviews from a single amateur reviewer, that I know of.

At some point in mid-2021, I had gotten the idea that I should write a book on American Single Malt Whiskey. I started requesting interviews so that the book would include my primary sources wherever possible. While I listened to many whiskey podcasts, I had found that there wasn’t necessarily enough discussion on topics in the specific context of ASMW that I was keen to discuss in the book, such as sourcing Oregon Oak or American peat, malting barley, or finding regionality, if it can be found.

With enough interview content, it became clear that having a place to publish the original interviews made sense, and so I launched the YouTube channel (originally called DemiTastes, after my username) on April 20th, 2023, as a weekly livestreamed talk show.

The channel needed some time to find itself, and therefore required content and a content schedule, even if it wasn’t necessarily the most focused on ASMW or interviews at first. In 2023, we managed to publish 5 producer interviews, found a style and a schedule that worked, and made a bunch of industry connections. In 2024, we had an incredibly productive year, in large part due to an invitation I received to attend ACSA 2024 in Denver, and the connections I made there.

We’re now up to 39 published podcast episodes (and a handful unpublished), most of which are unique interviews with ASMW producers, not to mention a number of bonus streams, collaborations, and nearly 6 months before that of weekly “guys on a video call talking about whiskey” livestreams.

In that time, we’ve had 2 co-hosts, who each took the primary co-host spot for a while, and a couple of guest hosts which helped to mix things up at times. We’ve explored a few different kinds of content and found that some unexpected formats worked surprisingly well.

At times I have to remind myself to stay focused on booking interviews that will move the needle on content I need for that book, and with a pesky day job splitting my attention, sometimes that means that certain production details, like actually editing and publishing interviews that weren’t live streamed, have to fall by the wayside.

I want to re-emphasize that I value every one of the interviews I’ve taken, even the ones that have not ultimately been published, and will certainly use that content in the book (and maybe even publish them at some point).

There were of course a few instances where technical difficulties or poor planning on my part resulted in a total loss of the interviews (or failure to record at all). For example, my 2nd interview in 2022 was with Single Cask Nation, and the only recording that survives of that Zoom meeting has exactly 0 audio on it, though I have a local backup audio recording of my voice — maybe I can reconstruct Joshua’s words with my notes and some lip reading.

There are so many other stories, and a lot of them have been told on the livestream at some point. I sometimes have an existential concern about how much of myself I’m revealing on permanent record to the world. I’m sure some of y’all can relate.

Besides the book and the podcast, I’m assisting with another ASMW media project that I can’t yet share details on. Suffice to say, it’s a significantly more professional job than the podcast. You should absolutely stay tuned for that.

As a result of my research for the podcast and the book, I’ve bought and received (sometimes discounted or free) lots of whiskey. The generosity has been incredible. Thank you to everyone who helped make it a little bit more affordable to run this show.

Every day I have the luxury of reaching for one incredible American Single Malt after another, and am constantly reaffirmed that I chose to put my energy into something really special with this American Single Malt Whiskey movement.

Even on the reduced content schedule, I’m looking forward to continuing to share great stories and products with you all. Stay tuned for more!

Cheers,
Doug (@DemiTastes)
Host, Single Malt Frontier