Creating something new, something that doesn’t yet exist in the world, is both exciting and nerve-wracking. It’s a space of infinite possibility that gets narrowed, through work and refinement, into something more focused and more real. The process creates the product. From choosing inputs to building the structure to process them—making choices at every point about where to focus and what to do—the goal is to give that product the best possible chance of becoming what you envisioned at the start.

That’s distilling in a nutshell, and it’s the same process that has led us—the team at Unfiltered Media—to launch Craft Spirits & Distilling.

Our goal is to be the essential source for technical and creative education and inspiration in the broader craft-distilling world, from nano-distillers to the largest craft-spirits producers, and across the spirits spectrum. Through stories on spiritsanddistilling.com to our weekly email newsletter, video courses with leading spirits producers and knowledgeable experts in the field, podcast interviews with award-winning professionals, and more, we will match the exciting pace at which the craft-distilling world is currently growing. We aim to deliver best-in-class content that helps you distill, infuse, blend, and refine the best spirits possible.

Over the past decade, we’ve employed the same strategy with Craft Beer & Brewing, helping a generation of brewers make better beer while the number of independent breweries in North America expanded roughly fourfold. Along the way, we’ve focused intently on makers and their processes, both creative and technical, and we haven’t been afraid to dig deep into the narrow details that make the difference between good and great. We’ve built trust with brewers who have come to rely on our technical but accessible approach to content. With Craft Spirits & Distilling, you can expect the same perspective and same fearlessness in tackling technical subject matter in a way that’s both understandable and engaging—by distillers, for distillers, with the broader goal of helping the entire craft-spirits world improve processes, increase quality, and continue to connect great products with excited consumers.

Longtime writer, editor, author, brewer, and distiller Gabe Toth is leading the editorial side of Craft Spirits & Distilling, and his byline should be familiar to those in the spirits world. Gabe has assembled a top team of freelancers, augmented by our own editorial team of Joe Stange and Trish Faubion, to produce stories that help you make better spirits. From style fundamentals to safety to ingredients, mixology, and more, we’re focusing the content of Craft Spirits & Distilling to help you understand every piece of the complex process behind great spirits—from grain to glass.

Over the next few months, we’ll continue to grow Craft Spirits & Distilling with content through every channel, meeting everyone with the format through which they learn best—text, video, audio—just as we have for Craft Beer & Brewing. We also plan to produce an annual print edition that compiles the best and most useful content from the past year. Throughout, you can expect in-depth learning, frank conversations, and unique insights from top professionals—the same things that have become our hallmarks in the world of brewing.

Thank you for joining this journey with us. We’re just getting started, but our expectation is that Craft Spirits & Distilling will evolve alongside you. To that end, don’t hesitate to share your thoughts on whom and what we should be covering—inspirational makers, subjects you’d love to learn more about, and corners of the distilling and spirit world where you think we ought to shine a light. Drop me a line at jamie@spiritsanddistilling.com any time or reach out to Gabe at gabe@spiritsanddistilling.com. We hope you find the content here engaging, thought-provoking and educational, because—after all—we’re making it for you.

—Jamie Bogner, on behalf of the entire Unfiltered Media team
jamie@spiritsanddistilling.com