Exploring The Secrets Of The Wilderness Trail

Cocktails Distilled

When people talk about Bourbon, they usually talk about the barrels - they go on about the char levels and whether there was any toasting.

After that, they might discuss the age and the time the liquid spent in those nicely charred barrels because, for most people, that time and those barrels denote the liquid's flavour.

Occasionally, the conversation may turn to the makeup of the mash bill, such as the percentage of corn, to rye, to barley, or wheat.

But very rarely do they ever talk about yeast.

That is until Pat Heist and Shane Baker started Wilderness Trail in 2012. Unlike most other Craft distilleries that started during that period, Wilderness Trail had a unique advantage in its founders.

It has two people who made a career out of supplying yeast strains and fermentation products to breweries and distilleries with their company FirmSolutions.

Over ten years after they lay down their first distillations, we talk to Heist about fermentation, wheated whiskey and whether yeast really is the key to Bourbon’s flavour

For more information, go to https://www.wildernesstraildistillery.com/

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1. Exploring The Secrets Of The Wilderness Trail (00:00:00)

2. Out of all the things, you could have applied your microbiology degree towards what led you to booze. (00:02:04)

3. Most people having a successful business like that would have stayed doing the successful business. Why actually start the distillery? (00:05:00)

4. How much of the success of the business do you think comes down to that level of connection, the fact that you are willing to educate and get in the trenches with your customers? (00:07:06)

5. I imagine a lot of distilleries have looked a lot more at issues of fermentation and yeast and things like that. Have you found that the knowledge and the interest in that particular part of distilling has increased? (00:14:14)

6. With so many distilleries opening up and so many people producing similar-ish bourbons and whiskeys, do you think that that sort of information is going to be the future of bourbon? (00:17:34)

7. Talk to us about the yeast. You use fresh yeast when cooking the grains, with no backset mash. (00:19:24)

8. Do you think you can attribute your popularity to your knowledge? (00:21:50)

9. The latest release you've brought out is your 10-year anniversary Wheated Bourbon (00:23:53)

10. What is the future for Wilderness Trail? (00:25:12)

11. Does that mean that you will change the way you do things to achieve different flavor profiles on a constant basis? (00:27:09)

12. Where is Wilderness Trail available? (00:29:39)