As a budding whisky collector and all-time bourbon fan, Angel's Envy was one of those special whiskies that I read a ton about, and always wanted in my collection.

For the uninitiated, Angel's Envy has gained no small amount of popularity in the whiskey world due to its innovative approach to finishing and double maturation. The distillery's flagship choice to use Port casks to finish good old Kentucky bourbon took the world by storm, captivating the hearts of whisky drinkers everywhere. 

So when I found out I had the privilege to speak with the Master Distiller of Angel's Envy, I leapt at the chance (to put it mildly). Uncorroborated sources might even say I was geeking out slightly as Master Distiller Owen Martin sat across from me, all glorious beard and sparkling smile.

 

 

Owen stepped up to bat in 2022 as the hallowed distillery's first Master Distiller since the passing of the legendary Lincoln Henderson.

With big shoes to fill and even bigger dreams, Owen is a powerhouse of knowledge in his own right.  Wielding expertise in both European and American production techniques, product development, and experimentation, is vast experience in secondary finishing promises great things for the foremost barrel-
finished bourbon and rye producer in America.

 

The Angel's Envy Cask Strength Rye.

 

Already two years under his stewardship, he has already helped create and launch the brand’s first-ever Cask Strength Rye last year. The Rye was well received across the whisky community, notably clinching the Best of Class and Double Gold at the Sunset International Spirits Competition and Gold at The San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

Originally from Kansas City, Owen had initially headed to Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland to study craft beer brewing, but eventually fell in love with the craftsmanship and culture of whisky in Scotland. The rest, as we know, is history. 

 

Owen Martin steps up to the plate. 

 

As I got the chance to sit down with the man himself, Owen told me about how it felt about assuming the mantle. Delving less into the whisky and more into his experiences, he spoke at length about such things as his experiences thus far, the secrets behind his process and the things that keep him going.

The things he spoke of were an enrapturing look into the Kentucky distilling scene and Angel's Envy, and of course, it just wouldn't be right keeping our conversation from all you dear readers. 

With Owen's willingness to share his craft, let's get stuck in to what he had to say!

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[88B]: Before we get started, we have to offer you our heartiest congratulations on your appointment as Master Distiller for a coveted brand as Angel’s Envy! It’s been slightly under 2 years since your appointment, but we imagine it must have had a rather eye-opening career immersed in the Kentucky distilling scene.

We often hear lots about the great camaraderie between the distillers whom all call Kentucky their home. Distillers all around the world who have spent some time in Kentucky have told us there is just nothing quite like it! Could you take us into this world and show us what the Kentucky distilling scene is like? Was there anything that surprised you as you became acquainted with the Kentucky distilling scene?

 

Angel's Envy's Distillery.

 

[Owen]: I'll be completely honest. We hadn’t really thought about the prospect of relocating to Kentucky till it actually happened. My wife and I didn't know a whole lot about Kentucky before we moved there. We had been in Denver for six and a half, seven years. Coming into the Kentucky, we thought we’d have some land, probably get a couple of chickens and goats. We didn’t know what Louisville had in store! So when we got there, we were blown away. Louisville is a beautiful little small town with so much to offer.

Looking back, had I been more forward thinking, I probably would have realized that all roads lead to Kentucky if you're making whiskey in the US. And of course, there Bourbon's kind of baked into the DNA of it all. It’s also got amazing restaurants, a really great cocktail scene. Living close to downtown, we've kind of fallen right into it.

With the Bourbon scene, I was kind of intimidated at first. I didn't know if as an “outsider”, if I would be accepted or if walls would be put up. Thankfully, what I’ve found is that the Bourbon community is incredibly accepting. And really it’s a whole community beyond just Angel’s Envy, with all the distillers together in one place. I can't speak highly enough of it. Honestly, we're very happy!

 

“With the Bourbon scene, I was kind of intimidated at first. I didn't know if as an “outsider”… [and] what I’ve found is that the Bourbon community is incredibly accepting. And really it’s a whole community beyond just Angel’s Envy. I can't speak highly enough of it. Honestly, we're very happy!”

 

[88B] What makes the bond and fellowship between Kentuckian distillers so strong? What makes the scene so one of a kind?

[Owen]: Well, I think part of it's maybe just the southern kind of Midwest culture. If we're going to be nuts and bolts about it, there's an association called the KDA, which is the Kentucky Distillers Association, and really it's the representative body of all the distilleries. 

It [the KDA] brings everyone together under that kind of banner, and they're the ones who are liaising with Congress or working with the Scotch Whisky association. There's a lot of trying to get Bourbon recognized abroad.

 

The Kentucky bond is strong!

 

And so in that way, it makes sense for all of us to be together, to be united, and to have that camaraderie. If we want to launch bourbon in markets like Singapore and get people to trade up to premium stuff, obviously I want everybody else to be making good things as well, because that actually helps us too.

I guess the other way of putting it is that a rising tides lifts all ships. So if my friends are making good bourbon, I'm making good bourbon. And then the next guy's making good bourbon. That only serves to benefit us as a global brand. I mean, I'm a very competitive person, so at the end of the day, I want to make better whiskies than my friends, but I certainly want them to make good whiskey as well. *Chuckles*

 

[88B]: You’ve been immersed in whisky-making for pretty much your entire career, and yet delving into your younger years, you had originally wanted to be a craft beer brewer instead! But it seems like your time in Edinburgh doing your Master in Brewing and Distilling that proved to be the inflection point that got you into spirits. Could you tell us more about that? What was that memorable whisk(e)y or lightbulb moment that made you a convert?

[Owen]:  Wow. I don't think I've ever actually been asked about the exact moment! So, basically, the first half of the course in Edinburgh is beer. The second half is whiskey. And to make a single malt scotch, or a single malt whiskey, the first step is essentially brewing a quality beer. No hops obviously, so little differences there. But the first semester was beer, and it so happened that I was the top student in my class in the first semester. This actually got me inducted into a society, but that society was a distilling society. So at that point, I had still intended on being a brewer.

But truly, the really delightful moment was taking a train back from London, when I had gotten inducted into the society, back to Scotland. And I was like "I think I want to make whiskey now". And that was about halfway through the course. So then the whole rest of the course was devoted to whiskey and that only solidified that light bulb moment. 

I mean, through the whole thing, living in Scotland, like, there's no shortage of amazing whiskies there. So it was kind of that light bulb moment followed by the really nuts and bolts education of it, and then meanwhile, sipping Scotch pretty much the entire time, and it all just kind of lined up!

 

But truly, the really delightful moment was taking a train back from London, when I had gotten inducted into the society, back to Scotland. And I was like "I think I want to make whiskey now".

 

Being surrounded by Scotch, and having bonded over distilling made Owen move over from craft brewer to distiller.

 

[88B]: You also previously mentioned that you had an intense “reverse culture shock” when you returned from Scotland to the US – tell us more about that? 

[Owen]: Yeah, I didn't know anything about Arkansas either [on his return to work at an American distillery following his studies in Edinburgh]! Hence the reverse culture shock! I'm the type that when I go somewhere, I want to just dive into it. I've been very fortunate in Singapore to have a local guide who's a friend. She's shown me just some absolutely stunning bars here, absolutely stunning restaurants. And it was the same thing in Scotland, albeit I was a poor University student, but I had immersed myself there.

Through my course, my closest friends were Scottish and English people, and that was me being localized. I hadn't really deliberately hung out with Americans or anything. So then when I moved back, it felt like there was a readjustment period - I initially even thought maybe I had made a mistake! However, I later convinced my now wife to move down with me to Arkansas after my first year there. And today some of our closest friends are still in Arkansas. We try to get there about once a year to revisit and eat at the old restaurants. So a lot of love for that place, too.

I think, like anything else, maybe it was me wanting to experience local culture abroad, but then not really treating American culture with as much reverence. Being in my own backyard, I didn't appreciate it as much until I had came back to it. By the time we moved from Arkansas after two years there, I had really loved it down there.

 

[88B]: With a unique background having experienced the distilling scene for Scotch and American whiskies, how do you think that all comes together at Angel's Envy?

[Owen]: I think maybe this is me interpreting it in retrospect, but [I think] Angel's Envy hired me because they've tried to take the whisky in a slightly different direction with the cask finishing and being a little more modern in its approach. 

Even in Colorado, because I was making Scottish style whiskey using new American oak, it was already kind of a mish-mash. Now I'm just doing it more in the cask finishing sense. The Bourbon side of it is the more traditional one. Every place I go to, I try to pick up a piece of that and build upon that to create a unique idea of how I want to make whiskeys.

Angel's Envy could have hired any number of traditional Kentucky whiskey makers. Louisville, Kentucky, - there's no shortage of talented whiskey makers, and especially ones that are really just trained and bred up in the Kentucky Bourbon scene.

 

Angel's Envy has helped popularise cask finished American whiskey.

 

So really, all these different diverse influences, different scales, and kind of taking a very unique approach, as opposed to a more traditional one. That's what I bring to the table in Kentucky!

 

What I would want to do is - when I am pushing the brand in new directions, I'm doing it in a way that I think would make him [Lincoln] proud.

 

[88B]: Angel’s Envy was helmed by the Henderson family, of whom the legendary Lincoln Henderson was a serious innovator who had a hand in creating staples such as Woodford Reserve and Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel. This was in part why Angel’s Envy was so heavily anticipated when it was first launched.

As you accept the torch as the next Master Distiller for Angel’s Envy, what legacy or lasting impact do you hope to forge for the brand?

[Owen]: Ooh, that's a good one! Yeah, I think if I'm doing my job correctly, I guess it's twofold. It's upholding the existing releases, the things that predate me, that Lincoln came up with. And then as we grow as a bigger company, making sure those maintain a level of quality.

The second piece is coming out with varied releases. New releases, new techniques, in that direction of things. What I would want to do is - when I am pushing the brand in new directions, I'm doing it in a way that I think would make him [Lincoln] proud.

 

Owen Martin on receiving the torch in a distillery that's as esteemed as it is experimental, with an eye towards the legacy that he will build.

 

[88B]: Delving further into that, you’re clearly emphasising that there is a balance between being a good steward for the heritage of Angel’s Envy, as well as putting your own spin on it. Could you dig more into your philosophy in terms of innovation that's driving the brand forward?

[Owen]: Well, I don't want to be innovating, just to innovate. Not just like, oh, no one's used this crazy type of wine cask, let me put stuff in there to be the first person ever do it. I don't want to do that. I want to do something in an authentic manner. And I think if you look at how Angel's Envy was founded, we used something that was known in European whiskey production, and we applied it to Bourbon.

And so when I'm thinking about innovation, I want to do it in a way that's taking authentic techniques, processes or barrels from varied categories and seeing how that might apply to Bourbon. And that's how I think I can push it forward, but in a way that still feels natural, where it's not just forcing innovation out the door.

 

[88B]:  Accessibility has always been a key focus for you. For instance, in your first year at Angel’s Envy, you produced the annual Cask Strength which intentionally comes at a lower proof, making the whiskey more approachable to more drinkers. You’ve also said you don’t want to produce whiskeys that are just for social media.

So, under your watch, what do you envisage Angel’s Envy’s role to be for the whiskey community? 

[Owen]: What I envision for it [Angel's Envy] would be for it to be accessible even beyond just the whiskey community, or maybe beyond the whiskey nerd community even. We just came out with our first ever distillery exclusive Bottled in Bond release. The idea there is allowing people to access this type of whiskey that they hadn't had before because it was super high proof and would burn their palates out! But [with the Bottled-in-Bond] you still get that mouth coating experience.

 

Angel's Envy's not so ordinary Bottled-in-Bond.

 

I think that's a good example of making a whiskey that satisfies whiskey nerds, but still has that sort of approachability. And I think when you talk about proof, maybe more so in like a Scottish sense, the flagship release is 43.3% ABV. I like the idea of making whiskeys that I could put in front of my mom or my dad or somebody who's not a die hard whiskey drinker, and they still like it. It's still keeping that complexity, it has sweetness, it has all these things that would allow a palate to enjoy that, and they don't have to know every little thing about the whiskey!

Yet on the other side, I can come back around, and somebody who's super detail oriented and wants all the nerdy details, like what it was aged in, what the grain bill was, what was the maturation, what was the finishing; I can hit all those, too. So I can take it from either angle and hit that and that's kind of what I like. It's still making a whiskey that the whiskey nerds enjoy.

 

Sometimes I've used the analogy: I could pour you a really high end wine or a really high end beer, and somebody who doesn't know much about those, they'd still go, "oh, this is a really nice wine!"

 

However, if I take a super nerdy bourbon that's 65% ABV (130 Proof), and I pour it for somebody who's not used to that, they're going to spit it out. So I kind of keep that in my mind - there has to be some degree of accessibility there. It's where that overlap is between approachability and accessibility whilst still having complexity, then making sure that the processes, the details, the nerdiness are all still in check there, too. And that we can hit both those checkboxes.

 

[88B]: And what are the values that are most important to you as you shape Angel’s Envy path forward?

[Owen]: I think the authenticity is it for me. Yeah, I'm just leaving it at that. I just want to make things in a way that feels true to what I'm doing or true to what I'm thinking and true to - hopefully - what the brand was founded on. And if I'm doing that, then I think I'm doing my job right!

 

"If you'd talk to the traditionalists, they'd tell you that they don't view cask finishing as something that's authentic, that if you're cask finishing something, you're just hiding the base Bourbon characters and covering it up with other flavours... 

I truly do not believe that. And it's not how I've ever made whiskey, I think that cask finishing is a means to highlight base characters."

 

Just slightly under two years in and Owen is laying down the groundwork for the next decade.

  

[88B]: Angel’s Envy is of course most well-known for taking very seriously the practice of double maturation, placing at the heart of the brand a Douro Port-cask finished Bourbon. This is still not really common in the Bourbon scene today, which speaks to the innovation streak and uniqueness of Angel’s Envy.

Could you tell us something interesting about the art of cask finishings that more people should really know about? 

[Owen]: Five or ten years ago, if you'd talk to the traditionalists, they'd tell you that they don't view cask finishing as something that's authentic - it's something that I still encounter to some amount, but it was much more common back then - that if you're cask finishing something, you're just hiding the base Bourbon characters and covering it up with other flavours.

I truly do not believe that. And it's not how I've ever made whiskey, I think that cask finishing is a means to highlight base characters.

So if say you have a particularly fruity fermentation or you have the nuttiness from the malted barley and the grain bill, Port [cask finish] is meant to highlight those or layer flavors on it in a way that showcases it, which is kind of why we put this sort of tasting together. The last thing I ever want to do is just cover it up. I want to taste the base whiskies, really enjoy those, and then really be intentional and thoughtful with how I work against that or with that using a finishing barrel.

 

With Angel's Envy's flagship Port cask matured whiskey came a subtle but great fundamental shift in perspective for American's Bourbon scene.

  

[88B]: Is there one big misconception about cask finishings that you could straighten out for us?

[Owen]: I would say the misconception [referring to his earlier encounters with Bourbon traditionalists] seems to be mostly amongst American consumers. I think when we talk about people that are more used to consuming Scotch or Irish whiskey, I've found that most of these people kind of understand cask finishing because again, Scotch has used it for so long.

On the flipside, with international consumers, I think another misconception may be not so much with cask finishing, but with the base whiskey itself. Consumers might think that bourbon is just sweet sugar and caramel. I think now a big part of my education when I'm doing these international trips is showcasing how the base whiskey behaves. It's not just a big punch of oak or just overwhelming caramel, that there's things that the base spirit brings towards it. And even while it can still be oak forward - absolutely - but that it's still a complex spirit and one that has balance. 

   

[88B]:  Thus far, Angel’s Envy has stuck with fairly well-established cask finishings, though since its acquisition by Bacardi Ltd, there is now a larger window of possibilities for types of barrels you could acquire using the full range of its portfolio. Tell us more about how this has helped with your cask experimentation?

[Owen]:  I mean, this is the biggest distillery I've ever worked at. Previously I made 10 barrels a week, and it was a gradual step up to the most ever being 80 barrels a week,  [today at Angel's Envy] we do about 125 bourbon barrels a day. And then in the larger scheme of things, compared to major Bourbon producers, they're pretty much all scale, with thousands of barrels a day. That all is to say that at Angel's Envy, I can still have a degree of handcraftedness while still having basically that global Bacardi reach to access casks I wouldn't otherwise.

I think one fun one to talk about that we've done to use barrels from the Bacardi portfolio - and I try to play around with it, whilst also developing a relationship with other distillers and blenders within Bacardi and basically starting to collaborate with them, and having that friendship with them - so we filled some Patron [Tequila] barrels this years, which on paper sounds a little funky.

I had called them [Patron] up and initially I wasn't asking for any barrels; I had more so asked about whether they were doing any special projects. They told me about some French oak extra Anejo barrels they were using, and they were going to dump them in six or seven months. I just ended up shamelessly asking for them. It goes back to Angel's Envy's uniqueness - extra Anejo and French oak was very unique to me - and so it felt like an authentic idea for me to use.

Angel's Envy's acquisition by Bacardi Ltd opens a world of possibilities.

 

Sure enough, seven months later, they showed up and I filled them with rye whiskey. It checks out because we got the spice from rye whiskey, that French oak spice, and then that grassy kind of tequila spice - which goes back to the discussion of layering and highlighting - so here it's spice on the spice, on the spice. It's a really cool project for me to do in-house!

By nature of working within the portfolio, I can essentially get my friends to ship these barrels over to me at a level where it's pretty low stakes as compared to acquiring these barrels on the open market. The economics are better, which in turn allows for more ideas to come through.

Going even beyond the Bacardi portfolio, but using the Bacardi reach, I'm also able to access barrels that other people can't get. [Going back to not innovating for the sake of it] And if it's something rare, something that hasn't been used, I generally try to approach that more cautiously. I'll probably get a handful of those, maybe ten barrels; fill some of that with Bourbon, some of that with rye, maybe a different grain bill I'm playing around with, and then see if it tastes any good. Maybe the bourbon tastes okay, maybe the rye tastes amazing. Then from there I take that knowledge on a barrel I wasn't familiar with - or even the world might not be familiar with - then I'll scale that up! I might then purchase more of those barrels and fill them up with different ages at that point - and that's how you can take a slow regimented approach up. 

 

Originally, if you would have asked me, I would have been, "Yeah 100% French oak!" But through time, I've been surprised that it's the case where less is more.

 

Inside the distillery.

 

[88B]: In your role, you must have toyed with plenty of ideas for cask maturation in your mind. Have there been any wackier cask ideas that you’ve thought of, that you intuitively knew would work out? Could you tell us about any cask finishing projects that really surprised you with the results?

[Owen]: Drawing on my past experiences, I think back to having made whisky a certain way in Scotland, or if I made whiskey a certain way in Colorado; maybe I've applied a cask finish to a different style of whisky, and so now I'm kind of trying to use my best educated guess of, "Oh I tried to use an Irish whiskey barrel in Colorado. Worked amazing, but that worked amazing because I filled it with American single malt. Will it work amazing if I fill it with Bourbon? Will it work amazing if I fill it with rye?" So there's always a certain level of educated guess you're taking, and there's so many variables and even just how you mature a whiskey that gets me surprised all the time.

But usually, if I'm doing my educated guesswork, I've kind of set it up for success. There's still plenty of times that something turns out completely different than what I think it's going to do, but it's sort of pivoting towards special projects in that manner.

[Going more specifically] So in the past, we did a line called Snowflake in Colorado. It was our yearly release, and it was called Snowflake because no two snowflakes are alike. So every year, we could do completely different things. And so part of what I was doing there was pairing all these different cask finishes together. It's not only using an educated guess to put the right whiskey in the right barrel, but an educated guess of, "Oh, some of this is rum finished, and some of this is wine finished, will those work together?" And so that was really eye opening.

I really like finishing with French oak, but I don't like finishing with a ton of it. So, last year, we put out our first ever cask strength rye - it's super limited because unfortunately we only had about 25 barrels. It was sold out in the distillery on a weekend. But I found that I'm pleasantly surprised that if I blend about a quarter of it finished in French oak and then put the other 75 - 80% of something else, the French oak develops this beautiful, spice profile that rounds out and actually provides extra body to the whiskey. But if I did more than that, it can get really overly woody. So I have to be very careful to keep that as the minority part of the blend. Originally, if you would have asked me, I would have been, "Yeah 100% French oak!" But through time, I've been surprised that it's the case where less is more.

 

 

[88B]: Going beyond the typical cask types we see today in the US, there’s been growing interest in using unique oak varieties native to the US. Are there any plans for Angel’s Envy to feature unusual oak types in cask maturation or finishings?

[Owen]: Man, you must be reading the tea leaves! What we're doing is launching a new product that has something to do with what you just asked.

Okay, here's a little teaser.

So we've done a port and spirits finish on a bourbon. Those are traditionally two finishes you would see that are Scotch influenced - something we've seen done with the expressions coming out of Scotch distilleries. These are practices are well understood in that world, that we then combined with Bourbon-making when we first started.

Then going back to America, when we're talking about the traditional finishing barrel that's used - it's new virgin oak, by law. That's how it has to mature - distillers mature it in a new oak barrel, and then they put it into a second new oak barrel. So when I was looking at what we haven't played around with yet - we've got wine, we've got rum - well, there seems to be a whole space we haven't played in yet.

I guess, yeah, we're not gonna have to wait too long to talk about that! 

 

 

To me, being a craft distiller means being intentional with what I'm doing.

 

[88B]: You’ve also previously mentioned that whilst Angel’s Envy operates on a rather large scale, it can still have a craft focus. What does being a “craft” distiller mean to you, and could you delve more into how you’re working to embody that with Angel’s Envy? 

[Owen]: Absolutely! Love that question! To me, being a craft distiller means being intentional with what I'm doing. It's a lot easier to be intentional with what you're doing when you're only making ten barrels a week. Every one of those barrels, by nature of being a craft distillery, has a certain amount of hand. Whether barrels are filled by hand, or the grains are milled one bag at a time.

That has a threshold level of detail and intentionality. So even though 125 barrels a day is much, much larger than that, I still try to apply as much detail and thoughtfulness towards a release or a set of barrels as I can, knowing that it's not possible to have the same level of detail that I would on ten barrels.

But also knowing that, I'm not into the thousands of barrels a day type of distillery. I'm in kind of this middle space where we can do big releases, we can do national releases, we can do global releases, but I'm still blending and in a lot of cases, tasting every single barrel that goes into that batch.

 

 

[88B]: Do we see that “craft” spirit best expressed in the new Distillery Series?

[Owen]:  You're talking about the Bottled-in-Bond! So one, that's a smaller batch because it's distillery only, we did 29 barrels. So definitely every single one of those was tasted two times through at least.

It's a very, to me, almost like a cerebral exercise in blending. When you talk about blending, when you hear big distilleries or big blenders talk about blending, the common thing that's said is like, "Oh, we blended this release to be more than a sum of its parts" or "It's all flavor driven." When I'm blending, it's quality and flavor above everything. But because that release was 29 barrels, we wanted to really push the limit and do something new. 

Cask Strength and Bottled-in-Bond - two categories that had never been combined before. We had to blend to hit 100 proof on the dot. And so it was very craft focused because we blended 27 low proof barrels. The 98, 99 proof, we put two barrels in that were high proof, about 122 barrels. So a simple math equation there.

That was, I would say, incredibly detail focused because you had to be detail oriented not only on flavor and blending a delicious release, but hitting an exact proof. So I think it's a great example, because when I consider myself a blender, there's always different considerations that are going in the back of your head, like, how many bottles do I need to make this release worthwhile? How many barrels does it take to get that many bottles?

Again, the things that we don't necessarily put forward when we're talking about the beauty of a release, but there are all of these details that always have to be considered, and this one just clearly illustrates the proof being another consideration that I think a lot of people don't think about.

 

 

[88B]: You’ve also mentioned that the Distillery Series gives you room to explore new themes – what are some of the themes you have in mind?

[Owen]: This is the exact type of stuff I like to talk about! So again, not even two years with Angel's Envy, and all of what I've done has been taking aged whiskey, stuff that predates me with the distillery; five years old, seven years old, ten years old; then pairing that with finishing casks. I've been working with that, [and] I feel strongly about it, [doing things] I think will be complimentary, and that's how I've been creating releases. So that's very much a blending focused means of product development. We haven't even gotten to the point yet where we're talking about new grain bills, new fermentation, that sort of thing.

[Thus far] it's easy examples there. If I'm taking aged whiskey stocks, putting in a finishing barrel, say I want to finish for one year, I can have a new release out a year and a half later. [Now instead] If I'm going to do a bespoke grain, they'll use some type of grain we haven't used before, change our ratios around. That's starting from square one. So that's starting from the new make whiskey. That's going to have to sit in a virgin barrel for five years or ten years, then it's got to get a finishing cask. And that's how we're moving forward - we've got the blending part down, and then the distilling part still coming in the background.

So I'm excited to use the distilling series as a means to then start showing off other aspects, because till date, we really only showcase finishing or inventive ways of combining ideas. I want to put a whiskey in front of somebody where I designed the grain bill, knowing what finishing cask I was already going to put it into.

So from the moment we even mashed those grains, I knew we're going to mature that whiskey. And it's so intentional with what were doing on the front end that we already knew kind of what the whole back end was going to look like. And that's when I think we'll really have shown the whole whiskey process from grains to finishing. And once we start doing that in small batches, I think it'll be a really powerful thing to educate people on. And again, a very flavour driven decision to do what we wanted to do. 

 

I want to put a whiskey in front of somebody where I designed the grain bill, knowing what finishing cask I was already going to put it into.

 

 

[88B]: As a brand known for disrupting Bourbon traditions or redefining Bourbon production - you've shared several projects that have done just that, could tell us what traditional practices are you aiming to challenge next?

[Owen]: I don't want to just challenge something for the sake of challenging it. I think if innovation is done correctly, it's authentic. So if there's something that we can do differently, I'm open to that, but I don't want to do something differently just to go against the grain, so to speak.

As you could probably guess from my background in Scotch and in American single malt, I don't mind doing things that are in used barrels. And so I wouldn't mind seeing what we can do in used cooperage. Obviously, it wouldn't be Bourbon at that point, but I think I would maybe challenge some Kentucky traditions of using a new barrel by putting out some used cooperage [swapping out mandated new virgin oak for used barrels]. That would again be a Day One project; that and doing used barrels instead of new.

Arguably, we might even have to go twice as long in that because there's less flavor and less color. So I think that's a good one to challenge and one that's going to be a long road to see the light of day, but also one that I'd like to work on.

I think we already did it in a sense, where we challenged our own norms with our first ever unfinished bourbon. As a brand that had only ever done finished whiskeys, we already even kind of changed our own tune, albeit only at the distillery.

When I see the opportunities to do it in a way that I think is inventive and authentic, I'll absolutely do it. So I think you'll see things, new techniques and new processes come into play. But some of those might even behind the scenes that we don't even really publicize, and some of them won't be seen for a good few years.

 

[88B]: You’ve expressed a lot of passion in your work, which aspects of your work as a Master Distiller speaks out to you most on a personal level?

[Owen]: Traditionally I'm the guy who's been behind the scenes in production, and then even when I started in Colorado, I was the night distiller [Editor's Note: We did not know this was a thing!]. I was hardly talking to anyone at all because I was working over nights.

And as you said, a lot of that was passion driven. Over time, they're like, oh, he likes talking about whiskey, let's have him do a technical tour for an engineering school. Then suddenly, I was doing VIP tours, leading Zoom tastings -- and I think you're probably asking that with respect to like things I'm working on. But I'll almost turn that around.

 

Owen bringing Angel's Envy to Singapore.

 

Having the privilege to go internationally, to go to Australia, to go to Singapore, to talk to people who are well researched as you *the Editor blushed more than alittle*, passionate about what they're doing. That is recently what's really got me going, because I'm passionate about what I'm doing in the background and the whiskey making. But the talking-about-it part, which is relatively new for me, and interfacing with passionate people who are clearly skilled in their own realm, in their own workplace, that's so cool to me.

So talking to Australians that love bourbon, or the guy who worked in beer here just a bit ago, or talking to you who've done a load of research on your stuff *Editor pinches himself*, that's awesome to me and keeps me fired up. If I only talk to people that put in the bare minimum and are not passionate about what they're doing, I'll keep plugging along but eventually that fades.

When I keep talking to people in all these different countries that are just so passionate about American whiskey or even their own career path and how that interfaces with what I'm doing, that keeps me motivated to keep what I'm doing at the highest level I possibly can.

 

Traditionally I'm the guy who's been behind the scenes in production,... But the talking-about-it part, which is relatively new for me, and interfacing with passionate people who are clearly skilled in their own realm, in their own workplace, that's so cool to me.

 

[88B]: You’ve remarked that blending involves a lot of mental exercise – could you walk us through your thought process when you’re blending to create a new expression? Does it start with a flavour profile already in mind, or are you guided by what you find at each turn? What are you looking out for whilst you’re blending at each step?

[Owen]: I'll start with something else quickly - the US seems like pretty much the only market that is focused on master distillers and distilling. Like, if you look at Scotch, you look at rum, you look at Cognac, you look at Tequila, literally almost every other spirits category. It's the blender. It's blending, blending. All of them. Like, literally Google any of them. That's their master blender blending. So to me, actually - my job title - it's kind of a misnomer because, like I said, I consider myself a blender as much as a distiller. I really like when a company calls themselves whiskey makers. And to me, that's the most holistic term you could apply that encapsulates front to back - front end it's distilling, back end it's blending. How cool is that? *Palpable enthusiasm*

And I preface this question with that because I like the idea of Scotch blending and applying that to Bourbon. And so a good example of what I've done with the first couple releases out, for example the cask strength releases we did last year, I almost did a Solera batching process.

Basically, we knew were gonna do about a hundred barrel batch [for the Cask Strength Bourbon], so I dumped 100 to 120 barrels for that. And then for the Cask Strength Rye for last year, that would've been about 20 to 25 barrels. And I batched that together because I'm a big believer that when we talk about finishing, the marrying and blending are part of the same idea.

 

Angel's Envy first cask strength rye.

 

So I married all these finished whiskies together, and the Cask Strength Rye was small enough that I put it into a tank just to marry for a few months, and that was what the final release was!

But with the Cask Strength Bourbon, what we did was - because it was too big a batch of 100 to 120 barrels - marry all those whiskies together, and then put them right back into the barrels they came out of. They married over the course of summer, we got another big maturation push, and then did our second re-blending in September. So essentially it was blended twice over.

[Taking the example of the Cask Strength Bourbon] So the Cask Strength Bourbon - it was some five year old bourbon, seven year old bourbon, nine year old bourbon; some of it had spent six months in Port barrels, some of it had spent two years in Port barrels - these different flavor profiles were all over the place, and so the goal when you marry it together is to kind of reach a cohesive flavor profile.

You want the five year old, seven year old, nine year old, to all kind of reach a general oak profile, rather than being able to taste the oaky nine year old and the younger five year old - I don't want that. I want balance and cohesion, and I think marrying allows us to do that. And that's the kind of blending approach I'm taking from Scotland.

 

[88B]: To that end, tell us about your creative process. What inspires you?

[Owen]: It kind of goes back to the educated guess. I try to have the idea of what I want to create. And it's really two-fold, spanning production and into marketing. 

It's always on my mind that it's flavour over everything, but I want to also tell a story with what we're doing and how we're making that. So that could be swapping barrels with a distiller that I have a kinship with - I respect their process, and there's a story of collaboration there; perhaps that could be a story of local grains. For example, I want to do local grain, local barrel, local finishing cask, and really lean all those together. And from there, telling that story to the media or through helping with the press releases.

So that's kind of on my mind that it's not enough to make a great whiskey now. It needs to be a great whiskey with a story. And that's kind of the challenge I like to lay to myself, that the storytelling is just as compelling. To challenge myself to make a release that satisfies both those things. Ultimately, me telling a story is how you and I can have an amazing dialogue and talk about our thoughts about it. If it's just the same old — even if it's a beautiful whiskey, the same whiskey someone else made — it's not compelling to me. 

 

I wanted my own spin on it. I want my own story on it, and I want to talk to people about it.

 

 

[88B]: You've mentioned that you approach to innovation is to think of Bourbon through the lens of how those making Scotch, Cognac and Tequila have themselves evolved over the years – and asking what natural avenues would appear based on historical and geographic practices.

Could you share with us what are some of the more interesting natural avenues, logical & organic innovation paths in Bourbon and American whiskey that you currently see?

[Owen]: So one that I'm playing around with, but I don't think I'm going to do it on a large scale, and so will probably be a Distillery Series down the line, comes from Cognac-making. With Cognac, interestingly they fill a barrel and they literally don't move it. It sits there, and as it evaporates out, they top it up with more water. And that naturally proofs it down the longer they age. 

I would like to do a spin on that - I think it could be a cool nod to not just a finishing, but a finishing process. Of course, my warehouse team would kill me if I told them they needed to top up hundreds or thousands of barrels of water. So I picture ourselves doing it more with like a small batch. It'd be a finishing process that we learned from Cognac and took to Bourbon.

We still want to take it back to 'finishing' as it's the point where Angel's Envy started - finishing were of course a pretty radical shift to apply to American whiskey at the time. But now, you go to a big liquor store in the US, there's probably a hundred finished bourbons on the wall.

 

It's kind of a thing that was radical that became commonplace. But I think that's a sign of innovation success. If what you do when you innovate is disrupt, eventually it still basically becomes a common thing, and that's what makes it amazing.

 

So going back to it - we're playing with tequila, playing with maybe what a second oak barrel brings into play. Our own kind of things that we haven't played with yet. That's just for the Angel's Envy sense of it. In a broader sense, the Solera idea of marrying larger scales of barrels might be one. It's not a literal Solera, because there it's a stack of barrels and it goes down the line - here I'm working within my own ways to approximate that. But the idea is that it's still an idea from another category. These might not become core products, it's going into our special releases, but then that becomes a storyline that my special releases will build upon year over year. 

 

 

These may not be a radical shift in the entirety of the industry, and I don't want to force what that [radical shift] would be. Now, I don't doubt that radical changes will come, whether I'm the person to come up with them or not. But that's part of the fun. We don't have a crystal ball of where Bourbon will be in 50 years. If I did, I might be less excited than I am now. And so I can find little authentic tweaks for either a special release or distillery series. Maybe even things that are applied to our core products, but we'll navigate that as it comes.

 

We don't have a crystal ball of where Bourbon will be in 50 years. If I did, I might be less excited than I am now.

 

[88B]: It was pretty big news when Angel’s Envy recently debuted its first no-cask-finish Bourbon (such a headline could only be made by Angel’s Envy!). It was the result of an experiment to create the first-of-its-kind cask strength bottled-in-bond whiskey.

Could there ever be a place for a no-cask-finish whiskey in Angel’s Envy’s Signature Range (core range products)? What are the considerations?

[Owen]: Well, blending to hit 100 proof is a pain. It was not all that hard to do at 29 barrels, but when we start talking about a core series, that's a lot. Even if we're talking about hundred barrel batches, that's a lot if we have to do that periodically. So again, I'm trying to balance things that are frankly cool and innovative with also a dose of realism.

I don't know that would ever be a core range series, but I love the idea of re-introducing it every now and then.

 

Only Angel's Envy could make a no-cask-finish whiskey exciting.

 

Here's something really interesting about that no-cask-finish. Because of the low entry proof in 27 out of the 29 barrels, that created a super soft, sweet, rounded whiskey that has a very mellow oak profile. It wasn't even 6 years old, so that could have well become a really amazing 10 year old - maybe even a really cool 15 or 20 years old. As someone who comes from Scotch and not Bourbon, I've had plenty of 20 year old Bourbons that are terrible because all they taste like is sawdust.

So when I'm thinking about whiskey making in the long run, I think that could be a really cool avenue for us to — authentically and flavor driven — make a 10, 15, 20 year old whiskey and do it in a way that is balanced, cool, and has a story.

Again, I don't think it would be necessarily a core range item. I think it could be almost like a tongue in cheek release every now and then for people that have followed along. I would love nothing more than to do it for an international market, but again, that's a long road to start to go down. So I think we're just getting started on that. I have no doubt in my mind people will see it again.

 

[88B]:  Going back to your formative years training in Scotland, and as a self-professed Scotch nerd, are there aspects about how Scotch is produced or marketed that you’d like to see be more widely adopted with American whiskies? (For example regional flavour profiles, heavy use of immersive story-telling, pairing with foods and flavours). What works, and what doesn’t?

[Owen]:  Actually, I think that Bourbon markets itself in a stronger way than Scotch in a lot of senses. I think it maybe appeals to a younger audience. It's definitely more cocktail accessible. From a marketing standpoint, I actually am pretty happy with how we're doing it. From a production sense. I'm also a Scotch nerd, I like a beautifully smoky whiskey, so I'm looking at maybe how we might produce our own peated whiskey. I want to do it in a very subtle way, and frankly, I think that might be something that would be better received in international markets than in Kentucky. I've found that - it's not everyone - but there's definitely a Scotch versus Kentucky sentiment in Kentucky. But that's fine, right? A little healthy competition.

You need to have somebody you're working against. But as somebody who's lived in Scotland, I have a lot of love for Scotch and would love to make our own riff on what a lightly peated whiskey looks like.

[Delving deeper into Scotch versus Bourbon's branding] We're still much younger than Scotch, and by that, I mean the longevity of the brand of the category. When you look at Bourbon being codified in 1964, versus Scotch and Irish distilleries from the 1600's, 1700's, you can't compete wholly on a historical basis. And then when you get to flavour profiles, pairings, it's tough because it all differs from market to market.  

 

 

But when I go to somewhere like London or Singapore, where there's a world class cocktail scene, I think that Bourbon from a cocktail sense does better. Ultimately it's tough to put a blanket statement on marketing and identities, one versus the other.

I do think Scotch is going to have a problem with appealing to younger audiences. I think we are all going to have to see how Gen Z, and future generations, play to it, and what their preferences are. Right now, I don't think Scotch necessarily appeals to younger drinkers; I don't know that Scotch stands out at like a cocktail bar where younger people would like to drink at. Scotch has got vintage labels that looks like its from the 1700's, so in terms of brand perception I think it might have a battle ahead of itself. Even with flavour profile, it's a question of how to integrate that into a more youthful sense. There are Scotch distilleries who are doing a good job leaning into more modern labels that are more youthful.

On the flipside, Bourbon has maybe a prestige problem where, if I get in front of somebody who is a hardcore Scotch drinker, wants 20-year-old-plus things, some specific region of Scotland, having it as in a neat pour - a lot of them will look down their nose at bourbon as too sweet; too caramel; not the provenance I'm looking for.

 

 

And so that's just more a matter of of us getting in front of people, educating and putting liquid in front of them and speaking about how we did the Bottled-in-Bond the way we did, and I think we can win those people over. That's the challenge for Bourbon. On a global level, I think it's maybe getting there more broadly as a country, with the US as a point of provenance. Ultimately, Scotch is still the prestige whisky, I think that's a pretty commonly understood thing.

But I think Bourbon is a little more nimble in what it's doing. Just look at Angel's Envy, just doing what it did, and I think that's already having ripple effects across Bourbon. Even brands that weren't at first willing to adopt new things, are now more open to it. And so I think Bourbon is maybe a little hungrier in that sense. So if you look at it from an international audience, whilst we don't have that recognition yet -- like what I'm doing here. I'm doing just that. We're hungry. I think we can lean into modernity. We have a degree of accessibility with the profile being slightly sweeter.

That's what Bourbon's good at. And Scotch is again, the one that's recognised cross culturally. And so that's the target [for Bourbon-makers]. It's kind of two sides of a coin, what one category is strong at, the other is weak at.

 

It's not enough just to make good whiskey by myself, I want to make good whiskey with my team and my friends, and that even though we're gonna have challenges, good days and bad days, when we win, we win together.

 

 

[88B]: Last but not least, could you share with us what’s been the best advice that’s ever been given to you?

[Owen]: Best advice given to me -- it wasn't something directly spoken about, but was more in a mentorship sense. I've had a lot of people I've worked under where I observed how they conducted themselves, and I'd almost consider that the advice they were giving.

I used to work for a guy named Rob Dietrich back in Colorado, he has since gone to work for Metallica's whiskey as their whiskey blender. The way he conducted himself was that every single day, he'd walk in, greet the distiller as he would anyone else. Basically, the idea that you treat every person the same, no matter who they are, they could be the CEO of a company or the intern.

That's the kind of approach I want to take to achieve a culture-based success. It's not enough just to make good whiskey by myself, I want to make good whiskey with my team and my friends, and that even though we're gonna have challenges, good days and bad days, when we win, we win together.

 

 

[88B]: Is there any new project that you’re working on that you would like to share with our readers? Please feel free to share with us anything that you have going on at the moment and we’ll shout it out to our readers!

[Owen]: We're at a different point in the US market than we are here [in Asia and the region]. With 14 years on the shelf in the US, I have much more of a roadway to release new releases like the Bottled-in-Bond. Whereas here we're just trying to get the base product out, acknowledged, and hopefully loved and accepted. But I would say whether it's domestically in the US or here [in Asia], I feel like I'm just getting going. Like, I'm just getting started.

So in that sense, I get to be the tip of the spear for a new market here and talk about something that's actually been around for 14 years, but it's like still something new. Meanwhile in the US, I'm just getting started on laying down all the things to come.

I probably have ten releases I'm working on, and I would love to just put all ten in front of you and taste that, and just nerd-ing out on each one - I'm that type.

That's okay in the US because we already have a brand presence. But here, if I had ten things in front of you, only one of which is available here, that's almost counter to what's going on - the main one gets lost in the shuffle. So the goal, whether it's Australia, Singapore or Europe, is to get the base established so that more can come this way, and I can start layering on special releases, maybe regional specific releases, whatever that might be.

I'm just chomping to get going, but I almost have to remember to slow down here. Whereas in the US, I can kind of go full speed, like pedal to the metal. So I'm just getting started, different speeds in different markets, but I'll be back at some point! 

 

 

[88B]: Thank you once again for doing this interview with us! We’re really privileged to share our conversation with one of the most exciting American whiskey brands with our readers in Asia!

Also a big thank you to Accela Communications for organising the interview!