TEN QUESTIONS FOR THE MARVELOUS MR. MAITLAND

The author with one of his many cocktail books

When you run across someone in this day and age that has true joie de vivre, you know it. I can't remember a single conversation I've had with Kurt Maitland in which he didn't make me laugh, either on the phone or in person. It's impossible not to be affected by his easy going, self deprecating humor, which flows along in an endless stream of bon mots, but don't be fooled : Kurt is a serious player in the whiskey world, whose insights into the "water of life" are both prolific and profound, and one would do well to pay close attention when talking with him.

Raised by West Indian parents in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, Maitland is that rare combination of streetwise New Yorker and self described whiskey nerd, bringing some much needed humbleness to a whiskey space full of so called experts and influencers. His impressive oeuvre includes a wide array of articles for both industry and financial publications, along with several cocktail books. Kurt also hosts the podcast "Decades Distilled," runs the Manhattan Whiskey Club, and is widely regarded as one of the foremost specialists on whiskey out there.

While we certainly talked at length about his take on the state of the industry today, I also chose to have a bit of fun with Kurt for this interview, nudging him to talk not only about whiskey, but about his many other interests, which of course, led to a merry and spirited conversation.

BST: So, it's funny. I've known you for a while, peripherally, through our journeys in the whiskey world. And when I started researching into your career for this interview, it was kind of cool, because then I got to see lots of pictures of you, and things that you've done and how you grew up and and where, and what not. And I noticed that your picture on Muck Rack I think it was... I love that picture of you, the one with a big cigar. I think it makes you look rather Churchillian. So was that intentional?

KM: No! In fact, my mother hated that picture.

BST: ( Laughs)

KM: I was meeting a friend of mine. I think I was in Madrid, smoking a Cuban cigar. because I wasn't in the states, but I like that picture... and I love Churchill.

BST: Oh,You do!

KM: History Major in college, so...

BST: OK, so it was a little intentional...

KM: Alot of the big figures in World War II are interesting to me from a reading point of view, you know, but definitely Churchill is one of them.

BST: Of course, of course. So obviously you read voluminously: You must, because you're both a lawyer and a whiskey educator. So Churchill must have resonated with you a little bit for a lot of reasons. I know that he really liked his Johnny Walker. How do you think the Johnny Walker he drank was different than the Johnny Walker that people are drinking today?

KM: I mean it changed like a mess of times. Oh, minor correction, I'm a paralegal. God help me. If I was a lawyer, I don't think I'm gonna have that kind of time to read! You know, it's bad enough! But yeah, I mean, I got to interview Jim Beveridge (Master Blender for Johnnie Walker) early in my writing career and talk to him about blends. And he's like, yeah, the original recipe for Johnny Walker Red, it's changed a bunch of times because some of the distilleries that made up the original blend aren't around anymore. Like, books of okay, if you don't have this, get this. You know, get like, what's the thing that's closest? Maybe you get this at a certain age, but I've tasted 1940's Johnny Red and Johnny Black, and they don't taste anything like you get today.

BST: Yeah, I read that article you wrote Sometimes the Old Ways are the Best Ways where you wrote about all the reasons why the old stuff differs from the from the new stuff...fascinating. So, tell my readers what your typical week is like, doing what you do and just pursuing all these different avenues. You have the Manhattan Whiskey Club, and you are a journalist and you're a leading authority on whiskey. And I mean, how does a typical week for you look? How do you manage it?

Kurt giving a tasting

KM: I mean, I juggle it all around work, and so therefore, if work's busy, I'm frustrated, because nothing happens but work. It's not work's fault. A typical thing would be, I would make a list of what I'm working on. Like, what am I writing? I have article ideas, you know, I put them someplace, get a task going, and then see if those articles are right... do I have the information I need? Do I need to talk to somebody? And then, there's times where, like, I might have thought of an article, and it doesn't happen for months. So I was thinking of the beginning of this year, you know, what's up with whiskey in 2025, which everybody's writes about. And then you had stuff like the tariff issue come up, and you have the issue of oversupply. And then everything changed! If I had written the article in March, it's a different article than I'd write now, and so there's that, trying to figure out what I want to do. I do research. So, you know, go online, go through books, flag. You know, there are these things we get in the day job, these little plastic flags, and I live off of these because I'm, like, going through books, and I'm flagging pages for articles I want to pull from or things I want to look at.

I recommend this book, by the way. It's Distilleries of Great Britain and Ireland from 1922 to 1929 .This is a good companion to Barnard's book. James Edie put it out. There's 1000 copies. So basically, it's similar to Barnard's book. It has photographs years later, and you can actually read what they say about certain distilleries, compared to Barnard. And like, oh, did things change? Are they the same? So,I try to work on my research skills.

BST: I see.That's great, because it leads me to my next question. There are similar character traits between you being a paralegal and also being a whiskey journalist. You must do a lot of sleuthing, right? You do a lot of sleuthing, and a lot of digging into stuff. And, you know, I can see that there's a reason why whiskey excited you, because you were interested in digging into the history of people's lives...

KM: That's Exactly Right! I love history. And no spirit has the history that whiskey does. Like wine has a longer history, but it's not as interesting. You know, just for me, is that as interesting? You know, the stories you get from like the introduction of Japanese whiskey, the things are going on in Scotland, the United States...

BST: And, I mean, where do you even start? It's all so exciting, you know, like you could go down such a deep rabbit hole. But the reason I asked you that is because I'm always interested in asking everybody that I talk to, what kind of character traits make up a person that's interested in whiskey? So, I ask all the distillers that I am interested in talking to about that, and it seems like people that are interested in whiskey have this certain type of commonality in their blood, where they're really curious about history, and really want to find some kind of connection between, you know, culture and agriculture and history. So I love that you're a paralegal, because that fits into the whole sleuthing thing and, and I know that you also like detective movies and film noir movies, right?

KM: I mean, I'm a 90's stereotype! I worked in a video store on the side to make money. Loved it.

BST: (Laughs)

KM: Oh, I grew up watching old movies, always with my father. And I tell people, it's like, I have a great relationship my dad now, but when I was a kid, we always watched movies together.

BST: So what kind of movies are we talking about?

KM: So my dad's favorite stuff would be biblical flicks, film noir, crime. Okay? So, something like The Ten Commandments, I watch with my dad every Easter. We still do, which is kind of amusing.

BST: (Laughs)

KM: Then we'd watch, you know, Bogart movies, yeah, you know, like John Wayne westerns, or like Charles Bronson westerns... and my dad, because he's older, we would go to movies and spend the whole day in the theater. Which is kind of amusing, but, yeah, I love movies. I like history, I always liked reading books, yeah, stuff on Kindle, but I still buy books, you can see there are piles around me!

BST: (Laughs) Sure, sure, I'm like that too. I'm like that too. So your your parents were West Indian?

KM: My mother was born in Trinidad and my dad was from Tobago.

BST: And you were born in Brooklyn?

KM: Yep, East 51st and Utica Ave. Yeah, the old Roxy Theater was there which isn't there anymore. I used to go see Godzilla movies with my father there.

BST: Very cool. So let's switch gears a bit here. And you know, I'm just going to keep my focus on American whiskey today, Because you're the kind of person I could talk to for hours. So I want to keep myself more focused on American whiskey. In 2022 you wrote this really great piece The Story of Black Distilling is Being Written Now. Do you know how the distillers in that article have fared since, and have new players emerged in that space?

KM: New players have definitely emerged. I mean, because of doing it during covid, which is interesting for these brands, right? And I am curious. But the thing is, there are changes in the industry, and there's certain parts of the industry that aren't necessarily favorable to any small producer. So you think of the fact that direct to consumer is a problem. A brand that I talked to there in Arkansas, I can't buy their stuff. I can't have it shipped. I can't order it online. I'd have to go to Arkansas to get it, which seems weird, because I'm a 50 year old man, it's like, I don't know. I can buy booze. I'm legal. I don't know why. But those are some of the challenges that exist for all these brands. There are people who want to buy the product but can't get around the state rules in order to get access.

BST: So, I guess, for instance, the gentleman who does Sorrel...

KM: Oh, he's doing well. Jackie. (Jackie Summers) Jackie lives in Brooklyn.

I mean, I don't know that all of them are thriving. I think I have to check on my guy in the Bronx, which is funny, because he's the one who's closest. Uncle Nearest* is doing well, Sorrel is doing well, yeah. Again, they have national distribution. They have access to funds, so it makes it a bit easier. I think it's harder if you don't. And this would be true of other small distilleries. Of course, it's hard to kind of make the leap from that to having a certain amount of local attention or statewide attention. You have to go, what do I do next: what's the next phase going to be?

BST: Well, that's interesting. So I just read this great article. It's from this website called Whiskey Decision. Do you know about it?

KM: Don't, but I'm happy to look for it.

BST: It's great and it's really important data... And I'm just going to read something briefly, I found on there, which I thought was really interesting. So "American whiskey is sitting on 1.4 billion proof gallons right now, the largest inventory on record for more than a decade. Barrels have kept going in under the assumption that they'd come out as the time was right. But in mid 2024 something shifted, not because space ran out. Rickhouses still have a lot of capacity. Distillers are just not sure that there's enough demand to absorb what's already aging. And the industry has room, but what it lacks is confidence and a future." Can you comment on that?

Maitland enjoying a rickhouse visit

KM: Yeah! Oh, and I've thought about that this came up. I was talking with Susanna Skiver Barton about this, right? Because what ends up happening is: All these decisions were made. Part of the issue is, of course, with whiskey, whatever you're making, that's not selling for years. MGP (MGP Ingredients in Kansas makes contract bulk whiskey) was backed up. It couldn't take new clients... So people built these distilleries to kind of like, pull some of that, let's say excess, or give excess capacity, because people couldn't go to MGP, then some of MGP's clients change their orders or dropped orders. MGP now has capacity to make stuff. If you're a brand or you created a distillery to contract distill you're kind of screwed! Yeah, you planned on profiting from getting people who couldn't get MGP, and every bourbon brand around probably has excess capacity, and under the right circumstances, you could get whiskey from Brown Foreman (who also makes bulk whiskey) or somebody else, get a barrel, if those are your options, and you're the new kid on the block, and you just spent three million dollars getting a distillery. Who's your customer? Now, you know, I mean, there's all this whiskey sitting around. If somebody wanted to go get a barrel: Why am I getting a barrel from you? Why am I not getting a barrel from an established player who wants to pull off that excess capacity, but, like, that's the big shift. All this investment went in because of how much bourbon was selling for. And, like, I don't want to say hype, because bourbon was selling. But just to plan it out: The problem is any massive change affects everything...if you depended on MGP not having enough production capacity for five years, establishing your name and making whiskey... And now, oh, lo and behold, MGP has space and capacity now.

BST: So, I guess the point that this guy is trying to make is that people are... they're sitting on it because there's not confidence in the market to bottle the stuff... that's the 1.4 billion barrels that are sitting and not being ready to be bottled.

KM: Yeah, because the thing is, you're doing it at a certain price point, and there's so much whiskey around you can't get the price you expected. You could probably, you know, sell it at a cheaper price point, but then you don't want to flood the market. In some respects, you'd almost rather hold it. I mean, think of the Whiskey Loch in the 70s. I mean, they were producing as if there were no changes in consumption, but young people weren't drinking as much whiskey, right? But they made as much whiskey as if it was, you know, right after World War II, right? You realize, oh, this stuff's not moving the same way. So within that, you have to figure what do you want to do and how do you want to handle, like, if you're a bigger company. Let's say we use Brown Foreman as an example. Do you kind of say, okay, you know what? Let's get some of this stock to be uber aged stock, like, let's say it's six year old bourbon. Yeah, let's say we just planned on a chunk of this is going to be 12 year old that we plan to release, figuring the market will change and whatever...we'll have more than adequate stock of 12 year old whiskey, and have a new category come out for us. You have to have the money to be able to wait!

BST: (Laughs) Of course, of course.

KM: You have to be able to say I don't need to sell it now. I can wait. But the smaller players, they don't have enough money. Small players, and, you know, little distilleries , and or a mid sized distillery, you look into expansion. Part of the problem with issues like tariffs and whatever else is that it affects your ability to go outside the U.S, to sell U.S goods. A lot of brands, pre any talk of tariffs, are thinking, oh, I'm selling, you know, I'll try to make a play in Europe. I'll make a play in the Nordics. I'll go to some other, you know, Spain, whatever, and try to open up markets there, and an excess capacity that isn't selling here is still there. The moment tariffs became an issue,then it's like, I don't know if I want to do it now, because it'll cost me too much, either on my end or going to another country. It's like, you budgeted a certain amount of money.

BST: Well on that note, do you think investing in American casks make sense? Even though it's been widely reported that fraudulent cask investment scams are happening with barrels of single malt from Scotland, I almost feel like now might be the better time for people (consumers) to invest in American casks.

KM: Well, I was thinking with American single malt, yeah, because, you know, you kind of have a different situation than you do with bourbon. You could probably get it to be older so you have time on your side, right, you know, the cast investment thing is hard... well this came up: I was at an event the other night, and I was talking about, wanting to do something with bottles. Like, that's actually, in some respects, a safer investment. You're like, okay, tell you what, we're gonna get a warehouse. I have these vintage bottles. You know, I mean, you get it insured and verified third party that way. Because with cask, the trip with casks is, you know, the cask could be anywhere, could be different ownership, whatever. So, yeah, the bottles, it's like, no, there's a site that we've determined and we've legally contracted.

I guess the question, yeah, I guess the thing is, is that it's easier to keep track of the of the value of bottles of whiskey that've already been produced than a cask somebody's trying to sell you on.

BST: Sure, sure, very interesting!

KM:' Here's a new make of this. If you hold it, it'll be worth this much, right? Get a 1970's bottle of MacAllan. It's worth a lot of money, and it'll be worth more later. Yeah, it's easier to kind of quantify and easier to keep track of, you know?

BST: What do you think about this whole American single malt category, and how are you feeling about it? I mean, are you excited about it?

KM: I love American single malt only because it allows people to use the knowledge they've gotten from consuming other spirits and other whiskeys that you can't do in bourbon, right? Great. I tell people it's like, because I go to Scotland and the UK alot, I remember, literally, that this happened, at the Whiskey Show in London, near the Michters booth this guy is like, "Isn't bourbon just like an inferior form of scotch?"

BST: (Laughs)

KM: And I'm like, no, it's a different style of whiskey! I've said this before, like, you think of it like it's pizza. If you want pizza, you want pizza! I can't give you ravioli. I can't give you stromboli. You want pizza and no other Italian foods will do when you want whatever you want. But then with an American single malt, you get some of the strengths of American whiskey, and you can also get some of the interesting things you do with Japanese whisky, Irish whiskey, Scotch, and it let's you innovate in a way that you can't with bourbon, because of the whole brand new barrel thing. I mean, I tell people, you know, you get old collectors, and they love bourbon. You realize that any bourbon, you know, pre early 60s, it wasn't a brand new oak barrel. Brand new oak barrels only came out like in the mid 60s. If you taste stuff from the 30s and 40s, it's just an oak barrel. Not as woody. You're finding the Bourbons more flavorful. So move it to American single malt.

BST: What a great observation. So I can't wait to get people educated about that category, because they literally are so blind to it right now, and I think there's very little understanding about that category in general. But I think once there is education around it, it will really take off, which is exciting. So, couple more questions for you, to move into tasting notes a little. One of the courses that I teach is the Edinburgh Whisky Academy course in sensory appreciation, and that's really got my mind working about how people from different cultures taste things and grew up with different foods, and so forth and so on. And so therefore, they pick out different notes when they do their whiskey tastings, which has always been super fascinating to me. I've had Italian people in my classes. I've had Irish people. I've had people from Iran, from Dubai, from Lebanon, and and it's really interesting and exciting to hear their tasting notes, because it teaches me something about how we can interpret whiskey differently. So that kind of made me want to ask you again, because your parents are West Indian, if you feel like that influenced your palate, and if so, how?

KM: I'd say only a little bit. I would say, if it did, it's more that because where they lived were English colonies. Yeah, you know, you talk about something like fruitcake. I grew up eating fruitcake!

BST: And I bet chutneys and stuff like that.

KM: Yeah! I mean, but also you get, like, roti and curry goat and curry chicken and that kind of stuff, and so, right, absolutely. I mean, it's, I find it funny. You write up tasting notes. You're referring to flavors you knew as a child. Yes, memories of cereal, a soda. ... a candy...Those are the notes you'll be like, oh, this reminds me of a, you know, of a strawberry Twizzler, you know? I mean, it's funny to describe an adult beverage: those are the flavors of your youth, you know!

BST: That's cool, though, and that's why I like the whole thing about sensory because it is... it's so site specific to where and how you grew up and what you remembered not only what you were tasting, but what you were smelling in the environment in which you lived in. So it always seemed really fun to me. I mean, I joked with a British gentleman recently that I spoke to at a Laphroaig tasting about Lyle's Golden Syrup, which is this, you know, kind of syrupy stuff that you put on oatmeal and cereal in the UK, but it's, it's really specific to people that grow up in the UK. It's this really rich syrup and has a picture of a lion on the can. It's almost more like a manuka honey. It's like a cross between honey and maple syrup. But because my mother grew up in New Zealand, and she and her forebears were from Scotland,we had it in the house when I was growing up, and that's what I often get tasting notes of when I taste whiskeys.

KM: Which makes sense, though, because, again, you're pulling from your childhood, maybe, like your grandmother would make you oatmeal and put it in, and that's the flavor you got. Or, you know, this will come up, um, wet, milky raisin bran, that one and you get, you get the raisin bran and, like, it gets a little sweet from the sugar from the raisins, from the grain. You know, you have to remember raisin bran flavors that were so strong when you were a kid!

BST: (Laughs) So, Kurt, has founding and running the Manhattan Whiskey Club educated you about the trends that are happening in whiskey? And how has the experience of running the club helped your understanding whiskey?

Kurt leading a Manhattan Whiskey Club event

KM: I mean, what's cool is, I have a test subject that I can collect whiskey for. I mean, listen, I love the club, and I love my members, but you know, it's... if you talk to Charlie, (Charlie Prince, founder of Drammers Club) he'll tell you the same thing. It's like, yeah, running a club is alot harder than you think it is. Because it's just like, Okay, I have to worry about the space, I have to worry if I have enough bottles.. I have to worry about if I have enough people coming...

BST: I hear you! I can relate, for sure.

KM: And I'm like, I can get the whiskey without doing the club. I mean, I'm writing, and I can say hey, please send me this so I can write about it. But with the club, I kind of look at the faces of people when we have them taste something new, you know, and kind of... you shatter those expectations. And then when, like, I see them on their own, or I go to their houses and they've bought stuff that they tasted, and they're telling their friends about it, like I tell all the brands... In some respects, it's like, you know, you people are doing tastings at a bar or tastings in a liquor store, fine, but here they specifically came to taste your whiskey. Yes, if you get them on your side, and they buy some, they're going to tell their friends, they're going to buy some for their friends, and say, hey, I had this at my whiskey club and I loved it, and this is what it was. And you cannot get that under normal circumstances. You know, whiskey clubs are the best thing for that, for me, so you know, because if you've seen that, I'm sure you've seen this happen: You go into a liquor store, there's somebody there who's like, oh, have a taste of this. The person who walks in, they'll take it, they'll take a sip and keep moving and maybe go buy something else. With a whiskey club tasting, these people came there to taste that whiskey. So, like, they came here to have you tell them about this whiskey from New Zealand, or this whiskey from Ireland or South Africa, and listen to your story and taste what your'e pouring them, and deciding if the two don't jive, or if they do jive.

BST: So it's given you insight into people's mindset, and that they like to be a part of the brand story, just as they do when they go and take a tour at a distillery and start to support that distillery.

KM: ...and it keeps me from being a hermit.

BST: (Laughs) So on that note, one more question for you, or challenge,really:

Pair three of your favorite songs with cocktails.

KM: Interesting!

BST: Not trying to put you on the spot, but...

KM: Nights on Broadway with a Boulevardier. Okay, that's one...

BST: The Bee Gees, great one. You can go all over the map. Rock, classical, jazz...

KM: I'm thinking Coltrane Giant Steps with a classic Daiquiri, not frozen.

BST: Oh I love that! I want one right now.

KM; I'm like, you know, because it's funny. The Daiquiri is easy. Giant Steps is hard. But the Daiquiri is easy to screw up. I learned this when I did the first book.

BST: ( Laughs)

KM: The problem is most people make it too sweet!

BST: Yes, it's simple but takes a subtle hand! Okay, your'e done with two but you have one more.

KM: Hmm. One more...You know what? I'm gonna go something simple, um, Highball. I'll try to think what song I put it with, maybe, um, McCartney's Maybe I'm Amazed and you do a highball, definitely a Japanese whiskey, maybe a Chichibu.

BST: Oh, I just love that!

KM: Like, it came up. It's funny. I was listening to some podcasts that were talking about it, and the people on the podcast had this idea that, like, McCartney was living in some mansion when he makes that song, and I'm like, No, it's not quite like that. I remember reading this interview with Linda ( Linda McCartney) and Linda was like, "Oh, everybody thinks it's great, you know, you're married to the cute beetle," and Linda as like "My husband's depressed and drinking a bottle of whiskey a day. I'm pregnant, and I have my first child, and I'm pregnant with his child. Yeah,and he doesnt want to get up, and he's not happy, and things are not what they seem. He's fighting with his friends. He doesn't know what to do. He's not even 30 yet. He's like, "I got retired from my job. Don't know what to do."

BST: ( Laughs)

KM: So she just ripped him a new one!

BST: ( Laughs)

KM: And he went into this makeshift studio on this property and did that song. And in doing it, he's like, you know, I'm not done, I'm not retired. I can still do it! But it's like, you need to get kicked in the ass. And she gave him one and said you know, I'm not putting up with this anymore...

BST: I didn't know that story. Great. I love it that that's one of your favorite songs, because it's one of my favorite songs too. And I think we possibly need to do a whole new interview of just quick fire pairing cocktails and songs, because it's a cool concept. Kurt, Thanks so much! I'm going to let you go now: It was lovely to see you again even if it was virtually, and I hope we run into each other again soon... you always make me smile.

KM: That's nice to hear!

A Must Have!

The author channeling Churchill

Sometimes the Old Ways Are the Best Ways

The Story of Black Distilling is Being Written Now

*Since our interview, Uncle Nearest has gone into receivership.

The Manhattan Whiskey Club