Devon Trevathan

Senior Writer at Artisan Spirit Magazine

The straw that stirs the drink 🍹 Co-founder @libaspirits, Senior writer @ArtisanSpirirM. Education advocate

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Articles

The Cultures that Set Bajan and Jamaican Rum Apart

Sep 16, 2024 | spiritsanddistilling.com | Devon Trevathan

Rum’s character varies by region, traditionally, and much of what defines that character happens before anyone fires up a still. When it comes to Jamaican and Bajan rums, the yeast and fermentation are seminal—yet they’re also woefully misunderstood. Craft distillers have been attempting to reconnect to yeast of all varieties, but it’s not as simple as pitching another strain.
Earthen Floors and Single Barrels: A Look at Barrelhouse Traditions

Jul 15, 2024 | spiritsanddistilling.com | Devon Trevathan

The type of warehouse a distiller uses is important no matter where the distillery lies on a map. Yet certain regions have developed a preference for one style of warehouse over another, and some have let the realities of the warehouse inform their industry. Let’s look at the signature traits of Scottish-style dunnage warehouses and American-style rickhouses, then we’ll consider how something viewed as a fault in one tradition can become a distinctive strength in another.
Veggies in the Distillery: These Aren’t Your Garden-Variety Spirits

Jun 17, 2024 | spiritsanddistilling.com | Devon Trevathan

Where there’s sugar, there can be fermentation and distillation, and there are many sources of sugar in the world. Grains, fruits, sugarcane, and agave provide the stuff for many of the world’s most popular spirits, but vegetables—including tubers and roots—also have a long history of being distilled into alcohol. That shouldn’t be a surprise.
Esoteric Spirits: Explaining (and Selling) the Process

May 1, 2024 | spiritsanddistilling.com | Devon Trevathan

The craft wing of American distilling is nearly three decades old, and as it has matured, so have the processes that define it. Distillers are experimenting with and adopting boundary-pushing production techniques—and effectively communicating those processes to their consumers is an important way to help sell bottles.
Beyond the Burn: Getting Spicy with Spirits

Apr 8, 2024 | spiritsanddistilling.com | Devon Trevathan

While distillers can produce a seemingly infinite variety of flavors via ingredients, fermentation, distillation, and aging, it’s often fruitful—in the pursuit of characterful spirits—to focus more narrowly on one spoke of the sensory wheel. One such path to impactful flavor is through an often-overlooked ingredient: peppers—and their capsaicin, the compound in chiles that we perceive as hot and spicy. Distilling with peppers can be challenging.
Mezcal de Pechuga: It’s a Meaty Mystery

Jan 31, 2024 | spiritsanddistilling.com | Devon Trevathan

American drinkers have become familiar with mezcal, at least in name—and in its relationship to tequila, another agave spirit distilled in Mexico that falls under mezcal’s umbrella. Yet they’re still largely unaware of one of its most interesting subcategories: mezcal de pechuga. While articles discussing this unusual spirit have popped up sporadically over the past decade or so, most liquor stores typically don’t stock it.
Beasties in the Spirits Bottle: Tradition, Gimmickry, and Risk

Jan 14, 2024 | spiritsanddistilling.com | Devon Trevathan

We’ve all heard the stories—bottles of tequila with a “worm” at the bottom, daring you to drink from the liquid in which it was embalmed. Or maybe it was a snake in the bottle? Or a scorpion? In fact, it was certainly mezcal rather than tequila that had the “worm”—back then, however, most people weren’t familiar enough with either to know the difference. And the “worm” was technically not a worm but a larva, even if the Mexicans call it gusano de maguey, or agave worm.
Elevating Liqueurs at the American Bar

Dec 5, 2023 | spiritsanddistilling.com | Devon Trevathan

In my previous article, I discussed some of the technical and production considerations crucial to making liqueurs. Liqueurs are challenging to master; no wonder all those monks dedicated their lives to the practice. Here, I want to shift our perspective to the cultural positioning of liqueur because it has one of the longest and most significant histories among all categories of spirit regularly consumed today. That’s not to say whiskey and gin don’t have rich histories.
The Art (and Science) of Producing Liqueurs

Nov 14, 2023 | spiritsanddistilling.com | Devon Trevathan

As long as there have been spirits to drink, there have been people adding more flavor to those spirits and dosing the concoction with sugar to make it more palatable. Traditional liqueurs exist all over the world—bitter red Italian liqueurs, Scotch whisky liqueurs, German licorice-infused liqueurs, limoncello, sambuca, triple sec, sloe gin, and more. Many of these styles have their own unique histories that span centuries.
Vodka - An Abridged Timeline

Jan 28, 2020 | artisanspiritmag.com | Devon Trevathan