Interview with Found North Whisky
If you have followed me, you know that I am a huge fan of Found North and what the team is doing and have been thoroughly enjoying the whiskies they have been putting out. It was an absolute pleasure to work with the team to get this interview
What inspired you to create Found North Whisky, and how did the journey to establish the brand begin?
A combination of the people I work with and the notion of having a meaningful impact on the broader whisky community.
My co-founder Zach is my brother and my best friend and the rest of the team make up the whisky professionals in the industry who I most enjoy spending time with, who inspire me and who I deeply respect. You have to believe in your people to launch a meaningful whisky brand and I love this group. I believe in them and I believe they care as much as I do about every detail that goes into making great whisky.
We all have had a common goal from the beginning - make meaningful whisky, make whisky that broadens the category from both a flavor and a conceptual standpoint. Canadian distillers make exceptional distillate and we believe we can further mature and blend the whisky in a way that inspires people to reconsider the entire Canadian category.
Found North started with this team, this goal and a couple samples of exceptional rye and corn.
Could you walk us through the whiskey-making process at Found North?
The process has evolved a lot since we started. When we started blending our first two Batches in 2020, we really didn’t have the capital, the facilities or the technical expertise to do more than just blend component whiskies. We had barrel samples shipped in from Canada and used glencairns, eye droppers and food scales to design the blends at our kitchen tables, like a couple John Glasier wannabes. We then purchased the volumes we needed and our partners in Canada vatted the blends for us and shipped them to a small co-packer in Brooklyn, NY. A member of our blending team and his wife, hand-bottled and hand-labeled every bottle.
Now the process is much more complex. We own well over a thousand barrels of whisky, stored in both Canada and in Rochester, NY. We buy and rerack 10s of thousands of liters of whisky, which gives us more control over the components our blending team gets to work with. Blending Batches is relatively straightforward still. We have a general sense of what is going to be ready when and we pull samples and work on the blends as a team until they are ready.
Our High Altitude Collection and Single Barrels are even more complex.
Making Canadian single barrels is tricky. Canadian whisky is made by distilling and maturing the grains, usually corn, rye and wheat, separately. The point is to give maximum flexibility to the blender. So you can’t just grab a single barrel of corn or rye. It won’t have a complete flavor profile. Instead, we create a blend and recask the entire blend into different finishing casks. We intentionally leave room for more wood influence in the originating blend’s profile so our single casks don’t end up over-oaked. It is a fun process and we get really unique single barrels as a result.
This inspired us to create our High Altitude Collection. It begins as the same process. We make a blend with room to grow into its wood profile. We then select a couple different barrel types for further maturation. After that maturation is complete, we reblend a portion of the casks. The blend, recask, blend process is arduous, but the resulting whisky is stunning.
What makes Found North Whisky stand out in a crowded market?
Most of the whisk(e)y you find these days are from non-distilling producers. When you make Bourbon or Rye in America as an NDP, it can be really challenging to differentiate yourself. The American market is not geared towards blending. Additionally, cask maturation programs are less common. And lastly, old whiskey is quite scarce.
By leaning into Canadian whisky, we have an opportunity to really shape the flavor profile at the production and blending level, using super old whisky.
Found North is known for its blended Canadian whiskies. What drew you to blending rather than focusing on single malt or single grain whiskies?
A desire to have a bigger impact on the flavor. I really admire people who build distilleries. It is a long term project with an unknown end. We thought hard about starting a distillery and probably would have if we hadn’t fallen in love with Canadian whisky because of our opportunity to blend it.
With single malt, single grain, straight bourbon, straight rye, if you aren’t the distiller, you are going to have a harder time having a meaningful impact on the flavor of the whisky.
The vision for Canadian whisky a hundred years ago, when the category was really taking shape, was to create superb building blocks and leave the creativity in flavor creation to the blender. With Canadian whisky’s production methods, we have maximum freedom to control the outcomes. The quality of the distillate needs to be high, but from there, through maturation and blending, we are only limited by our imagination.
It’s really fun.
Can you walk us through your process for selecting and blending the whiskies that make up your releases?
Through pretty rigorous quality control and sampling, we generally have a good sense of which whiskies are hitting their peak from a maturation standpoint. We pull samples of those whiskies and then we spend time just refamiliarizing ourselves with those components.
To be honest, from there it is hard to describe. I often equate it to making music. Coming up with a new melody requires a lot of riffing. There is an aspect of this process where we are trusting our intuition, but often when blending, something unexpected happens, a certain combination of flavors and textures emerge that catch our attention. Our favorite saying at Found North is, “follow the whisky.” When you stumble into one of these flavor melodies, chase it and see where it goes.
Once the whisky has a great theme we get more intentional and technical. We spend a lot of time fine-tuning. The beauty of Canadian components is that they tend to do a few things very well. One component will add texture and sweetness. Another will add grip and tannin. It allows you to be very precise.
What role does aging play in your whiskies, and how do you approach cask selection?
When it comes to maturation there are several reactions occurring. First is the oxidative reaction, basically time in a barrel. The second is concentration. Certain compounds evaporate out of the barrel at a higher rate than others. Again, this is about time in a barrel. Finally, you have extraction. This is the transfer of compounds from the wood into the whisky. Most of your extraction happens in a short period of time (6-18 months).
The beauty of Canadian whisky is that they put so much of the whisky into used oak. We get the advantages of the first two reactions that can only really be achieved over time, but then we have somewhat of a blank canvas when we rerack the whisky.
So we buy a lot of whisky with a lot of years in the barrel and then we consider what wood to use to extract the rest of what we are looking for from a flavor standpoint.
We are absolutely neurotic about the wood we buy. When it comes to finishing casks we will fly to our broker or producer and smell and examine each barrel. When it comes to new wood, we work with the best coopers in the country and we like having flexibility in how the barrels are made, so we can match the exact wood we want for a particular blend or component.
How do you balance tradition and innovation in your whisky production?
We try to get the best out of both to make the best whisky, but we never try to do anything for the sake of tradition or innovation. If something is “traditional” because it works really well and has for a long time, that’s a process we embrace. If we have an idea we think could make the whisky better we pursue that. For example, we think corn shows really well at an old age and wheat shows well younger, when the wheat’s grain character is more prominent. So we blend them together. I don’t know anyone else who is doing that, but we are doing it for the sake of the whisky, not the innovation. We put whisky into really amazing casks, but again, we care more about the quality of the wood than the marketability of the wood type.
As a team we are a bunch of whisky historians and all of us, at some point in our career, have sold old established brands that we have a lot of respect for. But as a whole, we probably lean more innovative than traditional when it comes to production. This has more to do with our team members’ inherent curiosity and desire to make the whisky better, than anything else.
Are there specific regions or distilleries in Canada that you source from, or do you keep that part of the process a secret?
We have signed NDAs with most producers we work with, so it is something we can’t disclose.
What, if any one particular bottle, was your revelation bottle that sparked your journey?
Four Roses SBLE 2015. That whisky is beautiful and crafted so intentionally. When I was working in retail the 2013 was all the rage, but I liked the 2015 better. Looking back, it changed my entire perspective on the value that could be added through blending. Before that I was a single barrel purist.
What challenges have you faced as a craft spirits brand and how have you overcome them?
Time and money. You never have enough of them, so we spend all of our time and all of our money on the quality of the whisky.
What do you enjoy most about what you do and how do you stay passionate about your craft?
I’ve already said it, but I love our team. I think I would be happy making paper clips with these guys. They are what I love about my job most and they are what keeps me passionate about what I do. They bring incredible ideas to the table every day and I just try to match their energy and ingenuity.
Can you share a memorable moment or experience you've had in your journey?
When we made Batches 001 and 002, I was pretty sure they were good whiskies, but when you’ve been working on something for 9 months, you get so deep in it… it’s just hard to know for sure. I sent samples to Lew Bryson. When he called me a week after he received the samples, my stomach started doing somersaults. You see, we bet the proverbial farm on Found North. We literally self-funded Found North. When he said, “Nick, you guys made some good F***ing whisky,” my knees actually gave out and I actually fell over in relief.
What’s your favorite way to enjoy Found North Whisky? Neat, on the rocks, or in a cocktail?
Depends on my mood. Sometimes we end up with samples that I can’t use for anything. It is really fun to make Red Hooks with those. In the summer, I will take our single barrels and drink them on the rocks on the deck. But my favorite is in the winter when it is absolutely freezing out. I wear two L.L. Bean bathrobes at the same time, sit out on the deck in my rocking chair, and drink it neat.
What advice would you give to whisky enthusiasts who are just starting to explore the world of whisky?
Context matters. People try to isolate the tasting experience to properly judge a whisky i.e. blind tastings. I think that can be fun, but gets a little overblown amongst enthusiasts. The reason to love whisky is its ability to connect you to other people. If you drink an old dusty bourbon and think about the people making this whisky 60 years ago, that should enhance your experience. If you find yourself on Islay falling in love with peaty whisky, thinking about King James the 4th having whisky for the first time in 1500, that’s a good thing. If you enjoy a whisky more, because you had it with the producer, enjoy it more. The context and the people you drink with matter and are an integral part of the whisky experience. Savor the context and the whisky.
What bottle/s will always be in your rotation (doesn't have to be just whiskey)?
I have enough Glendronach 15yr Revival (Oloroso finish) to last me through an ice age. I’m a diehard Four Roses fan and have way too many OESKs. And I’m a sucker for a Hibiki highball.
What is your favorite bottle you have put out?
The most recent one. So much work goes into each release. I’m constantly obsessed with whatever we just released.
Can you share any details about upcoming releases or projects that fans of Found North Whisky should look forward to?
Yes! We’ve been working on an incredibly cool wood experiment with Kelvin Cooperage. Our most recent Season of single barrels is a wheater blend, similar to Batch 005 and 010 where we married a majority old corn with younger wheat as the secondary grain. As we like to do for our single barrels, we created the blend with room to grow into its wood profile. We then took the blend and recasked it into 40 different New American Oak barrels that we had coopered by Kelvin.
What is particularly cool about this project is Kelvin’s process for toasting barrels. Most cooperages use infrared heat to toast the barrels, but Kelvin actually toasts the wood by burning oak. Their fuel source is actually wood instead of infrared. In effect, they are smoking the barrels as they toast them. We were very intrigued to see what would happen if we changed the wood source used for toasting. In creating our New American Oak barrels, we had them toast the wood with Spanish Oak, French Oak, Amburana and American Oak (as the control for the experiment).
Seeing the impact of varying the toasting source has been wild. We are seeing the benefits of New American Oak, while getting delicious variation in aromatics and wood spice based on the fuel source.
What is your go-to daily sipper?
Found North. Sorry. I’m a whisky geek who owns a whisky brand… Drinking Found North is too fun for words.
Are there any emerging trends or innovations in the whiskey industry that you find particularly exciting?
I think the things that places like ISC and Kelvin are doing in terms of experimenting with how they treat the wood before and during the coopering process are going to pay huge dividends to the whole industry for the next century. The overall quality of whisky will go up because of them.
Conversely, any trends you want to see go away?
I have seen some releases of really high proof, high age statement, single barrel Canadian whisky. Most of the ones I’ve had aren’t great. And it isn’t because the quality isn’t good. It is because the whisky is supposed to be blended. It is supposed to represent a piece of a blend. Taking a single barrel of 100% double distilled corn from Canada and bottling it does a disservice to the Canadian category. It’s taking advantage of the fact that consumers will take flyers on reasonably priced, high proof, high age statement whisky. And it is taking advantage of the fact that not a lot of people in the U.S. know how Canadian whisky is made. They don’t know that they are buying a component whisky instead of a completed whisky and I imagine a lot of those people are disappointed with it and that may lead to people writing off the Canadian category. I find that frustrating.
Is it possible to train your nose and/or palate to become better at recognizing and articulating tasting notes? Any best practices that you can share?
We have biological limitations from a palate sensitivity standpoint. We each have receptors that are responsible for identifying smells and tastes. Some people have more receptors than others. Sam Karachi, on our blending team, has an incredibly sensitive palate. I’d venture to say he has one of the best palates in the industry.
Fortunately for all of us plebeians, what makes him such a great blender has much more to do with how he has trained his palate, than his natural tasting gifts. He has been mixing flavors at the bar and in the kitchen since he was a kid.
I think my biggest recommendation for anyone trying to better appreciate their whisky is to get away from tasting notes, or more specifically, particular flavor notes. It really doesn’t matter if you taste peach and I taste plum. That is not what makes a whisky good. Think about music. A song is not good because of the list of chords and notes that were played. A song is good because of the composition of those notes and the richness and timing of the music.
The same is true for a whisky. Whisky is an experience that occurs over time. It is not a static list of flavors. When our team blends whisky we break our test batches down into four quadrants: the landing, the first half of the mid-palate, the second half of the mid-palate and the finish. That helps us ensure that the flavors fluidly evolve over the short period of time between sipping and swallowing the whisky. If a test blend we are working on falters during one of the quadrants, it is easy for us to identify and adjust the ratios or add a new component to fill the gap.
I personally love when a whisky lands with a creamy bright note and then progresses to a richer dense sweetness, before transitioning into a spicy, crackling finish. The specific notes matter less to me than the structure.
Pay attention to the structure of the whisky and you’ll get more out of drinking it.
Do you think there’s a glut/bubble coming in bourbon?
It depends. I think the consumer is much less geared towards drinking the same staple whiskey every night and much more interested in finding the next new whiskey for their collection. If the major producers vary their releases and focus on making a wider variety of whiskeys, I think they’ll find interested buyers. If they don’t… I think a lot of the staple whiskeys are going to sit on shelves. And when whiskey starts sitting, producers stop bottling and the supply goes up.
What is your “go to” drink/cocktail that does not contain whiskey?
Crémant. No joke. I drink whiskey seriously, otherwise I am drinking for fun and to celebrate. Popping bubbly is such a blast and Crémant is my favorite. It has the quality of French wine-making, without the price tag of Champagne.
Dead or Alive, if you could meet one Master Distiller, who would it be and why? And what about any historical figure?
Dr. James Crow. The man invented the Sour Mash…
Thank you to the entire Found North team, special shoutout to Chris Riesbeck for making this interview happen. Thank you for my readers and customers for supporting us, I hope you enjoyed this interview as much as I did!
-Foti