Proof of Concept

Molly Horn spends her days watching what people actually buy. As Head of Mixology, Spirits Education, and Celebrity Events at Total Wine & More, she knows what pulls someone toward one bottle over the twenty next to it — label, price, word of mouth, or something harder to name. In this episode, she gets into how that view from the retail floor shapes the way she judges at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, and what the gap is between a spirit that wins a medal and one that uses that medal to win a customer.

What happens after the bottles arrive and the doors close? Jeffrey Morgenthaler, Chief Judge of the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, joins Toby Blue and Jason Rabinowitz for a behind-the-scenes look at the art, discipline, and responsibility of judging spirits blind. An award-winning bartender and author of The Bar Book and Drinking Distilled, Jeffrey brings decades of experience behind the bar to one of the world’s most respected spirits competitions. This episode is the first in a series featuring the judges who help determine what earns the industry’s highest honors.