Full Episode HERE.

00:00 Introduction and Background

01:57 Exploring Alcohol Knowledge and Education

09:59 The Journey of Starting a Winery

19:48 Navigating the Wine Industry and Regulations

30:10 The Differences Between Master Sommelier and Master of Wine

39:47 Blind Tasting and Personal Preferences

49:46 Conclusion and Future Endeavors

How many times can different organizations call you a master???

Doug Frost is one of only a handful of people alive to hold both the Master Sommelier and Master of Wine titles. That alone would be reason enough to sit down with him. But what makes Doug different isn’t just his knowledge, it’s what he’s chosen to do with it.

When the world got quiet, when most of us were reeling from uncertainty, Doug started something super cool: a winery. Not because the timing made sense, but because the mission did.

In this episode, we talk about what it means to pursue mastery in wine, spirits, business, and life…how to keep curiosity alive across decades, how to taste with honesty, and how to build something real when the ground is shifting underneath you.

This one’s not just for the sommeliers or the wine nerds. It’s for anyone wondering how to keep showing up. For your craft, your people, and yourself, even when nothing goes to plan.

Expect to Learn:

• How Doug Frost became one of the world’s top alcohol experts
• What it takes to start a winery during a pandemic
• Key differences between Master Sommelier and Master of Wine programs
• Why launching a wine brand in the U.S. is so legally complex
• How COVID-19 shaped the wine industry
• Why blind tasting matters more than you’d think
• The current challenges in wine distribution and consumption
• Tips for preparing for advanced wine exams
• How spirits education shaped modern bartending
• Why mezcal holds a special place for pros like Doug

Links:

• ⁠Echolands Winery⁠

Call to Action:

• Go to Walla Walla and see Doug and Echolands!

Service starts now.

I talk mostly to people in and around the service industry space. I’m looking to hear from the people I wish I could have talked to when I was coming up in restaurants. Said another way: I am trying to make sense of this wild, beautiful mess of a life, and help others that are feeling similarly confused and/or lost. You can find more of my work at ⁠⁠⁠⁠my blog⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and all my social links are at the bottom of that page.

Classic Episodes You May Like:

-#3:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠My 1st and Most Powerful Conversation with Shane Alexander⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

-#10:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Nat Harry, cocktail expert!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

-#14:⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Dr. Shalini Bahl, mindful marketing⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

As always, I’m just here taking notes, trying to figure out what it all means.

Cheers

Doug (00:00.014)

Andrew. Hey, how’s it going?

Andrew Roy (00:00.733)

the bomb.

Andrew Roy (00:04.145)

good. You get the press release out and everything good.

Doug (00:08.878)

Of course, I got my end of it done. It’s still sitting on other people’s desks.

Andrew Roy (00:12.128)

you

Sure, sure. that’s the important part, right?

Andrew Roy (00:22.72)

Cool. So I know you have the flight later today. You said around three, correct? Okay. So do you have any time constraints, anything I should know about just before we start?

Doug (00:27.821)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Doug (00:34.166)

No, I’m okay for the present.

Andrew Roy (00:37.458)

Okay, perfect, perfect. And then just a couple housekeeping things. Whenever we’re done talking, do you mind leaving the browser open? So it uploads the audio and video as we’re recording, but sometimes it’ll take a couple minutes just to sync back up. But yeah, just in case. Exactly, yeah. And then if you say or broach any topic that you don’t want us to discuss, just let me know afterwards. I can always cut it out.

Doug (00:46.487)

Okay?

Doug (00:53.627)

Yeah, no worries. same way Zoom works. You know, got to wait.

Andrew Roy (01:07.87)

Most people haven’t taken me up on that, but you never know. And then this will come out July 1st. I just want to let you know. But yeah, I’ll give you kind of the file beforehand just to make sure if you want to check it out or anything. But yeah.

Doug (01:11.394)

That’s right.

Doug (01:17.814)

OK, that sounds good.

Doug (01:25.184)

OK, that sounds great. Everything sound OK on your end?

Andrew Roy (01:29.288)

Yeah, sounds great. How do I sound?

Doug (01:31.582)

It sounds fine. I’m just getting a notification that I might want to turn my input volume down. I’m like, why would you do that? It’s usually the other way around.

Andrew Roy (01:39.648)

You know, yeah, so it has that setting set for if you have a standalone mic. So I had to turn mine down when I started filming with them and it actually helped a lot. yeah, standards, computer speakers, you’re fine. Yeah. cool. I’m going to start if you go with it. I wanted to jump right in. So I thought it’d be interesting for our listeners today. We got Doug Frost here.

Doug (01:51.287)

Okay.

Okay, cool. Cool, cool.

Doug (01:59.234)

Yeah, please. Yeah, all good.

Andrew Roy (02:08.926)

You know, you’re listed by several sources as probably the person who knows more about alcohol and alcoholic beverages than anyone in the world. And I was wondering, is there any rabbit hole that even you haven’t gone down? Something that’s too nerdy for you.

Doug (02:16.014)

What?

Doug (02:21.666)

yeah, no, way too many. mean, I never taken the time to work on Cicerone certification, which is the beer certification. When it was first getting created, I interacted with the guys who created it. And, you know, there was a moment there where I was like, hey, I think I should do this. And they were like, yeah, you should be a guinea pig. We’re just getting this started.

then I realized, no, I don’t have time for that and I don’t want to do a half-ass job. So no, many, many rabbit holes, many, things that I am still fascinated by and certainly want to learn more about. I still need to get on my schedule to get to Jamaica and learn a bit more about the really funky high ester rums, you know, from places like Hamden Estate and such.

You know, I want to go and see that I want to go and smell that it’s really what I want to want to do because I really I enjoy those crazy You know ancient maybe not ancient but those crazy old Styles are from and think they’re really fascinating I actually the list is endless. I could go on and on I’ve still never been to the country of Georgia and and I that’s talked about a gaping hole in my my education I really need to see that but

And I understand it’s beautiful and I certainly have had plenty of wines and they’re amazing. In fact, I’ve got a set of them right over here that I want to get together with some folks here in Kansas City and taste them. So yeah, a million places where I still need to apply time.

Andrew Roy (03:59.264)

Yeah. Well, yeah, you can’t do everything in one life, unfortunately. Yeah. Now, and you know, I kind of jumped in, but I think it’d be helpful for these listener. So as I was doing research on you, I really struggled with what, uh, I would even present as what you’ve done in the past. mean, I kind of settled on, know, you got your master’s Somalia in 1991. You got the master of line 1993.

Doug (04:05.39)

No you can’t.

Andrew Roy (04:27.22)

Wine Spectator named you Master of Spirits back in the day. But I’m just going on and on. I’m like, to talk to someone in the wine space that actually needs their own Wikipedia page, like, you know, how did you get into this? And how did you get to the level where you’re at? Was it just a slow, steady accumulation of knowledge where you always gifted when it came to studying and remembering things? Like, how did you build to the level that you’re at? Cause I think that’d be really good for the listener.

Doug (04:31.179)

Yeah.

Doug (04:54.088)

Well, I certainly just feel fortunate that I had really great mentors from the beginning. know, people who I interacted with and either worked with or even occasionally worked for that really set me on a good path and helped me understand, you know, it’s a lifelong pursuit and don’t stop, but apply the right, you know, behaviors from the get-go. have

I can think of many lessons that I learned early on when I had just become a salesman in the wine and spirits biz. And I had a friend who is one of my dearest friends to this day, but he was my boss at the time. And he heard me say a few things about somebody else’s wine. And he said to me, be very careful what you say because whatever you say, you’re going to have to live with that for the rest of your life.

you never know what you’re gonna be selling next week. And so, you know, it became sort of a joke. remember, you know, cause you change jobs or brands leave or what have you. And, you know, going to my customers later on and saying, hey, you know, that wine I told you about that was so great last week? Yeah, that sucks. And, you know, so it became like a joke and that was the only way to deal with, you know, openly admitting that yes, I have a vested interest in.

Andrew Roy (05:57.12)

That’s a good point, yeah.

Doug (06:21.568)

making you believe some products are better than others. Let’s just go ahead and be transparent about it. And certainly mentors like Mike Corso is my first real boss in the wine wholesale business. Great guy. Look up his wines. Mike Corso Selections is a great import company. Evan Goldstein who certainly put me in.

Andrew Roy (06:48.352)

perfect pairings and daring pairing. That’s a huge perk, yeah.

Doug (06:50.812)

yeah, Evan’s just a wonderful guy and certainly inspired me through the Master of Smollett program, but put me on some pathways that are still really important to my business today and my work today. I just feel like, you know, take care of the people that you know. You don’t know who’s gonna be able to help you later on, so presume.

that everybody needs to help everybody because everybody does need to help everybody. I remember at the beginning of the COVID era, seeing somebody on a plane acting like an asshole and I literally turned to him and I said, we’re all in this together. And I think that’s still kind of, it comes from the restaurant business, because that’s where I started when I was 14 years old, washing dishes is we’re all in this together. We got to get through shift together. We got to make all these customers happy together. We’re all going to get, maybe not.

and Aero pool tips back then, but it was, that was the view that, hey, we gotta make all these people happy and then we’re all gonna get paid. So let’s do that.

Andrew Roy (07:56.968)

Yeah. Yeah. no, and it’s so important to, I mean, thinking about the, you know, switch around of the different accounts. If you’re in distribution now with all the things that are happening with R and DC, you know that half of their portfolio is going to all these different companies and it’s the wild west right now.

Doug (08:09.742)

Ha

Doug (08:13.29)

it’s crazy. Yeah. Yeah. It is the wild west right now. And truthfully, having been in that industry for a long time, it was always the wild west. You never really knew what was going to happen next. You just had to stay in your toes.

Andrew Roy (08:28.296)

Yeah. I mean, that’s so that’s kind of the logical progression of what I think I probably will end up doing someday. Cause eventually the, you know, closing and getting out of the restaurant at 1am. It does catch up with you if you do it every night, week after week. So.

Doug (08:43.776)

Yeah, it’s a young person’s game. Although I’ve always loved it and I still keep those hours. It’s ingrained into my world. I just, yeah, doing that night after night. Now what I do, I work with a restaurant in Kansas City and I maybe work one night a month. It’s really wrong.

Andrew Roy (08:49.054)

Yeah. sure.

Doug (09:09.964)

but I get to work one night a month and more or less and it’s kind of cool. I’ll put in my shift, it’s nice and chill.

Andrew Roy (09:17.79)

I mean, you get to say you’re still in the restaurant industry, right? Yeah. Yeah. And you know, on that note, I did want to ask, so as far as I could tell your primary job at the moment is with echo lands, right? And yeah.

Doug (09:21.23)

Air quotes on that one.

Doug (09:33.452)

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I have a winery, that I co-own with one partner, in Walla Walla, Washington. So I travel back and forth. And in fact, I’m headed to the airport here shortly to, to fly back up to Walla Walla. Fortunately, I have a really good staff up there. so when, when the project started back in 2018, it was me and a winemaker. And, that was, that was rough. but now.

You know, I have a general manager, a winemaker who’s fantastic, a hospitality director who’s really has a much larger role than that. She’s she’s fantastic at managing people, tasting room staffed by some wonderful folks who who really help, you know, talk about the wines, imbue hospitality because hospitality is still, you know, the thing I’m like, this is what you’re here for. doesn’t really matter if they don’t drink.

to get them something nice to drink, whether it’s flavored water or one of the non-alcohol cocktails. We’re not just here to sell wine, we’re here to treat people really well and make them feel at home and they’ll buy wine. That part will take care of itself.

Andrew Roy (10:47.06)

Yeah, especially if you make it well enough. So what is this the first winery that you’ve been part of? Because I couldn’t find any other reference to that. What has that been like starting and growing a winery? It’s insane.

Doug (10:49.452)

Yeah.

Doug (10:58.486)

Yeah.

Doug (11:02.08)

Insane completely insane, particularly because I love telling people we released our first wines March of 2020 nothing going on then What could possibly go wrong? You know, so and and people

Andrew Roy (11:11.456)

yes. Well, that was probably the biggest spike in alcohol consumption of all time, so that’s probably the best thing you could have done.

Doug (11:22.016)

Actually, the problem therein lay that people were going to often grocery stores, not even retail stores, but certainly retail stores that could stay open because people may not recall. Washington state was the first state that shut down completely. So we couldn’t open a tasting room and people went to play, went to stores or went online to buy wine they already knew. There was no place they could go to discover new wine. People weren’t out, well, maybe somebody was out there trawling going,

Well, what have I not heard of? No, they were like, I need to stockpile, you know, my I need to stockpile Tanqueray 10 right now, you know, and and and I’m going to buy all of the Selbach‑Oster I can possibly find. I’m going to drink Riesling until this crap is over. And and so we did not benefit from that. We really, really struggled. We sold wine to people who that we knew. And so I just did the my God, here’s my Rolodex.

Andrew Roy (12:00.202)

Yeah.

Doug (12:20.728)

call and write and email everybody I know, but it was impossible to actually get in front of somebody’s face and pour them the wine, at least for the first year.

Andrew Roy (12:30.836)

Yeah. Were you like mailing out samples? How are you getting around that?

Doug (12:34.99)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we were doing that. We were trying to do the Zoom thing, let’s all taste wine online together. And so we did that. But it was dreadful timing. It worked out okay in the long run because it let me, in fact, I often believed that COVID kind of saved my butt in so much as I had time to do all the paperwork and the compliance.

that opening a winery requires and the registration and following the regulations that selling wine to other states requires. I mean, it’s endless paperwork and I don’t know when I would have done that. I don’t know how I would have gotten that done because at that time I was on the road with my own work, my own consulting work over 200, sometimes 250 days a year.

And that’s just a grind. And all of a sudden it was like, you’re not going anywhere. And yeah, and after 200 to 250 days a year on a plane, I was down to zero days on a plane. And that lasted maybe not a year, but it was probably a good nine months before I got back on a plane. so I got a lot done during that time. It was messy, but we got through it.

Andrew Roy (13:33.587)

Zero.

Andrew Roy (13:54.078)

Yeah, for the uninitiated listener, why is it such a difficulty getting into all the states? So I know, I know we know, but yes. Yeah.

Doug (14:03.116)

Yeah, yeah, it’s that for anyone, certainly anytime I talk to somebody outside the US, I have to explain to them that the US is not a country. It is 50 countries. You are certainly when it comes to alcohol beverage, people often don’t realize prohibition was never actually repealed. What was allowed each state was allowed to repeal or set its own rules post prohibition. Some states, particularly, you know, one.

People think about places like Tennessee and states in the South actually hung on to prohibition for quite some time. Some states cracked it open immediately, but each state set its own rules. So every state has an entirely different set of rules and regulations surrounding alcohol beverage, all of which have certainly been undergoing enormous change over the years as well, because again, each state is allowed to set radically different rules. So you are…

you know, in some states, let’s say like Nebraska, going into Nebraska, I found a wholesaler, they were interested in selling our wines, but I can’t sell it to that wholesaler. I have to make an arrangement with a broker and the broker then sells it. And so I actually am having to appoint and fill out paperwork and create paperwork for two different entities who then have to do the same thing with the Nebraska Alcohol Beverage Control Department.

you know, it’s samples and fingerprints and you know, it’s, it’s, it’s kind of crazy. It’s, it’s a bunch of crazy, regulatory shit. And just, to, you know, so I get to stay in a Miso box for a second. Those rules have for, for many, many years been hijacked, generally speaking by large wholesalers to their benefit so that most wineries are not allowed to sell wine in most States. They have to go.

to a wholesaler and these days wholesalers are like, and we were just talking about the R &DC situation, most wholesalers are like, I don’t need a wine, I don’t need another winery. There’s 10,000 or so wineries in the United States, only a fraction of them get any sort of representation and therefore cannot sell wine in most states. So it’s not just a matter of filling out a piece of paper and sending it to the state, you gotta find somebody who will help,

Doug (16:23.662)

enable you to do that. Let’s put it that way.

Andrew Roy (16:26.368)

Sure, sure. For that state, yeah. And the next state over, it’s a completely different ballgame.

Doug (16:28.95)

Yeah.

And sometimes it’s different from city to city within a market to market within a state. But generally speaking, you get to do one thing in each state.

Andrew Roy (16:42.354)

sure. No, I, yeah, I was going to mention too. So I was born in Texas and Texas is one of those like county by county and I could buy beer. Like if I went to this side of town, it was over the county line, but not this side on Sundays. And it was just a wild west of hodgepodge.

Doug (16:46.98)

yeah.

Doug (16:58.094)

It is the Wild West actually one another thing about Texas that’s that’s pretty hilarious is that you actually have to bond the trucks that are delivering alcohol so You can’t again you couldn’t just open up your own shop you you know and begin selling wine there one That’s a violation of the three-tier system where there’s supposed to be separation between the maker and the middleman the shipper the distributor the wholesaler and the retailer or the restaurateur

will actually goes and, you know, sells your wine to a customer. But the trucks that deliver it to that restaurant or retail have to be bonded by the state, you know. So it’s just more paperwork, more money, more, yeah.

Andrew Roy (17:37.674)

to you. I was going to ask, you know, your work with the Master of Wine program, did that help you in navigating the wine business? Because I’ve definitely seen more wine business emphasis on that side, whereas most quartermaster Psalms people I talk to, it’s more the service side. So, yeah, it was.

Doug (17:55.66)

Yeah, no, you’re very right. The quartermaster Samoyed’s exams, throughout the layers of those exams, is very much about service, about what happens at table side. It certainly demands that you understand bigger wholesale, pardon me, financial aspects. But it’s only when you get into the MW that you would be asked to opine upon.

ways in which the structure of the wine industry impacts wine and what people see and what people say and all of that. And then within the master of wine, within that kind of business of wine paper examinations, you’re supposed to understand the wine industry as it is throughout the world, not just in the US. It’s one of the things that people in the US often struggle with.

But conversely, it’s one of the things I find kind of fun when someone not living in the US has to write a paper about the US. You better know what you’re talking about, because it’s really, really complicated. It does remind me, though, because every country has its own protective, shall we say, protectionist methodologies when it comes to the structure of any regulation, much less alcohol beverage.

that many years ago I heard a gentleman speak about India and India’s ways of handling alcohol beverage. And you may have to believe this one, but because it’s a pretty good line. said, look, in India, not only will you have to be appointed and fill out regulatory paperwork to sell wine in India, then you will have to do the same thing to get permission to sell into a single state within India. And then you will have to do the same thing to sell

wine within an individual community area within India. And then you will have to do the same thing again to sell wine within an individual city within India and sometimes a neighborhood. I’ll tell you, ladies and gentlemen, the people who brought you the Kama Sutra can fuck you 100 different ways. And like I said, you may have to believe that, but we all realize, well, that’s a rehearsed line and it’s genius.

Andrew Roy (20:15.7)

Yeah, no, that’s awesome. You know, I am fascinated by the difference between the MS and W. So I once heard a master Psalm joke that in W stands for mostly writing. So like, like, as far as I understand, it is like a long series of written exams, right? There is no oral element to it, because I’m only done CMS. So I like, yeah, interesting.

Doug (20:42.028)

Yes, yeah. Yeah, that’s certainly one of the most dramatic differences between the two programs. The MS is once you get to the advanced level or the master’s level, it is an oral examination, know, verbal and timed examination. The same is true of the MW in that it is timed, but now you’re putting pen to paper.

or these days fingers to keyboards. Back in my day, you literally had to put pen to paper. They were not allowing electronic keyboards of any sort, certainly not computers. And so you have typically two hours to look at typically three questions. Actually, I should say more like five or six questions, pick three and write a full on ideally structured

and competent essay in response. So yeah, it’s very much about the organization of your thoughts around these individual subjects. And sometimes they’re very broad and sometimes they’re very narrow. It just depends. when you turn that exam paper over, you have two hours and you’ve never seen these questions before. So when I am giving people advice about the MW, my point is often that listen.

You say you’ve never seen these questions before. Just use your head. You know the questions that are going to be asked right now. Climate change is going to show up in an exam. So think through already what you think about climate change. The fact that people are drinking less alcohol now is going to be on an exam in some fashion. Decide what you would say, what examples you have of how people are responding to that. That’s certainly true of lower alcohol wines, because that’s a thing today.

non-wine alcohol beverages. That’s a thing you’re going to be asked to show some knowledge of and fit into a broader argument that may be just something about planting new vineyards. Should people plant new vineyards today and if so where? That kind of thing because right now people are ripping up. I can’t remember the number. I believe it’s some crazy number like a quarter of all the…

Doug (23:05.462)

wine grapes in California were not picked last year. it’s, know, these are dramatic times, but when you’re an old guy like me, they’re all dramatic times.

Andrew Roy (23:17.534)

Is that like all the satellite regions, not the big star names that are, yeah.

Doug (23:23.692)

Well, no, certainly the star names in places like Napa and Sonoma saw much less of that. But surprisingly, and certainly in a year like 20, when there were fires everywhere, there was a lot of smoke damage. So a lot of grapes in Napa went unpicked. Same is true in 20. A lot of grapes in the Willamette Valley in Oregon, really good, if not great vineyards, went unpicked because of smoke damage. So there’s sorts of problems when it comes to…

how reality intrudes into your best ideas.

Andrew Roy (23:57.728)

No, no. And I was going to jump on that, you know, people drinking less to, and I saw a report and I don’t remember the number off the hand, but like the next generation, it’s almost like a shocking departure from how much they’re drinking versus the older, older generations, which is it just the times or are there other. Yeah.

Doug (24:14.776)

Well, I think there’s no question that cannabis has had an impact upon alcohol consumption. In most, we certainly got to see small experiments in states like Colorado or Washington or Oregon or such, early adopters of cannabis legalization, we got to see what’s the impact. And the first thing you saw was alcohol beverage consumption just drops.

And then what we saw is it rose back up again. It never went at the same level as before. Certainly the alcohol consumption patterns had changed, no question about that. But they didn’t necessarily change dramatically forever. But that was cannabis. So that was just one of the influences upon people’s

decision to drink less or drink not at all. Certainly having the US surgeon general at the end of the Biden administration say there is no level of alcohol that is safe, which is, I’m sorry, I’m gonna call that bullshit. That’s based on selective reading of science. There’s no question that, you know, immoderate consumption of alcohol. Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, and…

Andrew Roy (25:35.314)

Excessive alcohol, yeah.

Doug (25:39.926)

At the same time, I can raise my hand and go, yeah, but you’ll survive it. Because I am living proof, you know, that there have been immoderate moments in my life. you know, that’s kind of the industry I got into can be wild and crazy. obviously, at some point, I had to learn that, I need to I need to model better behaviors. And if I’m going to survive, I need to not act like a dumbass.

So, you know, that became important, but there’s no question that people are asking themselves, why am I drinking alcohol in the first place? And I would definitely argue because it is, if nothing else, a social lubricant, because this is the way in which people over the history of humans, at least over the last 10,000 years or so, have interacted with each other by finding ways to…

share stuff together, share food together, and wine is certainly a food. And then with alcohol, we found that it also altered our behaviors with each other. Often for the good, you know, not always. There’s famous stories that the great Patrick McGovern writes about. He’s an alcohol historian, and I wish I could remember precisely the two groups he talks about, but ancient groups in the Middle East who

utilized alcohol beverage in their civilizations, their city states to make decisions. And one group would get roaring drunk, make a decision, and then wake up in the morning and see if it was still a good decision. And the other group would would make it. Yeah, exactly. They would make a decision and then they would get roaring drunk and see if they still think it’s a great decision when they’re drunk. And then, you know, I think that sounds really logical. You know, you.

Andrew Roy (27:19.818)

Yeah. No, that’s the Herodotus, the Persians. Yeah. Yeah.

Doug (27:35.222)

you get a chance to speak more freely, shall we say.

Andrew Roy (27:39.232)

Yeah, no, it’s a, a tale that I see lived out every night at the steak house, honestly. and you know, I was thinking to just go back. This wouldn’t be the first time that our drinking patterns as a whole global society have shifted. I think pre prohibition to now, I mean, people drink a lot. And I mean, it was also the holdover from an error when it wasn’t safe to drink water every time, but you know, that’s.

Doug (28:05.272)

Yeah, no, particularly, you know, Americans in the 19th century were hard, hard drinkers. And a lot of that was distilled, you know, alcohol, and it was strong and intense. And people were, you know, for lack of a kind of word, drunk on a regular basis. And it isn’t, you know, that isn’t healthy. But precisely to your point, people

had learned to rely upon alcohol. Certainly if we go back millennia, we know that alcohol is mixed with water, that the Greeks would never drink straight wine. For instance, they always mixed it at least half wine and half water because it made the water safe to drink and it meant they could drink more glasses. So they weren’t, you know, they weren’t afraid of the alcohol. It was more a matter of watering it down so that you can get your

water intake, even though alcohol is a diuretic, it’s a little self-defeating. Nonetheless, that was the behavior in ancient times. And in the 19th century, particularly Americans were noted for their heavy drinking. And so prohibition was an inappropriate response to a real problem.

Andrew Roy (29:25.192)

with all of its own unintended consequences. So I was wondering, in your opinion, having it be an oral examination versus written, is there one that was easier or do people, does it just depend on personality type and you just, yeah, I’m kind of leaving that up there because I’m curious.

Doug (29:27.923)

exactly. Yeah.

Doug (29:44.408)

Yeah, I think it, yeah, no, I think you’re absolutely right. It depends upon your personality type. People who are fast on their feet are in great shape at the Master of Smoye. People who are not able to organize their thoughts in a logical manner and are not practiced, and it always comes back to practiced, at either one of those presentations of information are gonna be a trouble.

And so the answer is very simple, you practice. And if you’ve ever worked on a restaurant floor, you’ve lived that world, you’re already there. So for me, having come from restaurants, was no big deal in the sense that I was ready kind of for anything. And if somebody asked me a wacky question, I’ve been asked a million wacky questions. This is just another one that I’m gonna tell people about later on when I’m in the kitchen.

You know, it’s like, my God, you wouldn’t believe what I just heard. But you know, with the MW, you are practiced at writing essays. And I’d spent a lot of time in my life writing with something that I have always really felt like as part of my being. And so that one was easy. And the fact that I had had so many different roles, whether helping run a retail.

Andrew Roy (30:41.92)

Thanks.

Doug (31:07.81)

store or working the restaurant floor, helping manage restaurants or working as a wholesaler or working as an importer or being a wine writer. All of those things had been roles that I had lived by the time I came to the MW. So I was like, yeah, this makes sense to me. I just need to get organized.

Andrew Roy (31:26.132)

got this.

Sure, sure. Did you intentionally do the MS first just to like get it out of the way? Or was it just coincidental, the sequence that you went on?

Doug (31:39.79)

Actually, I did them both at the same time. It just takes the MW long. It takes longer to do the MW than the MS. I don’t know what the current number is, but I believe there’s still a statistic out there that says the average amount of time it takes to do the MS is five to seven years and the MW is seven to 11 years. So I took them both at the same time unintentionally. I didn’t even know the MS existed when I jumped into the MW.

Andrew Roy (31:43.123)

Okay.

Doug (32:09.326)

and then got through, learned about the MS and got through it kind of in short order, but the MW just takes a little bit longer than the MS. even though I was doing at the same time, I finished the MS in 91 and the MW in 93.

Andrew Roy (32:26.028)

so I, I did want to actually relay the story because I have a lot of respect for this. you found out about the MS while doing the MW. I heard that story and then you took the advance and passed it. And, and it was like a two week period or something. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I’ve been,

Doug (32:39.87)

Yeah, I had two weeks to get ready. But I was neck deep. At that point, I was neck deep in the whole thing. And my friends and I blind tasted each other constantly. It was one of those things where I’m sure I got through by the skin of my teeth, no doubt at all. But the minute I got through the advanced, I realized what I didn’t know and what I wasn’t good at.

and knew that it was time to get good at those things.

Andrew Roy (33:12.672)

Yeah, well, mean, I was so I’ve been working on the advance for years and I, uh, the two years ago I passed the theory and service and did not pass blind. And I was like, man, he just, he found out in two weeks and went for it. That’s impressive. But

Doug (33:28.142)

Well, I also would would I know this would not make some MS is happy for me to say this, but the exams harder today than it was. I know that everybody does the you you’re supposed to be like Scouts honor. It’s exactly the same. No, it’s not. The advanced definitely in my view has gotten harder over the years. And and part of that was actually good intentions.

I remember back in the day when I helped with the exams, the view really was that people were taking the advanced and thinking, wow, I’m ready for the masters, and then just getting clobbered. And it’s expensive to take the masters. And we felt like we need to tighten up the advanced so that people don’t finish the advanced and think, well, no, I’m good to go. Because it’s like, dude, no, it gets really ugly from here.

So, you know, I would admit to you that I certainly feel like we felt that we had to make the advanced more consistently, uniformly serious throughout the exam. And it’s tough, it’s a really tough exam.

Andrew Roy (34:42.624)

is, it is. It’s been the thing that I just keep banging my head against, but I mean, the whole point I think is to have these intense certifications that actually mean something. And if you lower the standards, then you know, what’s the point? I mean, part of it too is the job I have has a lot of hours. you you add up the hours and it only goes to 24, can’t get any higher. So yeah.

Doug (35:03.308)

Yeah, yeah.

Doug (35:08.076)

Yeah, yeah, you can’t squeeze more. However, I would say, you know, on the tasting, bear in mind that it’s a finite number of wines and that the human mind and the sensory equipment can remember things rather amazingly. mean, almost terrifyingly accurate at remembering sensory experiences. However, we tend to, those of us who prepare, I certainly know I did.

for the masters, I threw everything against the wall. I was tasting anything and everything, and I was wasting my time. The best methodology is to look at that list of, quote unquote, testable wines, pick a good example of each one, and taste the crap out of it. Because of Coravin and other tools these days, you can taste that wine every day. And when you taste, always taste blind.

body quickly builds up that sense memory and, okay, yeah, if you’re only tasting one example of, let’s say, a Vouvray, right, okay, they could throw a different Vouvray at you, or maybe they’re gonna throw a Sauvignon at you instead of a Vouvray, which does present very differently. How, on the other hand, if you’ve tasted the same Vouvray, I don’t know, 50 times over the course of a year, if I push a glass of that to you, you’re gonna go, oh, I know this wine.

because I’ve tasted this a million times. And now what’ll happen is if it’s a different one, you’ll smell it and go, this really reminds me of the one, but this is not the one I usually have, but it really, really reminds me of that one. And so I think for so many people, they try to test and prepare themselves for way too many wines. And it’s easier if you just stick to the testable list. Don’t let amateurs pick your wines when you’re blind tasting because people will pick wines that are out of the wheelhouse.

Andrew Roy (36:33.961)

Yeah, that seems like food for a year.

Doug (37:02.926)

We always say when we pick wines for the blind tasting exam, these have to be absolute classic examples, nothing weird, nothing different. And so, you know, I would encourage you when you go back for the blind, just to prepare, you know, spend a year doing just that, retasting, retasting, retasting, until you’re like, if you brought me that glass of Vouvray again, I don’t even need to taste it, I smell it and I know, oh yeah.

That’s the 4.0 I’ve consumed a hundred times.

Andrew Roy (37:39.316)

You know, where I actually get really mixed up in my head. So, you know, you hand me a glass, I smell it and I could pretty almost be like, that’s a mole back, you know, like, that’s, that’s a pinot grigio. But when I start talking out loud, I convince myself, like I, it’s like, I’m not listening to myself and I let the nerves kind of, they say nerves are the great question mark, you know,

Doug (37:49.624)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Doug (38:00.322)

Yeah. Yeah, well, there again, think practice is your friend that you go through the steps, the grid, as we say, and the grid is really just a series of questions to make sure that you don’t miss anything in that wine. By filling out that grid, you gain points. By getting the wine right, you’ve got the points from the analysis and the description of the wine. Then you get the wine right, you win.

that the idea really is is that you don’t ignore your brain when it says, wow, look at that, that the purple on the side, smell that, that smells like Malbec. You go, hang on, we don’t know what it is yet. Let’s collect all the data and make sure all the points line up. And now you start talking about, well, you know, there’s an enormous amount of color in this wine, including even in the legs. There’s a lot of bright purple to it. Okay, it’s a heavily pigmented grape. Let’s move on. The alcohol, you know.

You start collecting notes of oak, alcohol, collecting notes of fruits and herbs and yada yada yada. And then you put all that data in front of you and you go, actually no, that’s not a Malbec. That’s just a Zinfin though. But it’s okay that the first thing I thought was Malbec because Zin and Malbec can kind of act like each other. And here’s why it’s a Zin, because there was a touch of American oak and typically Malbec’s not.

found in Argentina, pardon me, American Oak is not used on Malbec in Argentina. So just that one data point kept me in the right zone and not in the wrong zone. it is that you don’t lose that ability to go, that Malbec? Because probably a third of the time, you’re dead on, you got it right. Your brain already said, hey, I know what this is.

Andrew Roy (39:48.242)

Yeah, no, I, you know, you know, cause I went to college in New Mexico. So Tim guys are big out there and he calls them the evil dwarves. And so, yeah, it’s super easy that that first smells like, I thought it was Grenache, but maybe, you know, as you start going through all the ladders and the, yeah.

Doug (39:56.236)

Hehehehehe

Doug (40:04.492)

Yeah. I love, you know, Tim is an old and dear friend. He and I kind of went through the program together, although it really is just, you know, we didn’t know each other at the time, but we both took the masters at the same time. And it was really funny. There was a kind of California mafia that was involved in. mean, I called them that that was taking the exam. And I don’t know that I wasn’t well liked.

but I was definitely not one of them. I was just some knucklehead from Kansas City. And a couple of them were downright rude to me, just because they were like, what is this idiot? No, he’s from Kansas City. What could he possibly, you know, he can’t pass. Yeah, exactly. And Gazer was, know, Tim was one of the guys who was like, oh no, this guy and I totally are simpatico. And you know, a lot of people don’t know this about Tim back in, this is now we’re talking about the early 80s.

Andrew Roy (40:46.492)

Sorry. Yeah.

Doug (41:01.89)

Tim was involved in spirits and cocktails, or at least more knowledgeable than most of our peers were. I was very involved in that as well. Tim and I could sit there and talk cocktails and talk spirits and all the other MS candidates were like, what are you guys talking about? Well, why would you even drink that stuff? I’m like, because if you haven’t had mezcal, you’re a fool.

Andrew Roy (41:25.408)

Yeah. I think some mezcal’s are probably my favorite moment. yeah. I mean, that whiskey, yeah. I’m pretty equal opportunity though.

Doug (41:31.389)

yeah, that’s gals music.

Yeah, yeah, me too. I kind of love everything.

Andrew Roy (41:40.064)

I actually am glad that you mentioned spirits because I did want to ask you the beverage alcohol resource. That is actually where I first got introduced to your day way back in the day because I was a bartender by trade back in the day. But yeah, could you tell us the listeners a little bit about that? Because that was that was huge.

Doug (41:46.893)

Yes.

Doug (41:54.258)

Yeah.

Doug (41:59.726)

Yeah, well, certainly one of my erstwhile business partners is a guy named Steve Olson. Steve lives in New York. Steve and I met through the Master of Small Year program. In fact, we roomed together at the first time that he and I and our friends bought bath and a whole group of people were all taking the masters for the first time in Monterey, California. And Steve and I immediately were like,

dude, you and I are on the same wavelength, if only because we are both involved, or at least spend a lot of time tasting and drinking spirits in cocktails as well. so subsequently, Evan Goldstein, again, one of my mentors, really in the Master Sommelier program, he was running something called the Sterling School of Service and Hospitality for

Sterling Vineyards owned by Chateau and States, which is owned by Seagram Company. So, you know, deep pockets. And he ran this, this wine educational school. And they asked him because they were Seagram, they asked him to create a spirits educational school. And he was like, not my wheelhouse, but Frost and Olson are the two guys I think could do this. And, and Steve and I were like, hell yeah, let’s do this. And, and so we put together literally, we stayed up all night and wrote out.

a script for a one-day school and took a shower, got in our nice clothes and went and talked to the suits and presented this one-day program which became Sterling School of Service and Hospitality for spirits and cocktails. And so we did that for a while. I cleaved it off and did something for Disney World for a while and that kind of.

the spirits education diploma thing. And then in the mid 90s, Paul Packard was running the San Francisco spirits competition, which still exists today, although Paul doesn’t run it anymore. Paul was running that Dale DeGroff was there who I had known for years and years, because one of my high school buddies from central Kansas ran one of the ran the nightclub at the rainbow.

Doug (44:13.342)

in New York City. So I’d met Dale that way and through other folks. I had never met David Wunderich, but the spirits writer at the time for Esquire and Playboy. And we were all together, the five of us, all as judges at the San Francisco spirits comp, international spirits competition. And Paul said, let’s all go get a drink and talk about something. And he and David had been talking about this idea. And Steve and I were like, dude,

we already did this, you know, and we’ve already got the script ready to go. We got the exam, we got the format, we got everything good to go. So we wrapped that all up. And so about 20 years ago, we then turned it into, initially it was just something smaller and we did it kind of for fundamentals in bartending and things like that and spirits education. And then about 20 plus years ago, we created what’s called Bar Five Day, which is this overarching.

big version of that. It’s a five day program and it’s in a much, higher level and having people like Dale and David and Paul and Steve, but then supplemented by Andy Seymour who became our logistics genius basically. And then having all these other people who took that first five day program and subsequently became teachers within the program such that

Now we have about 28 different members of faculty, over half are female, about a third of persons of color. We reflect better now, I think, our audience when really it was a program that was started by five old white guys. We weren’t old then, but we’re old now. And that program, I love that program and have always really enjoyed those five days with 60 or 70.

bartenders from around the world or bar managers or sometimes, you know, bar ambassadors or spirits ambassadors who all get together and we do these 14 hour, 16 hour days and you know, it’s go, go, go, go. And we blind taste something like 190 spirits and 30 or so cocktails. it’s amazing. It’s a really cool program.

Andrew Roy (46:31.124)

Yeah. And for the listener out there that may be familiar with blind tasting wine versus blind tasting spirits and cocktails, because you do that a little less. Let me tell you, it’s a lot harder than you think. I, you can get in your head and you can definitely make yourself think something besides what’s in front of you.

Doug (46:40.099)

Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Doug (46:50.606)

It’s always possible to do that if you’re under stress and under the gun to come up with the name of that spirit category. You’re always going to be jumping to conclusions, often coming up with ideas as to what this is before you should. Because initially it’s just collect the data. What’s it smell like? What’s it taste like? Check for all the categories.

Theoretically, once you collect all that information, it’s going to be really obvious this isn’t a cognac. It just smelled wonderful and almondy and, you know, nougat-y and a little chocolate and a little walnut and had this beautiful honey note to it. And you thought it was a cognac initially because it smelled so lovely, but it’s just an old rum. And you knew that because

it had a certain kind of marshmallow note that was lingering there, or it had a kind of funky, slightly sweaty smell. Cognac never has a sweaty smell, but rum sometimes smells a little bit like humans.

Andrew Roy (47:59.511)

yeah, that’s what I think about. Yeah, I can see that. Yeah.

Doug (48:01.794)

Yeah, yeah, so you know it really comes back to collect all the data and then you’ll.

Andrew Roy (48:08.81)

When you’re at home, what’s your go-to drink? Do you have one category that you’re like, I am Mezcal or I’m Cognac?

Doug (48:15.39)

yeah, I actually do carry a small little vial of mezcal with me wherever I go. because yeah, I love mezcal, but when it comes to, certainly when it comes to wine, I’m all over the place. really is dependent upon the time of day, the place where I’m at, what I’m interested in learning about, and certainly the, the, weather, you know, in the dead of summer, I’m probably not drinking Amarone. Okay. It’s just like, it’s.

Andrew Roy (48:22.374)

yeah.

Doug (48:44.782)

frickin’ 100 degrees out there in 90 % humidity, are you out of your flippin’ mind? Let’s bang out the German Rieslings, make them nice and cold, 8 % alcohol, we’re good.

Andrew Roy (48:57.104)

Yep. Now I admire and live off the money that the people in the steakhouse come and spend on cabs in the middle of summer, but I could never do it. I I’m a beer guy in summer. I just yeah, when it gets cold, bring on the heavy reds. I am down. Yeah.

Doug (49:11.266)

Yeah, yeah, bring me the cold stuff. You’re 100 % right.

Andrew Roy (49:15.36)

I actually want to show you something. So, see if you can see this. All right. Am I? Yeah.

Doug (49:21.934)

I can’t really read it because of the reflection. can’t read the…

Andrew Roy (49:27.52)

Yeah, so it’s Ray Silva, Mezcal Ancestral. So no idea what it’s like. I picked it up in Mexico at a little tour shop. I have been a little slow to open it because I was quoted a price of 400 pesos and they charged me $400. So it turned into a nightmare to get my money back. So now it’s just this like relic of

that one fun story of this $20 little bottle turned into a $400 bottle. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I still remember saying pesos, right? Pesos it is. yes, pesos. It’s like, great. Let’s do it. Yeah.

Doug (50:01.006)

They tried to take you for an extra $380. That’s amazing.

Doug (50:11.736)

Damn. Yeah. Well, the wonderful thing about Mexican Spirit is it’s supposed to have a nom on there. You’re supposed to be able to look on the back, see the nom number, and that will then lead you. You can go online and discover what distillery actually made that. Often a distillery that makes other products. And so you can kind of compare products across the board.

Certainly when people bring me, as so often happens, a new mezcal or a new tequila, and they’re like, this is amazing, this is one of, it’s handmade, and it’s like, uh-huh, it’s made by, let’s see, the nom, okay, I’ll look that up. Yeah, the guy makes 35 other brands. And so it ain’t that special, but it doesn’t mean it’s not delicious. But Ancestral, course, is this whole category of the…

utilization of, that it is far more likely to be handmade because you’ve ground up the, you know, the mega and utilize fibers and things like that in a, you know, ancient still that it’s far more likely to be handmade than a Mezcal industrial, which will, you know, never really be something you probably wanted to drink.

Andrew Roy (51:29.322)

Yeah.

Andrew Roy (51:33.202)

At some point I will have to just open up because I also have wondered like is this even Mezcal? Yeah, I mean it was just a random shop on the side of the road, but yeah, which yeah, it could be amazing. You never know.

Doug (51:41.922)

Sure. Yeah, exactly. No, it’s, as I say, you might be able to find out more about who made it. And it’s always interesting. I’m always interested in tasting something new because you just find stuff that you find stuff in places you don’t expect it, both good and bad. I’ve always pushed people to blind taste spirit as well.

because I can remember a couple of instances where I tasted a famous rye brand and I was blind tasted on this rye brand, three different bottles purchased in three consecutive years. And there were three different rye whiskies. I mean, very different. And my friend who blinded me on it was like, this is that brand this year?

that brand last year and that brand the year before. And they had been sold and it was like, oh my God, they’re throwing completely different juice in there. And it’s not at the standard, it should be. And so I did that with other people subsequently as well. I was like, got a blind tasting for you. And there’d be like three different brands here, three different whiskey uses. I’m like, no, they’re not. And then conversely, I’ve had that experience where somebody poured a blind tequila on me.

that is not a tequila brand that I would ever have taken seriously. And it wasn’t great, but I was like, but this is a relatively quality, you know, it’s Valley, Valley floor agave. It’s, you know, maybe a little bit sweet, but actually I think there’s some really nice character in this and they pull the bag off and I’m like, you know, but I wouldn’t have even taken the time to do that, which is why blind tasting is so useful to acknowledge that.

Andrew Roy (53:29.888)

Yes.

Doug (53:36.142)

even some of these large scale brands that people take seriously, they’re trying to make good juice. So it’s good to acknowledge that when that happens.

Andrew Roy (53:46.366)

Yeah, and you just you open up the world to this. You know the more things that you like, the more things you like and you don’t have to always spend all that money if it’s something that’s more affordable. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Doug (53:57.496)

Damn straight, we are all looking to save money where we can.

Andrew Roy (54:02.846)

I know after 2020, we all tightened the belt a little bit. Well, awesome. know, Doug, there’s one other thing I wanted to ask you and I’m going to let you go because I know you got a big trip later today. Why do you think only four people have ever done the MWMS? Is it just that it’s so hard to do one that the overlapping circle is that small or?

Doug (54:04.482)

Yeah. Yeah.

Doug (54:26.338)

Well, I suppose, yeah, that’s one of the explanations. think that the probably the truthful explanation is more pragmatic that for most people you get one, you’re good. You you got those post-nominals and that lets people know you’re serious and you’ve worked hard and you studied and you have gathered a lot of information and mastered a good chunk of that information. So the need to have both.

is only a few of us are insecure enough to need both, you know? And like I said, mine was an accident. And I expect there will be more. I wasn’t the first guy. The first guy was Ron Wiggin in 91, and then me in 93, and then Gerard Bessay in, I think it was 99 or 2000, and then Eric Heamer about five years later, and now Benjamin Hasco passed last year.

No, Gerard passed away about five years ago and a great loss because he was an amazing person. so there remain just four of us. But Benjamin, it’s really funny. When I heard he had passed, I was like, dude, you need to…

Andrew Roy (55:25.577)

I didn’t hear that one. I’ll have to start saying five now. Yes.

Doug (55:53.286)

know, shout it from the rooftops. He was like, yes, yes, I’m fine. I’ll see what I want to do, you know. He’s just like, I’m in Singapore. I’m gonna take it easy, bro. And he’s obviously very skilled and there will be more. There will definitely be more.

Andrew Roy (56:12.512)

Awesome. Well, thank you for taking the time to talk to us today. Thank you. didn’t say it earlier. You taught my agave spirits class in the advanced course when I did it. So thank you for doing such a good job. Yes.

Doug (56:22.386)

right on. Thank you. Thank you. That’s one of those, know, talk about a seminar I love to teach. know, it’s more one of those, somebody’s like, you need to get off the stage now.

Andrew Roy (56:32.36)

Yeah. It’s been about, I think it was 12, 15 years. Yeah. I think it’s so smart that they put that at the end of the day, because throughout the whole day you’re doing all these tastings of wine and everyone’s spitting. And then the very last of the day, last, last course it’s agave spirits. Everyone’s exhausted. And it’s like, this is it. So you see some people stop spitting as religiously towards the end. Yeah. But yeah.

Doug (56:40.788)

Yeah.

Doug (56:58.606)

As they should. It’s time to chill out a little bit.

Andrew Roy (57:03.072)

Where could the listener find you? Where can they find more about Echolands and all the things you do?

Doug (57:08.45)

Well, certainly Ecolands winery.com is where our website is. We’re in about 13 states or so. So our wines are not impossible to find depending upon where you are, but we’re a relatively small winery. We’re making about 9,000 cases a year now. So we’re not tiny anymore. But certainly if you get to Walla Walla and I encourage people to check out the town of Walla Walla, there’s like.

200 wineries there now. It’s really cool. And there’s some great restaurants and it’s a cool little town. if you make it there, you need to come up and visit us because we have this high elevation winery with a 360 view of the entire valley. And it’s just gorgeous up there.

Andrew Roy (57:55.776)

That’s awesome. It’s a place so nice they named it twice. So you gotta go. Yeah. Well, for everyone listening, if you didn’t record that, I will have in the show notes where you can find more about Echo Winery. And thank you for coming on, Doug. It was real pleasure.

Doug (57:57.854)

As they say. As they say.

Doug (58:09.199)

Thank you, Andrea. I appreciate it.

Andrew Roy (58:12.64)

Okay.