Rowley's Whiskey Forge: I Can Almost Hear the Theme Music

Friday, July 6, 2012

I Can Almost Hear the Theme Music

Surely one of America's greatest comics.

2 comments:

Dagreb said...: Disseminating misinformation. Excellent!; July 7, 2012 at 6:26 AM
Matthew Rowley said...: Dagreb, I'll have you know that I post these public service announcements as earnest, heartfelt...oh, look! Edith Massey lookalike contest! Be right back.; July 17, 2012 at 9:40 AM

Rowley Who?

I'm Matthew Rowley. I wrote the book on moonshine. No, for real.

I'm a contributor to Whisky Advocate, contributing editor for Distiller magazine, a former board member of the Southern Foodways Alliance, and an erstwhile museum curator. After a life of living in bitterly cold and unspeakably hot places, I'm lucky enough to be working my tail off in southern California. Can't beat that with a stick.

Email me: moonshinearchives (at) gmail (dot) com

My day job is freelance writing for business, government, and academic clients. When I’m not helping others get their stories out, I’m eating and drinking, planning to eat and drink, or, relying on my training as an anthropologist and museum curator to reflect on what I’ve eaten and drunk. I travel whenever I can, visiting distillers, artisan food producers, secondhand bookstores, and farmers’ markets. Sometimes I manage to write about it here.

Since 2001, I've traveled around the world interviewing extra-legal distillers to debunk the notion that moonshining is a dead or dying craft. You can check out the results in my 2007 book Moonshine. For fun, there are plugs and interviews at the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Publishers Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, and Wired.

It's warmed my heart that modern "very small batch" distillers, far from being a dying breed, continue to send and bring me bottles and jars of hand-cranked whiskeys and brandies.

Click here for my disclosure statements and directions for sending samples.