I do enjoy a good whiskey. So when I had the chance to interview a real, live distiller, I jumped at it. Bonus: Lance Winters is funny as hell. Seriously. He’s also not shy about explaining how he uses math in his work — including his background in nuclear engineering, which has nothing to do with his current work. He is a master distiller at St. George Spirits in Alameda, CA, where he helps create artisanal spirits, including gin, absinthe, bourbon, single malt whiskey (my favorite), rum and liqueurs.
Can you explain what you do for a living?
I spend a lot of time wandering around looking busy in the hope that nobody asks me to do any actual work. When that gets too tiring, I play video games. When I do work, I crush and ferment fruit, mash in and ferment grain, then distill them. I prepare our distillates for bottling, then bottle them.
When do you use basic math in your job?
I use math all the time! I’m not even kidding. It starts with figuring out the potential alcohol by volume in whatever medium we’re fermenting, then converting that to the total number of proof gallons we can produce from the amount of fruit or grain that we’ve had delivered. I then convert that to the number of cases of bottled product we can produce. That’s all pretty basic multiplication and division. We also use math when scaling up lab samples and bench trials of different whiskey blends.
Do you use any technology to help with this math?
I like to use calculators to check my math and be totally sure about things, but like to do as much as possible in my head, on the fly. My memory’s bad enough that I need to keep the processor sharp.
How do you think math helps you do your job better?
I’m able to plan my work better and make more informed business decisions because of math.
How comfortable with math do you feel? Does this math feel different to you?
I’m very comfortable with math, all the time. I used to think that so much of math (especially calculus) was just something that mathematicians used to show off for one another. Now, I see the poetry as well as usefulness of integrals and derivatives. (By the way, I found Matt Damon very implausible as a math whiz in Good Will Hunting.)
What kind of math did you take in high school?
I took pre-calculus in high school, and in spite of having learned at the feet of Harold Gene Smith, greatest math teacher ever, I felt like a total hack at math.
Did you have to learn new skills in order to do the math you use in your job?
After high school, I spent two years going to navy schools to learn nuclear engineering. That totally messed my head up and made me the way I am today.
Any questions for Lance? Ask them in the comment section. I’ll let him know that they’re there, and perhaps between his daily wandering and video games, he’ll stop by to reply.