Hey All,
I wanted to thank everyone who came out to all of our amazing tastings last month, and answer one of the most common questions we get asked. What did you do before you became a distiller?
I’ll start with Nick, because I love talking about his amazing art. Nick has had many jobs over the years, but one of my favorite things about him is he is a watercolor artist. Since I have known Nick, 13 years and counting, he is always drawing, painting, or looking at art. He has shown his work all over Austin, and our house is full of it, which I love.
He paints landscapes of places we have been. One interesting fact about Nick is he is colorblind. I often marvel at how well he paints, yet can’t always see the color. I don’t really understand how that works, but I am completely impressed by it.
I’ve shared just a small selection of his paintings, but these are some of my favorites. The first painting is called February; it is painting of a bridge along Lady Bird Lake in Austin. My mother actually has this hanging in her kitchen. And the second painting is painted looking out a window at St. Edwards University, where Nick graduated.
Now to me, after I graduated from college, I began working in a lab that did research on fire ants. Yes that photo is a bunch of fire ants in a tray! I worked at a field lab that ran a biological control project on fire ants. So basically we killed them.
I had a variety of different functions at our lab, but one of my favorites was I ran an experiment that did fat-extraction of fire ants. And yes the second photo is of fire ant fat I saved. That is basically one year worth of fat extractions. Kind of gross, but kind of cool. I also did a lot of identifications of the ant species of Texas and a whole lot of other tasks in between. I still love science and get a lot of fulfillment from of spending time in nature, but I’m very happy not to be stung by ants every day.
Nick and I enjoyed our previous jobs, but feel really lucky to do something we love everyday.
Until Next Time,
Amanda