Distillate

Distillate

The story of what's in the glass.

Narrative stories about the history, culture, and science behind what people drink. Each episode takes a single drink, ingredient, moment, or practice and follows it to where it breaks open into something larger — a trade economy, a political movement, a chemical accident, a grief.

Hosted by Shawn Spitaleri.

The First Industrial Drink

Rum was never supposed to exist. It was the garbage of the sugar trade — fermented molasses, the waste product of Caribbean plantations — and it became the fuel of an empire. This episode traces how a byproduct of industrial slavery turned into the first drink manufactured at scale, how it moved across the Atlantic as currency and commodity, and what it means that the history of rum and the history of the slave trade are the same history. The Royal Navy issued a daily rum ration to its sailors from 1655. They stopped in 1970.

Transmutation of waste into value — and who pays the cost.

Alchemy as frame.
Chemistry as method.

The cocktail podcast space is saturated with technique and recipe content. Narrative storytelling in this space is virtually nonexistent. Distillate occupies that gap — following each drink to where it breaks open into trade economies, political movements, chemical accidents, and human grief.

Nothing mystical without a material foundation underneath it.

Proof

Alchemy as frame.Chemistry as method.

Alchemy as frame.
Chemistry as method.