Episode 126 - Minimalist Tiki

Some of the topics we discuss with Minimalist Tiki Author and rum ambassador Matt Pietrek Include: How Matt tended a rum hobby while working as a software engineer, and then blew that spark of interest into a full-fledged career as a rum author, historian, and consultant. Why intellectual honesty and a thirst for verification set great cocktail writing and scholarship apart from the merely good stuff. What "minimalist tiki" means - because let's face it, when you're looking at a recipe that calls for 8 or more ingredients, there's not a whole lot of minimalism going on. Why the fates and fortunes of rum and tiki are so interconnected in the bar world. How Matt used a quantitative approach to laying out the most important tiki ingredients to have at your home bar. (Total software engineer move, by the way…) The four levels of improvisation in tiki What it's like to self-publish a book in the age of Amazon and big publisher dominance. What to drink when discussing calculus with Sir Isaac Newton. And much, much more.