Episode Details

In Part 1 of this mind-bending conversation with distiller, blender, and synesthete Anna Mantheakis (@anna.distills), some of the topics we discuss include:

• A working definition of synesthesia, for those of us who don't experience sensory spill-over in any given perceptual domain

• The story of how Anna first realized that sound impacted her experience of flavor, featuring a 5-star restaurant brunch shift, a kitchen fan, and a batch of whipped cream

• How synesthesia impacted Anna's journey as a wine and spirits professional, really challenging her to come up with creative ways to maintain consistency without completely dulling her sensitivity to certain tastes and aromas.

• We also explore how she has worked auditory cues into her distilling and blending practices in order to enhance sensitivity and focus when tasting for specific compounds or flavor attributes.

• Thankfully, these are just audio files, and this is a podcast! So you'll actually get to hear the sounds that Anna uses when running stills or evaluating barrels for blends.

• Along the way, we muse on questions like: "what if the flavors I'm tasting aren't actually there?" "What if you could hook your nose up to a Gas Chromatograph?", "would you eat a taco with crickets on it?", and much, much more.