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Once upon a time, supporting independent makers in food and drink was paramount for conscientious consumers. To these shoppers, a common goal was to avoid anything with a whiff of global corporate ownership. But today, the goal posts have shifted in a slightly different direction, with customers often focusing on aspects like seasonality, sustainability, and staying as close as possible to the source.\xa0

This emphasis on hyper localism isn\u2019t quite as one-dimensional as it seems, or so says writer and academic Dr. Anna Sulan Masing. In a story for Good Beer Hunting titled, \u201cPeople, Place, and Produce \u2014 How Agriculture, Secondary Ingredients, and Trade Routes Define Spirits\u2019 Identities,\u201d Masing looks at the tangible and historical influences on spirits and explains how certain ideas of what a spirit is today can often leave out where it actually comes from. She encourages readers to look to our past to understand our future, and how time, space, and travel all inform the products we consume, regardless of how local we think they are.\xa0

In this episode, we discuss the power and danger of wielding the idea of \u201cauthenticity,\u201d and what the term even means in the first place. You\u2019ll hear how it took years for her to piece together the threads of an idea to report this story, as well as the challenges\u2014and surprises\u2014she faced throughout her research. We\u2019ll talk about how history and heritage informs innovation and how those ideas of authenticity can be an ever-evolving concept, shifting from one person to the next. Even if you don\u2019t fancy yourself a beverage historian, none of us can escape the local or global systems that nourish us. So let\u2019s explore them, head on, and as a collective group.

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