Talking Women & Whiskey with Lodestar Whiskey

Laurie Forster

Welcome back to The Sipping Point. I'm Laurie Forster, the wine coach, and I'm so excited for this new episode of The Sipping Point, and we have so much to do today. I have a sipping point from a listener in Walkersville, Maryland, all about wine glasses. I'm gonna get to that in a minute. But upcoming, I am very excited to bring in Anna Envendelan from Lodestar Whiskey.

 

out in California, two women that fell in love with whiskey traveling on the road with their entertainment clients. And just notice how whiskey was really angled more towards men, but wanted to make it more inviting for everyone. And so they created their own whiskey brand. We're gonna taste it, we're gonna talk about it. And hopefully they'll even inspire you to maybe start something new. Before we get to the sipping point, which is all about wine glasses today,

 

I just wanted to remind you that I have a free app for iPhone and Android. It's called The Wine Coach, the name of my business, and you can download it for free in the app store or in Google Play. And what's great about it is you can play the podcast from right within the app. 100 % free. There's also great videos, wine picks from all my virtual wine tastings, my Wine Down Wednesdays. I got one coming up on December 4th. Go to thewinecoach.com.

 

and click on events and hope you'll join me. And then there's so many great other things in there. So download the app, it's a great way to listen to The Sipping Point whenever you want to. And we will get back to other ways to listen later in the show. Okay, so Robert, met him at an event and his question was, do wine glasses really matter? And what's up with the different sizes?

 

I guess, know, in the old days when you're just getting started, you feel like any glass will do. And I hear that joke all the time. You know, any glass that holds wine is a wine glass. Sure, that's technically, I guess you could say that and that's a fun, cheeky way of looking at it. But wine glasses are actually designed and created in a specific way to be best for the taste and the enjoyment of your wine. So

 

Laurie Forster

This week I thought we'd just talk about white and red. I'm not gonna get into bubbly today. I'm gonna do that in an upcoming episode, all around sparkling wine, one of my favorite things. But let's just talk about white and red wine glasses. So you notice both of these are in this tulip shape. That's what we call the top of the wine glass. These are stemmed glasses, of course, with the bottom there. Now,

 

In case you think I'm a snob and I'm against stemless wine glasses. We could probably do a whole nother sipping point on that. I'm not I have them I use them and They're great. But if I'm drinking finer wines or nicer wines, I do break out my stemmed wine glasses I am a huge read all wine glass lover. I also like Speiglau or Schott Zweisel. There's some really nice brands. You can go way way up from there, but I go with

 

just sort of the basic level, not the highest end that you can get. These are might be restaurant level Riedels. I may have purchased them through a restaurant. I'm not sure, but you don't need to go to the most expensive one in the line. I have a white wine, which is their Chardonnay style. And I have a red wine, which is their Bordeaux style. You can get a different glass for every different variety. You can get a...

 

Sauvignon Blanc style and a Pinot Noir style, which if you love Pinot, you might want because it gives you a different shape that's really meant for the Pinot Noir. But in general, if you're just looking to sort of minimize what you're pursuing, these two styles are perfect. So I'm going to start with the white wine. Why is the white wine glass smaller and in the bowl than the red? Well, one of the reasons is that white wines are more delicate. The Roemer's

 

or more delicate so that when you swirl the wine and stick your nose in, you're trapping those delicate aromas better than you would be with that wider, broader bowl of the glass. The other thing that's important with the glass is that it be made from real crystal. If you've ever been to a restaurant with those big, chunky, heavy, manufactured glasses that are not the thin rims like you're seeing here with my glasses,

 

Laurie Forster

you know that the wine just doesn't taste the same. And it's not because, ooh, I'm drinking it of cheap glass versus I'm drinking it of expensive glass. It's because this is hand-blown crystal that has a rough surface on it. It's microscopic. We can't see it with the eye. But what does that mean? That means when you swirl your wine, which vaporizes the alcohol, makes it more accessible to your nose,

 

It actually vaporizes more of the wine and makes it more accessible, allows you to smell it even better. Smelling your wine is 80 % of the tasting process because your nose is the gateway to the olfactory bulb and the olfactory bulb is the part of your brain that recognizes smells. Something we learn as we grow up and something in the wine business we work on all the time.

 

So when you stick your nose in that Sauvignon Blanc or that Chardonnay and you see, I feel like I smell lemon or pineapple or grapefruit. That's your brain kind of registering that. And your nose is the way that you can do that. The other 20 % of tasting is that sip where you're getting the sweet, sour, salty, bitter, savory elements that your tongue can really pick up or even the weight of the wine, whether it's a light or full bodied wine. So

 

The glass is important from what it's made out of, the shape, and even Riedel believes the way it's designed where it hits you on the tongue when you take the sip. So that's our white wine glass. And then let's talk a little bit about red wine. So here again, another Riedel, this is our Bordeaux style, broader bowl for the red wines. Red wines benefit from more aeration and this broader bowl while you're swirling,

 

gives you all that space to aerate your wine. And so it really allows the red to bring out more of its flavors and it softens up a red wine's tannins. What are tannins? Tannins are the antioxidants that are in red grape skins. The grape skins are part of the winemaking process with red wine and some red wines have more tannins than others. You'll perceive it in your mouth like a dry astringency.

 

Laurie Forster (06:59.958)

a little bit of bitterness and think of more tannic wines like Nebbiolo from my beloved Barolo's, Cabernet Sauvignon, Tannat, Petite Syrah versus lower tannin reds like Pinot Noir, Gamay and others. So that broad bowl softens the tannins, gives you more aeration for the wine inside. I'm getting thirsty. Maybe I should have had these full to begin with, but we're going to switch gears and drink some whiskey. So I'm holding off.

 

on the wine today. But anyway, we're giving us that broader bowl, we're getting more aeration, and this is just a better vessel for our red wines than the smaller glass is as well. So if you're looking to invest, although I'm not covering them, you know, I would get a nice sparkling wine, either flute or a new style, which I'm going to talk to you about in a few weeks.

 

I would get a white wine glass, a red wine glass, and maybe have some port glasses if that's something you are a fan about. I don't believe you have to get every single varietally typed glass for white, for red. I think it gets to be a little bit much but do invest in a good hand blown crystal wine glass for both red and white styles. Get yourself a flute or a newer style sparkling wine glass, and that's important.

 

So now you have the glasses. How are you gonna take care of them? Just throw them in the dishwasher, right? My kind of inexpensive stemless wine glasses that I have that I do for every day drinking wines, sure, throw them in the dishwasher. Don't even think about it. But my nice Rito glasses, no, no, no. I wash these by hand using very minimal amounts of dishwasher, know, dishwashing soap that I have and very hot water.

 

use a little bit of a sponge to wipe off any marks and let them either air dry or dry them with a tea towel. The idea here is that you don't want a lot of detergent residue in these glasses to kind of affect the taste of your wine. And dishwasher, you have that jet dry sort of rinsing agent that can affect your glasses when you're swirling and trying to look at your wine legs. We talked about that a few weeks ago.

 

Laurie Forster (09:25.554)

You're interfering with the ability of those legs to go down the side of the glass and maybe even won't give you the effect. It'll have more of that, you know, rinse, sheeting action. And so I just don't like my good wine glasses being washed in the dishwasher. I do them by hand and I use my stemless when I'm feeling lazy and I don't want to wash them by hand. And I have a specific cabinet for all of my wine glasses. Keep them together and ready to go.

 

So that's why wine glasses are important. That's why there's different sizes for red and white. And I hope that answers your question. All right, I'm so excited. We're gonna bring in the ladies from Lodestar Whiskey. Let's go ahead and do that now.

Laurie Forster

Awesome, welcome to The Sipping Point. I am so excited to have with me Anna Axster & Wendelin von Schroder, of Lodestar Whiskey. And they are two women kind of turning the whiskey world on its head, actually founding this company for whiskey, but really trying to make whiskey more inclusive of both genders. And welcome to the show, guys. I'm very excited to hear more about this.

 

Wendelin & Anna

Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, thank you.

 

Laurie Forster

Awesome, so I'll kind of split up my questions so you guys get equal time, but Anna, maybe you could tell us, I know you guys are in the music business and have done touring and have a love for whiskey, but how do you go from that to wanting to start your own whiskey line?

 

Wendelin & Anna

Yeah, so it was, we worked together for a long time already in entertainment. We worked in artist management and we worked, like you said, in music and in film and on many travels over a course of a decade, we developed a love for whiskey. And then during that time, I also realized that we felt a lot of whiskey was not marketed to people like us.

 

And when the pandemic hit and everything in entertainment came to a stop, that's when we kind of looked at each other and this idea, this passion had been kind of brewing, but we were busy in our lives and our careers. So it wasn't really something we actually considered during that time. But then when everything kind of in our, in the whole world, but also in our work stopped, that's when we looked at each other. And I think.

 

Yeah, our love for whiskey was definitely a driving force, but also this feeling that something needed to change in that space and that more women needed to be in there to represent and to offer kind of a different perspective on the category.

 

Laurie Forster

love that. And I think a lot great new businesses were born out of the pandemic. And that time we had to kind of get quiet and, and, you know, stick around home. And so ideas are flowing. So Wendelin, you decide to do this whiskey company, but I know in researching and we're going to taste here in a few seconds, but you craft your whiskey a little bit differently with a combination of different styles. Tell me about that and what made that so important.

 

for the crafting of Lodestar.

 

Wendelin & Anna

Yeah, so when we started thinking about potentially starting our own company and even before that, when we were traveling all around, we got to taste whiskey all over the country. It was a little bit of a game between us, like, what about this one and have you tried that one and what do you like about this? What do you not like? So we really came up, I guess, with our ideal flavor profile, like our dream whiskey, what that would be like.

 

And we had a lot of ideas and all of those were really centered around, know, like coming from a consumer perspective of where, who's going to drink it, where are they going to drink it, how are they going to drink it. And we wanted something that was really approachable so that we could invite new people into the category, people that hadn't tried whiskey before and kind of break those preconceptions around whiskey that whiskey has to put hair on your chest.

 

only for a certain kind of consumer who's really experienced and knows a lot about it. It's like, no, if you like something, you can just enjoy it. And so we thought about that. thought about, know, Anna really enjoys drinking whiskey just on the rocks. I really like it in a cocktail. So we're like, we want it to be versatile. And we thought about all of those different things. And then we...

 

We realized pretty quickly that in order to achieve what we wanted to achieve, we would have to blend. And then we ended up working with a really great master blender and we came up with this idea of putting a high -rye bourbon and an American single malt together because those two components really hit all of those marks that we were trying to achieve.

 

Laurie Forster

love that. So you have the high -ride bourbon, you have the American single malt. And tell me a little bit about, I have a little fruit fly, it's that time of year here in Maryland. And with a lot of wine and whiskey around, they are very attractive. But tell me a little bit about the name and the label, and then let's get to a little tasting. I know in the wine world,

 

Wendelin & Anna

Thank

 

Hahaha!

 

Laurie Forster

about half of the people choose their wines based on the label. So it is super important and the name as well. So I'm sure you put a lot of thought into this. was the, you know, the idea behind Lodestar and the star, the guiding star there on the front.

 

Wendelin & Anna

Thank you.

 

Wendelin & Anna

Yeah, so we, as I mentioned earlier, idea to really go for this happened during the pandemic in a time where everybody was so removed from their community. And that's something that we felt very deeply as well. And we both were cousins. We grew up in a big family that gathered around big dinner tables.

 

Yeah, we just kind of grew up with lots of family and community around us. We built our own community through work, through life, you know? And so in that time, that was something that we realized how much we missed it and how important it is to everyone. And then when we thought about what kind of product and what kind of brand do we want to put out there into the world and what do we want it to kind of...

 

achieve and stand for. So community was super important and the word and the feeling that came up over and over. And combined with that were a couple of other things that we just kept coming back to and kept talking about. And one of them was cultivating joy. So that, you know, every day or every in every aspect of life to cultivate joy is such an important thing. And so coming together around

 

delicious drinks or having a drink just with your best friend or at big dinner party or at a big event or whatever it is to kind of bring that element into it. And inclusivity, obviously, because we're coming at this from a slightly different perspective because we entered a very male -dominated space and we wanted to open it up and kind of invite everybody in with this. So those were kinds of things that we kept coming back to, kept talking about.

 

And we were so clear that those things needed to be kind of our guiding lights, our guiding principles if we were going to go on this journey. And then when we thought about a name, that's when Lodestar came up. And a Lodestar is a star that you navigate by. And it has a second meaning that's a principle or a guide, a principle or a person that serves as guide. So we...

 

Wendelin & Anna

We just felt it was very fitting kind of with how we approached the whole endeavor.

 

Laurie Forster

Nice.

 

Laurie Forster

Love that. Okay. So I have a little bit here of your Lodestar whiskey and we have many rituals in the wine world of the way we taste and swirl and smell and all those things. But what do you feel like is the best way? Cause I also made one of your cocktail recipes, but I know pretty much usually people want to taste the spirit, you know, all by itself. So what's the best way for me to taste this?

 

If somebody's a newbie whiskey person and they can get your lodestar whiskey at lodestarwhiskey .com They can order it and ship it also in the California area distributed at retailers, but tell me what to do here

 

Wendelin & Anna

Well, like we, we, so I think we feel like there's no wrong way. It's like, however you want to, to enjoy it. Exactly. The only thing that makes early on in this journey that made a big difference for me when tasting something neat is to.

 

Yeah, so Yeah

 

Laurie Forster

Okay.

 

Laurie Forster

But yeah, mean, totally the caramel piece and the spice, the baking spices are big things that I pick up, but I know you also mentioned citrus and that is definitely, I get those notes as well.

 

Wendelin & Anna

huh.

 

Laurie Forster

Do you think that the single malt, know, single malt scotches from Scotland, if you will, have that sort of smoky, peaty thing? Are you feeling like that's, you want a little of that? You're trying to really get away from that. That's why we're using the American single malt.

 

Wendelin & Anna

Yeah, it's, that was, you know, I think smoky is something that is definitely more of an acquired taste. And a lot of people are, like, either you're really in that camp or you're really not in that camp. So because we wanted to make something that was really approachable and versatile, we, we wanted some, we love the like serial notes and the like round quality that an American single malt brings to the blend. But

 

Laurie Forster

Mm -hmm.

 

Wendelin & Anna

We opted for an American single mom because we didn't want that smokiness to be part of the profile.

 

Laurie Forster

Nice.

 

Awesome. And I love that it's very smooth. doesn't, it's not overwhelming. Like, my gosh. You know? So if women are feeling like, I don't know if I can drink a, you know, if they're not into whiskey yet, like you guys already had, this seems very approachable. Just taking, you know, I just taking a plain old sip, but I love also that on your website, you, had three recipes there. So I was kind of intrigued on your espresso tonic here. And so a couple of,

 

espresso shot, a couple ounces of the Lodestar whiskey, and then I love my fever tree tonic, so I have some fever tree tonic in there, and a little, you can't see it, but there's a little grapefruit piece there for my garnish. I'm no mixologist, but this is delicious as well. And so I guess people may not realize or think of, you know, because what white spirits can be so popular, vodka and gin, and we all think of those as mixing, but this is delicious.

 

What is your whole theory? You know, some people would be like, my God, don't mix my amazing spirit with anything else because it's, you know, it's that way. But it sounds like you guys are so open to using it in cocktails.

 

Wendelin & Anna

Yeah, I mean, we always say we're like all flavor, no fuss. So it's like, if you want to put it in a cocktail, you absolutely should. And it's definitely something we thought about. like the rye content gives the whiskey a nice backbone and it really like stands up in a cocktail and the different flavors that come together when you combine the two whiskies. Like there's a lot, there's a big palette to play with of like, you know, different

 

Laurie Forster

Yeah.

 

Wendelin & Anna

different mixers that you can put in that will really like elevate the different flavors in the whiskey. And yeah, we like to also think of whiskey working well in refreshing drinks. They're amazing, know, Lodestar is great in a very spirit forward drink and it is 90 proof. But if you want to put it in something lighter because, you know, that's just how you prefer to drink, then you should. And it works really well. Like you, I'm glad that you enjoyed the espresso martiniets.

 

Laurie Forster

I love it. I wouldn't say it's a breakfast drink, but it's a great afternoon drink right now. I'm enjoying it. I won't drink too, too much of it so I can finish out my day, but it's delicious and it is refreshing and it's not super sweet. Like a lot of espresso martinis are, you know, just like sugar bombs, but this, you get that great coffee flavor, but you get the nice roundness from the whiskey and then the tonic just makes it refreshing. So I love the all around combo.

 

Wendelin & Anna

I love it too.

 

Yeah.

 

Laurie Forster

to have to try the other two recipes that you guys have out there. So I know I mentioned your website and you know if people want to interact with you they want to understand to get more connected with the Lodestar brand what's the best way for them to do that because I would think a lot of women would be inspired by your story of how you built this brand and this company. What's the best way for people to sort of connect with you?

 

Wendelin & Anna

I mean I guess the best way to connect with us would be over Instagram. Our handle is loadstarwhiskey.

 

Wendelin & Anna

the best way to come. Yeah and if you're local to the Southern California area we have a newsletter and we love to invite new friends to all of the events that we do all over town. So if people want to come and try Lodestar they should go ahead and sign up. We'd love to, we're at all of our events ourselves so we would love to meet new friends.

 

Laurie Forster

Nice. Are you still in the music business and this is a side or are we 100 % in on the whiskey?

 

Wendelin & Anna

We wanna spend the number of tickets.

 

Laurie Forster

I love that. And I know you guys are cousins. did read and let everyone know that in your introduction. So what has it been like? This is a little bit more of a lifestyle question, I guess, but you both have this passion. You both came to it, you know, wanting to make it more inclusive and more open to women and men. But what has been, I guess, the most eye opening thing about, I know you guys are cousins, but you seem like your friends too. So

 

Wendelin & Anna

Hahaha

 

Laurie Forster

of starting a business with your friend. Any advice for people who might be inspired by your story to start a business with their friend or partner? Maybe you guys could take turns. Any lessons learned or advice for people out there?

 

Wendelin & Anna

think it was pretty seamless and easy for us because we had such a long history of working together already. And yes, we are cousins and we're really good friends. And at the same time, we had kind of had a shorthand of how to work together already. So it wasn't a new thing we had to get used to. was just a different industry, yeah, fully different space. But the two of us kind of already had that history. So that made it easy for sure.

 

Laurie Forster

Right.

 

Wendelin & Anna

And I don't know, as far as advice, we kind of just followed our passion and really, you got to be behind your product 150%. And we love our product and we believe it's really, really good. And yes, just kind of believing in the thing that we're doing, I think.

 

pushes that forward and makes it work in a way. Yeah, I think so too, like just the aspect too of like family and friends working together. think like our relationship comes first and then everything else comes after. So like if that's okay, then the other things will sort themselves out as well. And like, you know, good communication, just like with any relationship. It's like.

 

Laurie Forster

right.

 

Laurie Forster

Yeah.

 

No marriage counselor needed here yet so far. It sounds like you guys are doing good. I love that. Well, I mean, I so appreciate you sharing your time today. Are there plans to roll out? I'm broadcasting here from the East coast in Maryland. And of course I know we can order and have the whiskey shipped to us, but what are the rollout plans as far as the rest of the country? Are you going to keep it shipping only or do, will we see Lodestar in a store near us?

 

very soon.

 

Wendelin & Anna

We hope so, yes. We're still in our launch year, so we decided that we were gonna just focus on Southern California in the very beginning to build a really strong and organic foundation here that we can then build upon.

 

And so, but yes, the plan is to expand into other states as we kind of move forward. So hopefully it'll be available near you at retail and in bars and restaurants as well. Yeah. And we have very strong ties to the East coast, so we definitely want to make our way over there as well.

 

Laurie Forster

Well, you guys will have to let me know if you are making your way over here, whether it's just for a tasting or you once you get your distribution in this area, we'll definitely have you back on and talk more about that. But Anna and Vendelin, I want to thank you so much for your time. I know everyone listening is going to be really excited because of a lot of female whiskey lovers and male whiskey lovers listening to check out Lodestar and the amazing recipes you have out there.

 

just to give others inspiration that if you have a passion for something, you can take that and move that into a business. So thank you so much for joining. If you wanna check them out, go to lodestarwhiskey .com and lodestarwhiskey out there on all the socials. I'll provide everybody with the links so they can check you out more. But thank you so much for joining me on The Sipping Point. Thanks guys.

 

Wendelin & Anna

Thank you. Yeah. Cheers. Bye.

Laurie Forster

Thank you so much to Anna and Vendelin from Lodestar Whiskey for joining us, telling us all about their journey from the touring world of entertainment to whiskey production and more. Loved having them. A couple of live events I have coming up November 3rd in Memphis. I have a couple of master classes going on at the Brooks Museum. Go to vintage901.org. We're gonna be talking bargain versus bling and you're gonna taste some wines blindly and try to guess which is the affordable, which is the expensive. And then we're gonna also have an afternoon class that's gonna be all about holiday sparklers and beyond. I love me some bubbly and it's gonna be a lot of fun. Again, go vintage901.org. And then I have a virtual wine tasting coming up on December 4th. It's my bubbly bash, speaking of sparkling, and we're gonna taste some of my favorite affordable and maybe a splurge in there bubblies for you.

 

to plan your upcoming Thanksgiving's and holidays and New Year's. I hope you'll join me. It's an hour long. We'll taste together and I'll take your questions and we'll just have a really great evening. Go to thewinecoach.com slash events and you can get everything you need and sign up for the virtual tasting. All right, if you have any ideas for upcoming topics for The Sipping Point, just email me at lori at thewinecoach.com.

 

And I'm so thrilled that you're listening. want to offer you my free gift. It's a video series called the Secrets of Professional Psalms. You can get it at thewinecoachsecrets.com. Just put in your email and the videos will be sent to you one day for four days. And it's everything about tasting, serving, pairing, and enjoying wine that you wish you knew. And now I'm letting you in on all the secrets.

 

Of course you can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. I just wanna thank you so much for tuning in and as always, keep on sipping.