Honesty

Core Values of Engineered Spirits

A phrase I grew up hearing was “honest and hardworking”.  People would say that about someone and I knew that person was respected. I guess there are other ways to earn respect, but being honest seemed to be one of the best accepted.

The other day, I was asking Uncle Ralph some questions about growing fruit and he warned me that, “You might be leading your ducks to a poor pond.” Other than making me laugh, this phrase also contained a lesson. Even though Uncle Ralph is an expert in botany, he is humble about it and didn’t want me to blindly follow his advice without doing my own research. He was being honest in that, as much as he knows, he doesn’t know everything.

Honesty typically speaks to other characteristics like that. If someone is honest, they also tend to be humble, social, helpful and thoughtful. They probably put people at ease. If someone is honest, you don’t worry about them trying to deceive you.

Being honest doesn’t always have immediate rewards and, sometimes, it has less desirable consequences. Sometimes it causes you to reflect on what you believe and sometimes you have to change that too. But as long as you’re honest, you don’t have regrets. Why would you want those? Life is tough enough as it is.

If someone asks an honest person something they don’t know much about, they’ll truthfully say, “I’m sorry, but I’ll have to go look that up.” Without thinking anymore about it, you know an honest person will do exactly what they said and will get back with them with an answer. 

Some people will say this or that product is handmade or handcrafted. That’s a popular buzzword in the distilling industry nowadays, with few definitions. When we say one of our products is handcrafted, we’re being honest. We mean that we cooked, fermented, distilled, bottled, and labeled everything you taste (in most cases, we grew it, too). If we sourced a base alcohol, we will tell you that upfront, so you’ll know exactly what you’re drinking. We’ll also be transparent about everything we used during our process, botanical or otherwise, so that if you ever have a question, we’ll have an answer. And if we don’t know, well, don’t worry; we’ll go look it up and get back to you.

We aim to be part of that honest and hardworking group. Being honest may sound really hard, but we’d rather have your respect. And no regrets.