A Deep Dive into the Craft of Flavorful Non-Alcoholic Beverages with Murray Paterson of Muri Drinks
Oct 11, 2023Season 1Episode 1
Ryan Looper / Murray Paterson of Muri Drinks
Murray Paterson is the founder of Muri Drinks (@MuriDrinks), a revolutionary Non-Alcoholic Fermented Blends company in Copenhagen making indescribable and delicious drinks that are leading the flavor charge in the white-hot NA (No ABV) marketplace.
In this engaging and insightful conversation, Murray shares the challenges of crafting non-alcoholic beverages that do not compromise on flavor. He discusses the drawbacks of traditional de-alcoholization methods, introduces us to the unique techniques he uses to create his different drinks: Passing Clouds , Yamilé, Nuala and explains the inspiration and mission of Muri drinks.
You can find and purchase Muri Passing Clouds Sparkling White, Muri Yamilé Sparkling Rosé and Muri Nuala Still Red at Boisson along with numerous incredible specialty shops across the USA and find Muri poured at some of the greatest restaurants in the country.
The Porróncast is hosted/produced by Ryan Looper - @iamlooper
Find us on your favorite Podcast platform by searching and hit follow! ---> Then share The Porrón (cast)...see how we did that...?
--------- For deeper information on any producer featured on this episode click here and search producer name ---- If you find a Porrón on the back label of a bottle, it is imported to the USA exclusively by the spectacular importer and team @dmselections ---- Original Music by Julian Tamers - @juliantamers on IG and Tiktok
Murray Paterson is the founder of Muri Drinks (@MuriDrinks), a revolutionary Non-Alcoholic Fermented Blends company in Copenhagen making indescribable and delicious drinks that are leading the flavor charge in the white-hot NA (No ABV) marketplace.
In this engaging and insightful conversation, Murray shares the challenges of crafting non-alcoholic beverages that do not compromise on flavor. He discusses the drawbacks of traditional de-alcoholization methods, introduces us to the unique techniques he uses to create his different drinks: Passing Clouds , Yamilé, Nuala and explains the inspiration and mission of Muri drinks.
You can find and purchase Muri Passing Clouds Sparkling White, Muri Yamilé Sparkling Rosé and Muri Nuala Still Red at Boisson along with numerous incredible specialty shops across the USA and find Muri poured at some of the greatest restaurants in the country.
The Porróncast is hosted/produced by Ryan Looper - @iamlooper
Find us on your favorite Podcast platform by searching and hit follow! ---> Then share The Porrón (cast)...see how we did that...?
--------- For deeper information on any producer featured on this episode click here and search producer name ---- If you find a Porrón on the back label of a bottle, it is imported to the USA exclusively by the spectacular importer and team @dmselections ---- Original Music by Julian Tamers - @juliantamers on IG and Tiktok
Speaker 1:
So, murray, this is the time where you jump in and intro.
Speaker 2:
Welcome to the Perumcast.
Speaker 1:
Very good, we're supposed to riff right now.
Speaker 2:
Oh, really, I thought there was some kind of like chat up music you were using to get me in the mood. This is how.
Speaker 1:
I perfect All right, so it's official. Here we are. Murray Murray, Patterson Murray drinks. What's going on, man?
Speaker 2:
I've just taken down a massive pulled rib eye sandwich. I think it was cheese, so perfect, perfect.
Speaker 1:
Perfect opening Andra.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that's what. That's what's struggling to go down. Love it. Yeah, what is?
Speaker 1:
Murray.
Speaker 2:
Murray is my brainchild. It's. We make non-alcoholic fermented blends in Copenhagen. We've been going about two and a half years and we're just launching over here right now.
Speaker 1:
That's been an amazing launch. I'm blown away by the response. What is what is the challenge with no ABV Give people? I think this is a nascent yeah, it's very early. What's the challenge?
Speaker 2:
I think there's a couple of things. I think one is traditionally the non-alcoholic category has been dominated by the alcoholized products, and the alcoholization is harmful to flavor. So you're taking a product and you're making it into a worse version of itself. So I think that's one. And then the other is just that you know it's kind of a. I think if you put your kind of consumer hat on it's a slightly less than product. It's because it is that slightly, that slightly worsened version of itself. You feel like maybe you're having something slightly fake. Potentially. I think that's, and I think you know the, the the category's been been driven by by products that focus on being no ABV rather than focusing on the quality of the flavor and the quality of the product itself.
Speaker 1:
I think that's dead on. One thing that I've noticed is that you go into even some of the greater restaurants or bars and oftentimes the no ABV category or the no alcohol cocktails are a little like sweet. They're juice with herbs. It's odules is the other option, it's. It feels like this is the perfect moment for something real in that category that has craft, that has flavor, that addresses some of the people that maybe don't feel like drinking that night or want to try something else.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I mean that's exactly right. I mean, in Copenhagen, if you look at Nomura, for example, 50% of the people go who go there have the, have the non alcohol, the non alcohol juice pairing menu and they put an unbelievable amount of time and effort into developing that because you know you go there and those customers deserve exactly the same special experiences as the guys having the having the wine pairing right. So I think people are finally waking up to the fact that this is a, this is a customer segment that is here to stay. There is demand for that and you need to actually put some effort into it beyond. You know adding, adding, you know putting a few juices on with with some, with some mints inside. You know you need, you need you actually need to put some effort into getting something seriously delicious for your customers, cause they're not going away. This is, this is a. The sober movement is well certainly the mindful. The mindful drinking movement is here to stay.
Speaker 1:
No doubt. And what? What's the team like at Murray? And I'd love to just hear who's involved, how this like really came about, like where you had the that moment, the flux capacitor moment of. Murray, and then I'd love to go through the products really quickly to just kind of get a feel. So people, maybe when they encounter them they might have an idea from in your words, what they are.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, man, well, I mean I, I was a distiller at a distillery called Empirical Spirits in Copenhagen and that was this kind of crazy place that was set up by two, two guys from Noma. One guy, lars Williams he was the head of the Noma Test Kitchen sits in Inception and they I mean very similar to know whether they they based their products on, on kind of layered fermentation, so anyone of those spirits would have like a coji fermentation, a kombucha fermentation of the pill pulbali fermentation. They kind of layer up these, these different fermentation types, to create complexity in the drink laws. Also said to me that he was he viewed the composition of a drink much like the composition of a dish, so you think about salt content and you think about Adding acidity at the end to kind of lighten the finish and things. So I mean I would that's kind of how I was taught to to view the development of drinks and it was something that was kind of key to Developing the philosophy of Murray. So I was actually think about, well, well, some empirical is a distillery. I thought you know why? Why can't we do something interesting with fruit for men's? And cross co for men's, I think, is the accurate term for the, for the products you know, layering up different types of fermented wines basically.
Speaker 2:
And then I think I think I was kind of influenced by having worked in the cider industry before, which is a very, very traditional sector, whether not much experimentation was was taking place, and I just really wanted a kind of a place where you could go and innovate, a market you could go and innovate in, and the non-alcohol category is very much that kind of space. There's no real rules in the non-alcohol sector, yeah, so nascent. So I was figuring out how we could, we could do something interesting with, with, with, with varied fruit for men's in the non-alcohol space. So that was kind of the birth, the birthplace of that idea. I then met a guy called Joachim Gullides who was at the nomad fermentation lab. He has Encyclopedic knowledge of fermentation types and and together we developed, we developed the drinks. So that was Was three years ago.
Speaker 1:
Now that starts wow, and you have an in house which and fermentation. Who are the other people on the team?
Speaker 2:
yeah, so there's a. Diego is from the Bass culinary center in San Sebastian, new key. It was former head brewer and Perical. And then, as you just referenced, paulina, the which, an actual which, a good which, not about which she works. Yes, not, not the evil variety. She is our forager and goes into the woods around Copenhagen to get all our botanicals and things.
Speaker 1:
So you have three bottlings that we just launched in the US. If we were in front of somebody and you had to do this in the New York minute, to describe all three of these like on the on the speedy side how would you do it?
Speaker 2:
Passing Clouds is a blend of gooseberry wine and quince water café with some sourdough class. You know it's a super fun one. It's like a carbonic maceration of raspberries and salted and smoked rhubarb in a mead, and newler is a blackcurrant piquette with a whole load of other things going on, like some oak kombucha and thick leaf class going on in there, and then, as you know, they're pretty hard to describe succinctly. I think that was a bit of an unfair question.
Speaker 1:
It is. It is a very unfair question. What is the if you could go through kvass and kefir, because I think we're talking about something that's kind of counterintuitive. Right, you're using fermentation to create flavors for a non. It creates alcohol for a no ABD product. Yeah, so maybe just walking through some of the basics of the fermentation techniques that you use.
Speaker 2:
I mean we use a we. You know, if you look at our drinks, actually you could simplify them into kind of two main components one highly acidic component where we usually use a wine yeast called peckier clovery to inoculate a sour fruit like gooseberry Wine from from that, and then a water kefir to provide some kind of body and some sweetness. What a kefir is is a very similar fermentation to kombucha and it's a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. But kefir produces lactic acid as opposed to kombucha producing a C2C. Yeah, much creamier flavor. And then we also use class. Class is almost kind of like a bread beer, but instead of boiling, boiling the, the mash, to extract sugar, we just put it in hot water and let it cool down, so there's less sugar extraction. We inoxuate that with a sourdough starter, so that's, so that's. It doesn't really produce much alcohol either. And then we use some dilution as well. So we use teas and other fruit juices to kind of sometimes dilute the, dilute the alcohol down to to less than 0.5.
Speaker 1:
So where do you go from here? You've just launched. You've been around for two and a half years. You started in a pandemic. What's next for Murray?
Speaker 2:
I mean obviously we see we really want to, we really want to do the US justice. But I mean I think in the long term I really want us to kind of destroy the non out category. But I don't want the non out, I don't want us to be under kind of non alcoholic drink company in future. I want us to want people to view us as a delicious drink rather than an alcoholic drink, and actually that goes for the whole industry. I mean I hope actually in future there's not kind of non alcoholic drinks. Drinks are rather categorized by the deliciousness rather than whether whether they have a high or low ABV.
Speaker 1:
Well, I think that's very inspiring and, seeing the reaction over the last couple days, it's going really well. I feel very proud that the Maison East and the Maison in general to be representing Murray nationally. So thank you very much for your time, man.
Speaker 2:
Appreciate it. Thank you, I mean you guys. You guys are the pros, we're the ones proud to be over here and it's amazing that you're wrapping us over here. So thank you. Thanks a lot, man.
Speaker 1:
Thanks for listening to the Bruno cast. I'm your host, ryan Looper. Today's episode was produced by yours truly, the music by the Julian Tamers. Special thanks to today's guests, the teams at Demy's on East and Demy's on selections, and all of the growers in the Demy's on portfolio. Remember, you turn the bottle around, you find the Peron, this Demy's on, and if you have a permanent party, you should really share that thing. Quit hogging it. Okay, pass the Peron. If you like the podcast, you want to find it on one of the platforms. Just search the Peron cast, hit follow. We got lots more to come. We're also on the Instagram at the Peron cast. Look forward to sharing some more with you soon. Thanks.