Rule Breakers

Forward-thinking renegades are disrupting the traditional world of spirits.

When Lars Williams saw the line of ants crossing his path, he couldn’t help himself. In front of his boss, René Redzepi, he dropped down on all fours and started eating them. For a Noma employee—especially Williams, the former head of research and development—this wasn’t so strange. The restaurant’s ethos was one of seeking out flavor anywhere, even if it meant crawling around eating bugs. The best ingredients make the best dishes, so you do whatever you need to do to find them.

But after seven years of eating anything that caught his eye in the name of research, Williams was ready for the next phase of flavor. In 2016 he left Noma for a new challenge: distilled spirits. A newbie peering in from the outside, however, he discovered practices that shocked him. “The alcohol industry as a whole seemed a little bit stagnant,” he says. “You go to a new distillery, and a young guy there starts showing off his copper still that’s a replica of one made 600 years ago, and my immediate thought is, ‘Well, surely in 600 years there’s been room for improvement somewhere.’”

Of course, he couldn’t expect his fellow spirits makers to throw ants in their stills, but they didn’t seem interested in sourcing even the most basic ingredients. “The industry is so weird; there are so few people doing it from scratch,” he says. “All these top-shelf spirits you think of—the vast majority of them are getting factory-made alcohol. It would be like if you went to a three-Michelin-star restaurant and you discovered that they’re getting all their stuff from Blue Apron, and they were just like, ‘I’m assembling the meal.’ That’s probably not even a severe enough condemnation.”