EMBRACING A LEGACY

Rob Arnold is a Kentucky native who had to find his way to Texas before embracing his family’s legacy in the whiskey industry. The former master distiller for Firestone and Robertson in Fort Worth, Texas, makers of TX Whiskey, holds a doctorate in plant breeding and genetics and turned his dissertation into his latest book, The Terroir of Whiskey. Doctor Rob truly has one of the biggest brains in whiskey and it was an absolute joy discussing the ideas and concepts that led to his book.

Nico Martini (NM): How did this book come about?

I wanted to write the book because I enjoyed the process of writing and working with a publisher on the first one, so I wanted to do that again. My PhD was built around studying interactions between genes their environment, so essentially, it turned into a study of terroir. There’s a lot of debate in this industry about the impact of terroir on flavor and whiskey, so a