THIS IS THE WHEY A Durham, NC, woman takes an unconventional path to distilling WRITTEN AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY CARRIE DOW
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fter almost two decades of buying and selling other people’s products as a wine and spirits importer, both with her own company and for others, Tina Williford wanted to make something of her own. Only one problem: She didn’t know what to make. “I went to the UK and started looking at programs for cheese making,” explained Williford at her downtown Durham, NC, distillery Liberty & Plenty. “I did cheese making
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in the UK to cheese making in Italy, but at the same time I also took a lot of other classes.” She entered programs on butchery, baking, and chocolate making. “I learned a lot about processes and small-batch manufacturing.” That training also included a few classes at the Institute of Brewing and Distilling in London where a chance conversation with a fellow student sparked her curiosity. “When I took that one distilling class in England,” she continued, “I was sitting next to this gentleman from Isle of Mull (Scotland). His family were like, the generational family that made cheese. They have a very famous cheese — Isle of Mull Cheddar. I said, ‘So what’s a cheese maker doing here?’ Because
that’s the reason I was there.” The gentleman told her that someone came to the island with a still and the intention of opening a distillery, but the project never got off the ground. The person left the island, and the still, behind. “He said, ‘We were thinking we would make vodka,’” Williford described. “‘Make vodka?’ I said, ‘Will you use the grains there?’ and he said, ‘Oh, no, no, no. We’re going to use the whey.’ I was like that is incredibly fascinating. I’d just done all these [programs on] different types of yeast on cheese and thought, I need to learn more about that.” She learned the importance of yeast for making both products. “Say you were producing a cheddar versus a
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