Empirical Spirits
Empirical Spirits was founded in 2018 by NOMA alumni Mark Emil Hermansen and Lars Williams. The duo consider Empirical ‘a flavour company’ and applies culinary as well as scientific innovations in flavour to spirits and more. They are lauded for defying categories in their efforts to bottle the intangible, from the scent of a place, memories or even moods.
If you could recommend 3 books to anyone, what would they be?
The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes
Mark: Even if you're tangentially interested in the history of science, this is a book that dissects the intellectual, political and scientific conditions under which a group of extraordinary, obsessive individuals changed the course of the world (for better and worse).
Sound of the Mountain by Yasunari Kawabata
Lars: It is about mortality, and in many ways finding strength in the fear in the face of that - the evanescence of life which provokes epiphanies.
My Early Life by Winston Churchill
Mark: This book was written even before Churchill became PM, and before the war. It is equal parts a historical account of the last days of the British Empire, an (semi-fictitious?) adventure novel and a call to action for young people around the world. One can't help to be smitten by his enthusiastic ambition.
The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje
Lars: This was a book that I read while quite young - the density of the prose, the vivid imagery compelled me, and it felt as though my mind opened at the time.
Skin in the Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Mark: The title is eponymous to the subject matter. Here's my favourite quote: "The knowledge we get by tinkering, via trial and error, experience, and the workings of time, in other words, contact with the earth, is vastly superior to that obtained through reasoning, something self-serving institutions have been very busy hiding from us."
Nightwood by Djuna Barnes
Lars: A favorite of mine that I brought with me over the years as I lived in around the world, and was able to introduce to my wife as we began to share our lives together.
What are you reading now?
Mark: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown, charting the native American history of the American west. Next up is The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt (about how good people are divided by politics and religion). and Growing a Revolution by David Montgomery (on regenerative agriculture, carbon binding and bringing the soil back to life).
Lars: The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect by Roger Williams.
Whose reading list are you most curious about?
Mark: I am lucky to be surrounded by an extraordinary group of mentors. I tend to obsessively note down their recommendations. Also, I will usually go through the bibliographies of books I've enjoyed.
Lars: Thomas Frebel.
