In a warehouse on Refshaleøen island, Copenhagen, a chorus of clattering is being produced by hacked-together machinery. Finishing some work on a still, Lars Williams, a muscular man distinguishable by his tattoos, jumps down. Over the past eight years, Williams ran The Nordic Food Lab, the research and development facility founded by chef René Redzepi of the Copenhagen restaurant Noma. It was at Noma that Redzepi, through his obsession with flavour, foraging and sustainability, helped spark the movement that explores food being an expression of its native ingredients and local environment. When Noma closed for refurbishment, Williams switched his focus to alcohol.

The result, started in February 2017, is Empirical Spirits, by Williams and his business partner, the tall and eloquent anthropologist Mark Emil Hermansen. At Empirical, Williams is eagerly leading an investigation into brewing and distilling, looking at flavours, traditions, technologies and techniques to see if things could be done differently. Why can’t spirits be seasonal, as food can, or have vintages, as wine does? Why should spirits be required to have an ABV of 40 per cent when they could taste far better at 20 per cent?

Unusually, compared to say, gin distillers, Empirical creates its own base, which Williams describes “as more of a mash-up of eastern and western techniques, taking the best parts of sake and fusing them to the best parts of beer.”


After being soaked in water, an heirloom Danish variety of barley is placed in a converted shipping container lined with Douglas fir wood and injected with mould spores (koji-kin) to make koji. Used extensively in Japan as the base for sake, misos and soy sauces, koji enables the production of the enzyme amaylase that breaks down the starches into sugars.

Being “on a constant search for flavour – usually at the huge expense of time and sanity,” Williams prefers koji to malt because of its flavour profiles, which are sweet and nutty. “We make everything from scratch, not necessarily under time pressure. In the flavour of our spirit you can taste the koji and you can taste the addition of the yeast – these components are an important foundation.”

Read next Ant gin and designer chicken coops. It’s time to up your food and drink game Ant gin and designer chicken coops. It’s time to up your food and drink game

A rotary evaporator. The flask is rotated in a warm-water bath to gently extract the distillate without destroying the delicate flavours Christoffer Rudqvist

Next, they follow a beer-brewing process where koji, a selection of grains and Belgian Saison Yeast are put into kegs of 150 litres each. The yeast was created by White Labs, a global yeast and micro-organisms research and development company, which has a facility next door.


After a week of fermentation, the liquid tastes sweet because, explains Williams, “from a cook’s perspective it didn’t make sense to me that you’d start off with something that didn’t taste good, then try to make a nice product. Most people want to try to make alcohol fermentation fast, which is usually very hot, so you get something that’s like beer that doesn’t taste good. Yet, I think the yeasts can add flavour.”

In order to see this embed, you must give consent to Social Media cookies. Open my cookie preferences.

The fermented liquid is then distilled at 5-15°C using a 100-litre closed vacuum still. Next to it are three other stainless steel stills of 500, 1,500 and 2,000 litres, which will push production further. Having grown up tinkering on cars, (“I was always fixing things,” Williams says), he has now begun experimenting with ultrasonic foggers to enable distillation at even lower temperatures.

Read next Eat Out To Help Out is about to spark an appetiser bonanza Eat Out To Help Out is about to spark an appetiser bonanza

He talks continually of retaining flavour. Where in a normal still a distiller will boil at high temperatures, during which lots of smell and flavour escapes, his closed system and low temperature distillation avoids this: “So in a normal still, the Douglas Fir would taste like bad spinach, but we’re able to capture its smell in the spirit.”


Noma famously embraced unusual and unexpected ingredients, from rarely-used plants to insects, in its pursuit of taste and experiences, and Empirical is similarly devoted to exploring new flavours. Additions might include mugwort, wild beach roses or even roast chicken skin, before the spirit is distilled over eight to ten hours for further refining. Finally, they re-distill, or rectify, to the alcohol point “that best suits the flavour,” as Williams also challenges the idea that most spirits have to be 40 per cent ABV.

Barley (above right) is mixed with a strain of koji fungus and left for 24 hours in this "koji sauna". Here, the fungus converts barley starches to sugar, which is used by yeast in the next stage to produce alcohol Christoffer Rudqvist

When it is time for tasting, Hiro Takeda, a Canadian cook on Empirical’s team, steps away from a

stainless-steel keg to explain the results of one such experiment. In front of him are six glass bottles, each one labelled and filled with transparent liquid. Unintelligible to most visitors, the text reads: botanical, wash, grain, koji, yeast, volume and alcohol level.



“I’m most excited about the way Lars thinks about flavours, and how he challenges not just himself, but others too, to think outside the box,” Takeda says, before offering me small shots of liquid to taste.

First up is a spirit labelled Easy Tiger, so-named for the speed of a Tokyo tattooist who designed a tiger on Williams’ shoulder. Takeda describes it as a base ferment done on koji, pearled barley and naked barley, pitched with Belgian Saison Yeast, and finished with local Douglas Fir and juniper; it smells like a forest, and sipping it tastes partly like drinking something medicinal while walking through fir trees. The flavours coat the mouth, the experience continues long afterwards. The second, Charlene McGee, named after Drew Barrymore’s character in the film Firestarter, is smoky, almost whisky-like; it uses a base ferment finished with juniper smoked on juniper wood and rested for five days in sherry casks. Next is Helena, a neutral spirit, tasting somewhere between a vodka and a sake, with a little nuttiness – yet there are no botanicals here.

Read next The best barbecues and pizza ovens, gas and charcoal The best barbecues and pizza ovens, gas and charcoal

Mark Emil Hermansen has worked with René Redzepi in food development - in particular to promote entomophagy (eating insects) Christoffer Rudqvist

Loveliest of all is Fallen Pony Blend. Made with the base ferment and a quince tea kombucha, there is luscious sweetness on the nose, no burn, and ongoing peach characters. Fifth is a fishy – but not unpleasant – spirit made with the Danish dried and smoked fish bakskuld, then, finally, one with roasted rosehip seed whose toasty, chocolatey notes are reminiscent of pudding.

Spirits, and the technology they’ve developed, Williams says, were a way to create a vehicle “where we could have flavour that could travel.” Coming from a restaurant where he says “you might spend 100 hours to develop one dish [but] then you can only serve 40 people”, Williams is excited by Empirical’s reach. “This is more democratic, and it’s fun being able to have something to share.”

Although they have only been operating for ten months, their creations have found a dedicated following, and certain bottles are now stocked in Restaurant Barr, Restaurant 108 and Amass restaurant in Copenhagen, and in popular London bars Clove Club and Scout. Products are occasionally released on Fridays via the brand’s Instagram feed; according to Empirical’s excitable brand manager, Ian Moore, the last batch of 300, each costing 485 kr (£43) sold out within 30 minutes.


In addition to dramatically stepping up production capability in 2018 with the arrival of new machinery, Empirical is constantly in search of new flavours, and subverting the usual methods.

Hermansen, having previously written an academic paper on food and identity, is virtually euphoric at the prospect of introducing people to flavours that give them “that spark of curiosity – and also familiarity and enjoyment.” He believes we’re early in our understanding of the palate, which he says, “allows your memory and mind to travel”.

“When you try something new, you use all your senses,” Hermansen says. “That’s almost the most privileged thing that a person can do.”