Master Distilling Operations with clarity, confidence and context
This course is designed for operators working in real-world craft environments. It brings together the essential production theory with the tools, mindset, and business context you need to get better at what you do, every single day.
Whether you’re just starting out or already managing day-to-day operations, this course will help you:
Understand why each step matters - not just how to do it.
Build better processes, products and further your career progression.
Connect operations with commercial savvy in a practical, actionable way.
15 modules, 12+ hours of content, dozens of downloads - all designed for independent producers.
What makes this course different?
- Comprehensive Curriculum: It covers a similar depth and width you’d expect from qualifications like the CIBD General Certificate, but goes further – connecting theory to real-world application in a small-scale setting.
- Pan-Spirits Perspective: Unlike many category-specific courses, we explore operations across whisky, rum, vodka, brandy, and gin, helping you develop transferable skills and broader context.
- Made for the Craft Sector: Designed specifically for distillers juggling multiple roles, it reflects the resource constraints and the need to be a jack of all trades when working in a small-to-mid-size operation.
- More Than Technical: We’re the only course that brings together operations, mindset, leadership, and business context – because producing great spirits isn’t just about running a still. It’s about decision-making, communication, and your role in the bigger picture.
- Flexible, Modern Format: Delivered digitally through video, written materials, and downloadable resources, it’s designed to fit around your schedule and support how you learn best.
Here’s what you’ll walk away with
- Confidence in your process – from raw materials through to final spirit.
- A better understanding of fermentation, distillation, health and safety, control systems, and workflow.
- Clarity on how to improve production, reduce waste, increase sustainability and make better decisions.
- Tools (and context) to connect your operations with broader business goals.
- A more rounded perspective that will make you a better distiller, manager, or owner.
- Insight into whisky, rum, vodka, brandy and gin production – plus how to apply best practice to each.
“Most distillers I work with aren’t lacking passion or the desire to improve what they do - they’re lacking context. They’re expected to make critical decisions without fully understanding how or why things work.
This course exists to give them that clarity, and to help them turn theory into actions that improve their spirits and operations. It's for those who want to learn how to run more profitable and efficient distilleries, not just learn theory to past a test and gain a certification that looks good on a CV.”
— Olivier Ward, Founder of Everglow Spirits
BITE-SIZED SECTIONS
COMPREHENSIVE OUTCOME
- Intro to distilling whisky and setting a house style (7:56)
- Raw material intake & improving quality (18:48)
- Milling, mashing and improving Wort (30:57)
- Distilling whisky (9:26)
- Maturation - ageing and warehousing (21:28)
- Blending (11:35)
- Key takeaways and how to implement positive change (5:54)
- Example CoA for Malted Barley
- Introductions to Distilling Brandy (7:05)
- What is Terroir & how to build that into your material intake (18:23)
- Harvesting, processing and early spoilage (14:24)
- Managing sulphur and Ethanal (not ethanol) (10:27)
- Brandy distillation process (ABV / heating / cooling) (14:16)
- How to develop a unique style (& how to implement learnings) (11:25)
PROCESS
How to improve raw material input.
How to optimise fermentation.
Mastering Process Control.
Implementing quality control and improving your ability to carry out Sensory Evaluation.
Distillery specific Health & Safety.
Managing water and waste effluent.
Improving distillery sustainability.
SPIRITS
Insights into how to refine your process, understanding and ability to make word class spirits by focusing on the common production, distillation and maturation areas for the major categories.
Whisky, Brandy, Gin, Rum, Vodka.
BUSINESS
So much of the learning that is available seems to assume that the distiller or distillery operator is separate to the business of a distillery. Not here!
We cover the areas that you should look to train up in, and the universal fiscal and business related elements that we could all do better if working in a distillery.
Inventory management.
Sales & production integration.
Social Media & PR from a distiller's perspective.
Managing distillery tourism.
Compliance, Licensing & core financial management.
Continuous Professional Development
While the course is geared towards the individual and for those seeking to empower themselves and boost their own skillset – many operators are afforded training opportunities from their workplace.
With that in mind – to answer the frequently asked question:
At the end of the course there’s a certificate of completion, as well as other downloadable materials that help further the value of the course to both individual and organisation.
These will allow you to better apply the learnings to your workplace and provide documentation for those with formal CPD assessments.
This course is less than half the cost of most industry certifications. That’s deliberate.
We want individuals, small teams, and growing operations to have access to world-class insights. Craft Distillers don’t need another textbook nor learn a process that is implemented by a team of 30 individuals, each with a specific role. This takes theory and best practice and makes it accessible (& relevant) to smaller operations.
“After years of consulting for spirits brands big and small, I saw the same thing time and again: distillers left to figure it out on their own. That resourcefulness is great to begin with, but it only gets you so far. It limits growth, creates knowledge gaps for new team members, and often means key decisions are made without the full picture.
Over a decade into the craft distilling boom – this is what so many in the industry have been asking for. Knowledge to help them improve, give them confidence and allows teams to flourish as they feel empowered with information they can actually use – not just pass a test with.”
Olivier Ward, Founder Everglow Spirits