Shout-out! Fuck it! I have been behaving myself for far too long! I almost had myself convinced. "Odin, you are the CEO of the world's leading still and distillery manufacturer now. You need to set the example by following the rules!" If it wasn't me convincing myself, for sure lots of folks around me thought it a great idea to see me grow up, stop innovating, and behave myself like the responsible figurehead I should be. Yeah right! Did we come this far by following conventions or by breaking them? If we would have played it by "the rules", iStill would have never changed the craft distilling industry. People would still have to pay 200K for a still designed by their great-great-grandfather's contemporaries, that thought a flail the pinnacle of technology. My responsibility lays in changing that, not in following the rules! Without us taking the lead and breaking the established and outdated conventions, craft distiller education would still be based on anecdotical fiction instead of science fact. Distillers would still be indoctrinated in believing that their profession is all about "the romance" instead of understanding it is actually about running a business (do you hear Big Alcohol roaring with laughter?). We'd all still be manually laboring our asses off behind our no-good stills, struggling to make quality product repeatedly. And we'd probably still poison our customer base with copper and ethyl carbamate, without us even knowing about it. Craft distilling resided in the stone age and we haven't guided it into modern times by keeping our mouths shut or by playing it safe. On the contrary! I am proud to have changed the industry fundamentally by speaking out, by trampling ignorance, and by hurdling traditions out of the window, if those traditions proved to be nothing more than mere window dressing. This is me shouting out: "No more mr. Nice Guy! All work and no play makes Odin a very dull boy, indeed!" I have unlocked my golden cage and I am calling things the way they are once more. Calling? Shouting, screaming, and yelling! This is me taking back the one and only professional responsibility that ever mattered. Distilling needs to be fun and easy. Craft distilling deserves lower investment and production costs, and the technology to turn a romance into a viable business. The industry does not need misinformation, so ubiquitous and often self-servingly provided by people that want to take advantage of your insecurities. You deserve to be treated fairly. Abuses will not be tolerated. That's my goal here. That's why I opened that freakin' golden cache. As I looked outside from the inside, it struck me that not enough has changed. Well, strap on your seat-belts folks, because THAT IS ABOUT TO CHANGE!