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The loudest moment at a Jewish wedding isn’t the music. It’s the crack of a glass and the cheer that detonates right on top of it. From Jerusalem, I slow that moment down until it finally makes sense, especially during the Nine Days leading to Tisha B’Av, when Jewish mourning strips away the very tools we use to build connection: weddings, wine, and even the greeting of shalom.

Under the chuppah, we count three vessels. Two cups of wine create union: Kiddushin, the act of being set apart, and Nisuin, the overflowing joy of Sheva Brachot that moves from Eden to a future Jerusalem filled with sound again. Along the way, I draw a line between the language of fine wine and the language of holiness, showing how terroir is its own kind of designation, and how a great bottle becomes “full” when many parts resolve into one seamless whole.

Then we face the third glass, the one nobody drinks from: empty, wrapped, placed on the floor to be shattered. That emptiness is not a detail, it’s the point. We connect the broken glass to Yom Kippur’s scapegoat ritual, to a wedding day as a personal Day of Atonement, and to the churban as a tragedy of shattered unity caused by sinat chinam. The episode ends with an honest tension: we cheer as if the work is accepted, yet the shards remain, and the world is not yet whole.

If this reframes the breaking glass for you, subscribe, share the episode with a friend, and leave a review. What do you hear in that crack now: sadness, comfort, or a vow to rebuild unity?

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Garlic in gin sounds like a mistake until you lean in, take a breath, and realize it smells like home cooking. From the Judean Hills, Tavlin Distillery is building a kosher craft gin that treats botanicals like a kitchen language and terroir like more than soil. I sit down with co-founders Eli and Amir to unpack how a Los Angeles finance guy and a Jerusalem educator with a sommelier-level nose turn a neighborly friendship into a serious Israeli distilling business.

We start with the story that sets the tone: a tequila dream powered by wild agave plants, an improvised extraction attempt, and two founders covered in allergic rashes. That failure leads to a smarter choice: gin, a spirit that can be made quickly, shaped endlessly, and perfected through aroma. We talk about what “Tavlin” means, why spice is the heart of their brand, and how they build an Israeli flavor identity using local herbs and botanicals from their region and the broader Israeli cuisine.

Then we get practical and nerdy: how they layer flavor through boiling botanicals, vapor baskets, and controlled maceration, plus how they approach safe, clean cuts on a pot still. You’ll also hear how their spicy gin earns a bronze medal at a major London competition, why their handmade ceramic bottles sourced in Hebron are part of the product’s soul, and where their experiments go next, from wine brandy collaborations to arak gin and even aquavit.

If you care about Israeli craft spirits, kosher gin, Judean Hills terroir, or the new wave of boutique distilleries, this conversation will give you both story and substance. Subscribe, share this with a gin lover, and leave a review so more listeners can find us.

Tavlin Distillery: Eli Kamionski CEO / Amir Master Distiller

Head Office: Yahalom Street, Har Tov Industrial Zone, Plot 125

Telephone: +972-58-719-0318

Email: INFO@DRINKTAVLIN.COM

https://www.DrinkTavlin.com

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www.TheKosherTerroir.com
+972-58-731-1567
+1212-999-4444
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Send a Text Message to The Kosher Terroir

A glass door on Agrippa Street hides two towering copper stills and a claim Jerusalem has never been able to make before: a working distillery in the heart of the city. I sit down with Michael Ginnosaur, CEO of Thinkers Distillery, to unpack how a brand can be unapologetically Jerusalem and still chase world-class standards in vodka, gin, and bourbon.

We get concrete about what separates a premium spirit from a souvenir bottle. Michael lays out the three essentials: the liquid, the packaging, and the narrative, then shows how Thinkers tries to “further” all three through constant iteration. We talk distilling tech in plain language, including why they run both a column still for purity and a pot still for character, and how an urban distillery near Mahane Yehuda shapes visitor experience, cocktail culture, and brand identity.

Then we follow the details that make their spirits unusual: sourcing soft winter wheat from Champagne for a naturally sweet sipping vodka, using a different wheat origin to keep gin botanicals in front, and capturing water from Jerusalem air to control flavor and consistency batch after batch. We also dive into the Dew of Badolach bourbon story, distilled in Ohio, aged while crossing the Atlantic, and matured by the Mediterranean in Haifa, plus questions around kosher certification, gluten, and where the US spirits market is actually heading.

Subscribe, share this with a spirits loving friend, and leave a review so more people can find Kosher Terroir.

For more information:

Thinkers Distillery

Located in: Agrippas Street Shukanyon Market Mall

Address: Agripas St 88, Jerusalem

Phone: 02-620-5550 ask for Anat

Hours:
Tuesday | 11 am–8 pm
Wednesday | 11 am–8 pm
Thursday | 11 am–8 pm
Friday | 11 am–2 pm
Saturday | Closed
Sunday | 11 am–8 pm
Monday | 11 am–8 pm

Support the show

www.TheKosherTerroir.com
+972-58-731-1567
+1212-999-4444
TheKosherTerroir@gmail.com
Link to Join “The Kosher Terroir” WhatsApp Chat
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The strangest release date for a wine podcast might be a fast day and that’s exactly the point. I start with the sound of wine meeting the bottom of a glass, then I ask you to leave the glass empty as the Seventeenth of Tammuz arrives. Not as a gimmick, but as a way to remember the day Jerusalem’s daily Temple offering broke, when the lambs could no longer come and the wine libation, the nesachim, went dry. When the wine stopped, the singing stopped too, and a steady heartbeat of worship went silent.

From that courtyard in ancient Jerusalem, we move to the way wine works in Jewish life now: kiddush, weddings, brit milah, Passover, havdalah. If wine is the clearest instrument of joy, then removing it during the Three Weeks and the Nine Days becomes a precise, physical way to grieve. We talk about the tenderness inside the customs, including what some families do with havdalah wine during the Nine Days, and why the empty glass says something a full one never can.

Then we step into a July vineyard in Israel and watch the surprise hiding in plain sight: veraison. Grapes begin to soften and blush, sugars start to rise, and the vine turns from growing bigger to making fruit worth giving. While the calendar sinks toward Tisha B’Av, the future is ripening anyway. That arc carries us to Tu B’Av, the vineyard’s day of dancing and beginnings, and even a technical planting deadline that starts the vine’s clock toward permitted fruit. We close with Orlah and what every grower knows: the years that look empty are often the years the roots go deep.

If this gave you a new way to think about mourning, hope, Israeli wine, or the Jewish calendar, subscribe, share the episode with someone who’d appreciate it, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.

Support the show

www.TheKosherTerroir.com
+972-58-731-1567
+1212-999-4444
TheKosherTerroir@gmail.com
Link to Join “The Kosher Terroir” WhatsApp Chat
https://chat.whatsapp.com/EHmgm2u5lQW9VMzhnoM7C9
Thursdays 6:30pm Eastern Time on the NSN Network and the NSN App

Send a Text Message to The Kosher Terroir

Old vines. High altitude. Native Spanish grapes. If those words grab you, pour a glass and come with us to Valencia, where winemaker Armando from Viña Memorias walks us through a kosher wine tasting that’s equal parts sensory and deeply practical. We’re chasing a specific style: kosher wines that stay light on their feet without losing structure, and wines that make sense in hot weather because they’re built for it.

We get into why Bobal from older vineyards tends toward larger clusters, greater ripeness, and a more elegant feel, plus how climate and large day-night temperature swings in Utiel-Requena can preserve acidity and help keep alcohol levels in check. On the white side, we explore Macabeo and its many identities across Spain, how blending choices change with the vintage, and why stainless steel “inox” is a deliberate move to protect fruit and freshness. We also talk about release timing and why letting wines rest in the bottle can be the difference between sharp and seamless.

Then we go deeper into technique and tradition: clay tinajas versus oak, micro-oxygenation without wood flavors, lees aging and batonnage for texture, and why some Spanish wine classifications like crianza and reserva often communicate aging time more than quality. We finish with traditional-method sparkling Macabeo and a surprisingly useful tasting ritual that starts with bubble quality before you even chase aromas.

If you care about Spanish kosher wine, terroir, old vines, and the real decisions behind “minimal intervention,” this one is for you. Subscribe, share it with a wine-loving friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Support the show

www.TheKosherTerroir.com
+972-58-731-1567
+1212-999-4444
TheKosherTerroir@gmail.com
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Send a Text Message to The Kosher Terroir

We boil wine on purpose and then argue about whether it’s ruined. That tension sits at the heart of mevushal, the “cooked” kosher wine category that some drinkers dismiss, some skeptics call a loophole, and every caterer quietly relies on to make a wedding run. From Jerusalem, I walk you through why Jewish law treats wine differently from almost every other food: a bottle can be perfectly kosher by ingredients and still change status based only on who touches it.

We put the law and the wine on the same table. I trace the Talmudic roots of the handling restriction, then unpack three competing explanations for why cooked wine is exempt. Those “whys” lead straight into the modern fight over what cooked even means, from boiling reduction to Rav Moshe Feinstein’s yad soledet bo threshold around 175°F, and the objections that demand a noticeable change in taste, aroma, or color. Once flash pasteurization enters the picture, one sealed machine can produce three very different halachic outcomes.

Then we go to the cellar and ask what heat actually does. Pasteurization can deliver microbial stability, protein stability, and consistency for shipping and events, which matters for kosher wine at scale. But there’s a bill: aromatic compounds like terpenes can drop, ester profiles can shift, and aging potential may narrow, especially for serious whites and cellar-worthy reds. A final curveball using brandy and distillation shows what cooking can protect going forward and what it can never “fix” after the fact.

If you’ve ever wondered whether mevushal is lesser or simply different, you’ll leave with a clearer framework for choosing the right bottle for the right job. Subscribe, share this with a friend who refuses to drink cooked wine, and leave a review so more people find Kosher Terroir.

Support the show

www.TheKosherTerroir.com
+972-58-731-1567
+1212-999-4444
TheKosherTerroir@gmail.com
Link to Join “The Kosher Terroir” WhatsApp Chat
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You’re about to watch a wine snob inside your head lose the argument, one delicious “heresy” at a time. From Jerusalem, I’m Simon Jacob, and I’m making the case that the most respectful way to love wine is to use the right bottle for the right moment, including the messy, loud, sun-soaked moments where pitchers and ice belong on the table. Yes, we even go straight at the taboo: cola in red wine, and why it’s technically defensible.

We start by drawing a clean line between ageworthy “library bottles” and bright, cheerful wines that are built to be mixed. Then I give you a simple shopping checklist for the best summer wine cocktails: high acidity, fruit-forward flavor, low oak, modest alcohol, soft tannins for reds, and a price that keeps the whole thing honest. If you drink kosher, this is a golden era. Crisp, high-acid kosher rosé and unoaked whites are everywhere, and we talk about why Mavushal wine can be a real advantage when the pitcher is getting passed around at a party.

Then we taste four styles of wine as foundations and build five drinks you can actually host with: an honest spritz where the wine leads, a white peach and thyme sangria that gets better overnight, the Basque classic Kalimotxo, a real-deal frose with the food science that makes it silky, and a low-alcohol wine highball for long afternoons. I tie it together with one formula you can memorize so you can invent endlessly without clinging to recipes.

Make your own house sangria and tell me what you built, then subscribe, share the episode with your summer-host friend, and leave a review so more people find the show.

Support the show

www.TheKosherTerroir.com
+972-58-731-1567
+1212-999-4444
TheKosherTerroir@gmail.com
Link to Join “The Kosher Terroir” WhatsApp Chat
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Thursdays 6:30pm Eastern Time on the NSN Network and the NSN App

Send a Text Message to The Kosher Terroir

A masked man on the cover of Wine Spectator helps spark a revolution, and that single image becomes our doorway into a bigger claim: every famous wine rebellion has a kosher twin, and sometimes the kosher world gets there first. From Jerusalem, I take you on a guided tour through the nicknames that built modern wine culture and use each one to ask the question nobody seems to ask out loud: where is the kosher version of this story?

We start with California’s Rhone Rangers and the permission structure they created beyond Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay, then follow the kosher trail to Paso Robles and Napa through producers like Shirah, Jonathan Hajdu, and Covenant. We zoom out to Cal Ital and the under-told kosher workarounds: Sangiovese and the stubborn, rare beauty of kosher Nebbiolo. Then we head to Italy, where Super Tuscans and Barolo modernists rewrote the rules, and we meet Dr. Ralph Medeb, the Brooklyn “Wine Doctor” whose commissioning model helps bring serious kosher Barbera, Aglianico, Nebbiolo, and even top-tier Brunello di Montalcino into the conversation. I also spotlight Jewish-owned Tuscan estates proving kosher can be built from the ground up.

From there, we connect kosher wine to the global engine of flying winemakers, the gritty genius of the garagiste model, and the quiet miracle of kosher Bordeaux, including the kind of bottles collectors whisper about. Spain rounds out the European arc with a Catalan cooperative’s leap into kosher production and the rise of Elvi Wines across multiple Spanish appellations. Finally, we come home to Israel, where Mediterranean varieties and revived indigenous grapes like Marawi and Bittuni point to something new, a movement I name the Sabraistas.

If you’ve ever wondered whether kosher wine can be truly world-class, this story is your map. Subscribe, share this with a wine friend, and leave a review so more people find the kosher wine world that’s been hiding in plain sight.

Support the show

www.TheKosherTerroir.com
+972-58-731-1567
+1212-999-4444
TheKosherTerroir@gmail.com
Link to Join “The Kosher Terroir” WhatsApp Chat
https://chat.whatsapp.com/EHmgm2u5lQW9VMzhnoM7C9
Thursdays 6:30pm Eastern Time on the NSN Network and the NSN App