Heads, Hearts & Tales: What It Means in Distilling (And Why We Named This Blog After It)

If you've spent any time around a working still, you know the terms. Heads, hearts, tails. Every distillation run produces all three, and every distiller has to decide what to keep and what to cut.

The heads come off first, sharp, raw, not ready. The hearts are what you're after. Clean, balanced, the best of the run. And the tails come last, heavier and more complex, carrying a different kind of character.

The cuts matter. Get them wrong and it shows up in the glass.

We've been making those calls at MurLarkey for years now. And somewhere along the way, I started noticing those same three ideas showing up everywhere else, not just at the still, but in how you run a business, build a team, and figure out what you actually stand for.

The heads are the experiments. The early ideas that don't always pan out but push you somewhere better. A new mash bill, a different process, something you try on a Tuesday and spend the next six months thinking about.

The hearts are what you put your name on. The whiskey in the bottle, yes, but also the people who make it, the team that shows up every day, and the customers who've become part of what this place is.

And the tails? In the traditional sense, they're misunderstood. There's real value in them if you know how to work with them. For us, they're the stories: the history, the hard lessons, the stuff that doesn't fit on a label but matters just as much as anything else.

So we took a small liberty with the spelling.

Tails became tales.

Because the stories deserve a home too.

That's what this blog is. Some posts will get into the craft, how flavor is built, what the process actually looks like, and what separates a decent spirit from a great one. Some will be about the people here and what brought them into this industry. And some will just be stories about building something from the ground up, which is harder and stranger than it looks from the outside.

The thread running through all of it is the same thing we say around here a lot: All Together Now. Not a slogan. Just how we try to operate.

This blog is just another extension of that. A place where we can share the craft, the people, and the stories behind what we do. Because in the end, it’s not just about what comes off the stillM It’s about what you choose to keep. And what you build from it.

If you're ever in Manassas, come by. Some things you really do have to see for yourself.

— Tom Murray CEO, MurLarkey Distilled Spirits