Sophie Pashley: A day in the life of an assistant brewer and distiller
Sophie Pashley, assistant brewer and distiller at Yorkshire’s Cooper King distillery, talks to Millie Milliken about fixing casks, constant learning and the motivational power of Shania Twain.
“Reluctantly I wake up around 6.45am. I really don’t like mornings; I don’t fully speak until I’ve had my first cup of coffee. I start the day by catching up on news and friends. My sister recently had a baby so sometimes I get photos of my nephew which is so nice. With the news I go through highlights on Sky News, but nothing too in-depth as I try not to read the news much as it’s so morbid. There is one news app I like where all they do is report on all the positive things that have happened - I try and start my morning as positively as possible. Me and my partner do a car share into work so he will drive me to my work and then he drives along to his. We’re only 15 minutes away and we live in York city so we’re driving out into the countryside - I saw an owl on our drive to work yesterday.
“When I get in it is straight to work. I don’t faff about, I start production immediately - a spirit run, a wash run, a brew. I don’t do any admin in the morning as I find that both mentally and physically I work way better in the morning. I can be mashing in at about 9.30am or even taking my first cut on a Monday morning at 9.15am - what a way to start the week. If it’s a brew day I usually start at 8am and won’t finish till 4pm.
“We’re all music fanatics here, so whenever the distillery is quiet you know we either have a big project on or something has gone wrong. We listen to lots of different music genres: if it’s a bottling run day I work with Laura [Bartram, events and development manager] and recently we’re loving Shania Twain (she really gets you through six hours of bottling). We also listen to reggae, ska, a bit of drum and bass for heavier work like when we’re mashing, and jungle when I’m cleaning.
Sophie Pashley with Cooper King co-founder, Abbie Neilson
“I take my lunch break at 12pm in the tasting room. I usually eat with Laura and we sit in silence for a bit and then chat absolute nonsense. We only have about 30 minutes, but it is so nice to chat absolute shit with your colleague - she also helps me figure out what to prioritise and we discuss how we can help one another if the other person needs a hand. She helps me with casks quite a lot as if she helps me it’s done in 15 or 20 minutes.
“After lunch I do things like re-racking, filling casks, refilling casks, racking casks. Fixing casks is a new one for me. I learned from Martin [Burnett] from Claxton’s who taught me how to fix a couple of casks and now I can do it myself which is really cool. I would say though that 70% of my job is cleaning and hygiene, making sure when I’m doing all these things I’m keeping everyone safe around me. As much as this job is fun you have to keep your wits about you, and the more thorough you clean, the better your product is.
“Working out how my brain works best has been important. When I started I was flying headfirst into everything every day and my brain doesn’t work like that - and physically I can’t work like that either. I make sure I have mental and physical breaks now and sometimes that means just making coffee or going for a forest walk. We have orchards around here so if it gets too much, I’ll go for a walk. I think it’s important to not be ashamed of having to take those breaks. Getting outside and looking back at the distillery really brings back a lot of the reasons why we do this - it should be fun, it should be positive.
“We have a lot of people visit the distillery - writers, journalists, people from other distilleries - and Abbie and Chris [Cooper King’s co-founders] usually show them around. I don’t usually get involved with that, although I’m always on hand for any of the nitty gritty details. Saying that, I am hosting a tasting next month which will be my first one ever alone - I’m really excited about it. I also help with training tour guides so I might do a tasting training day and talk them through how to analyse whiskies. I try to get out as much as I can go and do as many of the festivals that I can, but someone has to hold down the fort and I’m the ‘hold-downer’, which I’m quite proud of.
Sophie Pashley with Cooper King co-founders Christopher Jaume and Abbie Neilson
“There are pros and cons of being a woman in this industry. I have found myself being the token woman quite a bit which is a huge topic we don’t talk about enough. Being the token woman is good because you are showcasing that it can be done, but you shouldn’t have to be token in the first place. It’s wonderful being a woman in this industry but you are spoken down to quite a lot. I realise it when I’m talking to suppliers or at bars - men usually ask to talk to the person actually in charge. It is a vocabulary issue - they maybe don’t know they’re using it, it must be some subliminal thing. We need to keep on pushing against it.
“When it comes to learning, I don’t stop - I’m quite a nerd and I love that. I just sat my Level 3 in spirits production and got a distinction, but while I adore the nitty gritty detail stuff, I struggled with the tasting. I think it was because I am so young and on my journey of tasting stuff. I’m also not a big foodie, which if you are can really help. I also just sat my GCD [General Certificate in Distillation] which I found really challenging but not sure what I’m going to take on next.
“Most days I try and finish at 5.15pm. At the company we’re all big believers that work should happen at work not at home, so I don’t take work home with me. At the weekend we go out in York. We recently went to Skosh restaurant and in the summer we got to Spark which serves funky beers on tap. During the week though, I decompress with wine and a book in the bath. I like trashy novels - they can be romance, comedy, doesn’t matter as long as they’re trash. Then we will have dinner and we end the night with two drams - one peated and one unpeated. It’s usually whatever is at the front of the cabinet, but seeing as we bought a house a couple of years ago, we are quite careful with what we buy so it’s usually something from £30 to £70.
“We’re in bed by about 9.30pm. If I don’t get eight hours of a sleep a night, I’m not a human.”
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