In 30 seconds
Shira Lazar and Ryan Mitchell visit Lost Spirits Distillery in Los Angeles with co-founder Bryan Davis. They taste rum, explore immersive rooms and see the laboratory, while Davis discusses the creative and technical work behind the experience.
- 1The distillery’s evolutionDavis describes the company’s changing history and introduces the tour.
- 2A nautical tasting roomThe group tries rum in a room inspired by a naval theme.
- 3Inside the laboratoryDavis shows the visitors a working lab and describes its engineering team.
- 4Why build immersive roomsHe compares the experience to a creative project that took on a life of its own.
Takeaways
- Davis says the distillery began in 2010 and has changed through several iterations.
- The visitors experience themed tasting rooms and a rum tasting.
- A working laboratory houses engineers developing processes and technology.
- Davis compares building the elaborate visitor experience to a creative project that grew beyond its original scale.
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Arriving at Lost Spirits
Lazar and Mitchell meet co-founder Davis. He describes the distillery and leads them into a themed tasting room.
Shira Lazar and Ryan Mitchell, known as TheSlayGawd, visit Lost Spirits Distillery in downtown Los Angeles. The exterior gives little away, but inside they find an elaborate environment. They meet co-founder Bryan Davis, who will guide their tour.
Davis says the company began as a small distillery in 2010, gained a following in whiskey and later moved into rum. He describes the venue as a new iteration of a project that has changed repeatedly. The tour will include tasting rooms and a working laboratory.
A sensory tour
The visitors taste rum and move through unusual environments. Davis explains the imaginative inspiration for the rooms.
Their first stop is a nautical-themed room for Navy rum. Davis warns that the rum is 61% alcohol and guides them through a small taste. Lazar and Mitchell react to the strength of the drink and the unusual setting.
The visitors move through rooms with moving clouds, water and other theatrical effects. Lazar compares the experience to an immersive attraction and is surprised by how many different spaces are hidden inside the building.
Davis explains that the environments are imagined versions of places that might inspire the rum rather than replicas of a single real location. The team considered what the landscape, equipment and trees in such a place might look like.
The group encounters more unusual rooms and jokes about how strange the tour has become. Davis then leads them toward the laboratory, distinguishing the theatrical spaces from the technical work behind the distillery.
The laboratory and creative process
The group sees the working laboratory. Davis discusses the distinction between the immersive experience and technical development.
Inside the working lab, Lazar sees miniature reactors and other equipment. Davis says the team includes chemical, electrical and materials-science engineers, as well as computer scientists. The visitors are surprised to find active technical work behind the elaborate tour.
Lazar asks Davis what keeps him experimenting and building unconventional experiences. He compares making the rooms to constructing a treehouse or a backyard themed bar: a creative project that grew and took on a life of its own.
Davis says the underlying work also involves developing technologies and processes. The visitors continue through additional spaces, and Lazar describes the feeling of being transported into a different story.
More surprises and closing thoughts
The visitors move through additional spaces and reflect on the tour. Lazar closes with information that applied at the time of the video.
After another surprise passage and a stop near the gift shop, Lazar and Mitchell reflect on the tour. She calls it an immersive adventure that exceeded her expectations and shares the visit information available when the video was recorded.
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