Steve is the owner and distiller at Deep South Distillery. He handles all the business operations, and oversees the distillery operations. He is responsible for product and recipe development and owing to rigorous quality assurance, often has to take a nap at mid-morning.
He considers this to be his fourth, or perhaps fifth, career, in a working life that has seen him being an IT programmer, systems analyst, academic, entrepreneur, lecturer, business owner, author, researcher and conference presenter. He has been actively trying to have at least two mid-life crises a year since his thirties, when he began retiring for the first time, and considers starting a craft distillery in a recession in South Africa at the age of 60 to be one of the strangest decisions he ever made.
He is father of two grown-up daughters and married to Sandy. If he had any free time, he would spend it sailing, playing the piano, hiking, camping, travelling and playing golf. He paints water-colours really badly, likes to collect useful phrases in other languages and can sometimes be found nibbling on his neighbours’ hedges in search of secret botanicals that can be used in the distillery. He was once chased by pirates off the Mozambique coast. Oh! And he loves craft spirits.