On this episode of the Bourbon Friday Show, we had the opportunity to talk with Charlie Walch, CEO of Pluton Biosciences.

Looking for Good Bugs

There has been a lot of buzz recently around the word microbiome. In the way it’s used today, it’s almost exclusively referring to people’s digestive health and how microbes and bacteria can be added to make it better.

While paying attention to the digestive microbiome is good, it’s important to note that microbiomes are all around us and are essential to every ecosystem.

Up until recently, very little was known about microbes and their role in the world beyond that some of them can make us sick.

“We think that if the 20th century was about avoiding bad germs, that the 21st century is going to have a lot of getting good bugs into our life and helping us make a sustainable planet,” says Walch “we think it’s a key part of sustainability.”

Pluton Biosciences is dedicated to finding those good bugs (microbes) and using them to impact the planet in a positive way.

To do this, Pluton Biosciences uses a Micromining® platform to discover different species and characteristics of microbes. Then those microbes are catalogued and analyzed in order to see how they might be used to help solve environmental issues.

They currently focus on solutions for the agriculture industry due to the fact that many of their scientists have a background in AgTech and, more importantly, because the agriculture industry has such a large impact on both human life and the environment.

“You can use it for environmental restoration, you can use it for waste management, you can use it for health and beauty products, as well as in Pharma,” Walch notes.

Pluton Biosciences is currently in the fundraising stage so if you’re interested in learning more about or supporting Pluton Biosciences you can go to https://plutonbio.com/.

Bourbon Innovation

As always, the Bourbon Friday team does their best to choose a fitting drink for the occasion.

The drink of choice was Four Roses Barrel Strength. Many people know that bourbon is made through a fermentation and distillation process. What may not be obvious though is how important microbes are to this process — without them there wouldn’t be bourbon!

This bourbon was chosen because Four Roses creates 10 different bourbons from two mash bills (ingredients) and 5 different yeast strains to create their product line. This specific bottle is one of those 10 variants, OESK.