About the Podcast

We are Words and Whiskey, your new intoxicating weekly book club. This project began during the doldrums of 2020 as a way for Krossland and PJ to explore fiction that his co-host knew he'd enjoy. We also hope it encourages others to join in, follow along, and probably make fun of our opinions too. We also adore the craft of alcohol, and craft alcohol. Alcohol craft?

We hope you enjoy stepping into our dark oak library, pouring a snifter of whiskey, and listening to us have a chat.

Krossland Shaw

Co-Host, Fiction Aficionado

Krossland Shaw lives near the sun swept beaches of North Carolina, but tends to spend his time inside. Enjoying all forms of media, Kross enjoys being a critic of things and of people’s taste in things (especially when they're incorrect). Particular favorites from a spectrum of media include Bioshock, The Thief of Always, and Looper. He also completed an Ironman, and will probably tell you about it whether or not you ask him.

Josh Ramsey

Co-Host, Sword and Sorcery Devourer, Top-Tier Scumbag

Joshua Ramsey is a California Native through and through. He is a drummer, reader, sound engineer, music producer, word enjoyer, and all around story telling enthusiast. Joshua is the kind of guy who loves to self deprecate while finding something, anything to love in all of the media he consumes. The worst thing art can be is forgettable. His favorites of any medium range from the mostly agreed upon with Starwars: Knights of the Old Republic, Jurassic Park and The Lord of the Rings to the debatable but understandable in Kingdom Hearts 1, The Prestige and CS Lewis’ The Space Trilogy to the all around confounding with i-Ninja, Batman Forever and Frank Peretti’s “Monster”. Josh prefers full albums to singles, is a franchise completionism and has seen 1000’s of hours of DnD Actual Play content yet refuses to watch One Piece or Bleach because they are “too long”. Dive Bars are better than “fancy bars” and a solid Shepards Pie can fix most wrongs in this world. Okay Byeeee!

PJ Heller

Co-Host, Beer Snob

PJ is a tall bastard, and as much as it seems like height is only a physical trait, it gets brought up often enough that it's effectively a personality trait at this point. How boring. But he's had a pretty varied life, graduating high school in St. Cloud, MN and completing his first degree in physics 4 years later. While searching for a physics job, he landed as a professional brewer, a step up from his homebrewing passion, which he still maintains. After deciding he's had enough of searching for jobs pertaining to his physics degree, he decided to go back to school for Mechanical Engineering, which is where he currently finds himself. Reading has always been a source of frustration for him, as he is not a very fast reader, which was always discouraging, and thus he never developed a habit of reading recreationally. Wanting to remedy this was one of the sources of inspiration for this show. PJ retired from Co-host in 2025.

Tim Olson

Webmaster & Linux Greybeard

Proprietor of this here fine establishment. I go by my NIS name; tolson, where possible. I’m a Site Reliability Engineer living in St. Paul, Minnesota. When asked to look into helping on this project, naturally, I was excited to setup the necessary 1 and 0’s to get the boys out there. I mostly read engineering books, but when I’m into fiction – my style is the density and warmth of Douglas fir. As such, LOTR speaks to me. If something’s broken, you can blame me.

Andrew Huot

Editor, Producer

A musical producer machine, Andrew listened to a couple of the early episodes of Words and Whiskey, and decided to intervene to help improve the sound quality immeasurably. Since, he's been an incredible partner in making us, and the other Atomic Pylon shows sound as great as they do. He's a massive fan of pop-punk, and you could certainly talk to him about your favorite Blink-182 record, and regardless of which you choose, he'd explain to you why you're wrong all while laughing.