Murray Paterson

Murray Paterson is a UK expatriate living in Copenhagen, where he founded the fermented-blend producer MURI. He spent most of his life in London, growing up during the heyday of the city's dance culture, which he credits as shaping his worldview and MURI's identity. As of the January 2025 podcast "Hot Spot: Murray Paterson of MURI," he was 45 years old.^{[1],[2],[3],[4]}

UK cider. Paterson entered beverages through the UK cider industry, where he took on roles ranging from picking apples in orchards to import and export, and actually making drinks. It was through cider that he developed a deep interest in blending — combining different varieties and parcels to achieve complexity — and, he has said, fell in love with fermentation.^[1],[5]

Empirical Spirits. Paterson moved to Copenhagen — a city he was drawn to for its reputation as a global hub for fermentation expertise — approximately seven years before a March 2025 podcast, to train as a distiller at Empirical Spirits. He joined the company after meeting founder Lars Williams, former head of Noma's test kitchen, at a tasting, despite having no prior distilling experience. As a distiller he learned how blending different distillation cuts could build layers of flavor and depth. It was at Empirical that he first discovered koji, learning how powerful it could be in creating complex, layered flavors, a technique he later brought to MURI. He has also said the idea for creating non-alcoholic beverages developed during his time at Empirical.^{[1],[3],[5],[6],[7],[8],[9],[10],[11],[12]}

Blending across disciplines. Paterson founded MURI after applying blending concepts he had learned as a cider maker and distiller. His blending philosophy is drawn from cider-making — combining different fermented apple varieties — and from Empirical's approach of fractionalising through distillation and then blending the components together.

Restaurant ESSE. Paterson collaborated with Eva Baumgartner, Beverage Director at Restaurant ESSE in Copenhagen, to develop a non-alcoholic pairing menu.^[13]

Feinschmecker award. Paterson accepted the 2025 Feinschmecker best non-alcoholic drink award on behalf of the MURI team. The prize was awarded at the Feinschmecker gala in Hamburg and was the first the event gave for 'alkoholfreier Wein' (non-alcoholic wine).^[14]