Pod Insights The Sporkful Is The Future Of Bourbon Female? (Reheat) About this episode Bourbon's growing popularity is changing an industry with deep roots in Kentucky. We travel there to learn what that means for one of the oldest and one of the youngest bourbon masters.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Dan Pashman? As we turn to fall and the weather starts to cool down, I think of things like crunching leaves. I think of sharing from the sidelines of a soccer game, walking the dog in the woods. And when I think of doing all those things, I'm usually wearing something from LL Bean. Whether it's my puffer vest, my puffer coat, my scarf, whatever you're doing outside this year, you probably need something from LL Bean. Whether it's their boots, their Scotch plaid flannel, their rugged field coat, or more. Grab the layers and people you love and get outside. Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. LL Bean, be an outsider. As someone who has been lucky enough to go to Napa Valley, I can tell you, it's everything people say it is. Beautiful scenery, quaint, beautiful towns, and phenomenal food and
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1:16 Dan Pashman? Hey, everyone. Dan here with another reheat for you. And as the weather is just starting to cool down, to me, this is where we're changing over from like clear liquor season to brown liquor season. And that's why it's a perfect time for an episode all about bourbon. In this episode, I travel to Kentucky where I speak with three different bourbon masters, including one of the youngest master distillers in America and one of the very few women. Let me tell you, there's a lot I didn't know about bourbon before this episode. There's a lot of myths out there. So in this episode, you're gonna learn a lot, you're gonna have some fun, and you're gonna meet some really cool folks. Now, if there's a reheat you wanna hear, drop me a line. Let me know what it is. I'm right here waiting for your requests. I'm at [email protected] . Thanks. Now pour yourself a drink and enjoy.
2:03 Dan Pashman? So is there actual distilling taking place here?
2:05 Speaker 01 Yes, there's actual distilling taking place here.
2:08 Dan Pashman? And we're in downtown Louisville.
2:10 Speaker 01 We're in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, the hometown of bourbon.
2:13 Dan Pashman? How was my pronunciation just there, Jackie?
2:15 Speaker 01 Try it again. Do it again.
2:16 Dan Pashman? Louisville.
2:17 Speaker 01 You gotta slur it a little bit, like, right, exactly. Not Louisville, not Louisville.
2:22 Dan Pashman? My Lyft driver said you have to say it like you have marbles in your mouth.
2:25 Speaker 01 Exactly.
2:26 Dan Pashman? Alright, alright, good. I was practicing before I came.
2:28 Speaker 01 I'm glad that you did. It worked out well for you.
2:32 Speaker 02 A lot of words are spelled the same with a different meaning, you see. Well, here's a brand-new way to spell heaven. And according to me, you take a K and a E, a N and a T, and a U and a C-K-Y, that spells Kentucky. But it means paradise.
2:55 Speaker 03 We're right in the middle of the bourbon country. All the bourbon distilleries is right here in the central part of Kentucky, where all the thoroughbred racehorse farms are and all the bourbon whiskey is made.
3:05 Dan Pashman? In the world of Kentucky bourbon, only a few dozen people hold the title of master distiller or master taster. They're the guardians of bourbon traditions that go back generations.
3:15 Speaker 03 My main concern is be consistent. Your bourbon tastes the same today, tomorrow, or 10 or 12 years from now.
3:22 Dan Pashman? And is it literally as simple as like Jimmy tastes it, if it tastes the way it's supposed to taste, then it's consistent?
3:28 Speaker 03 Yes.
3:29 Dan Pashman? In other words, these masters make sure that your grandfather's bourbon still tastes the same when your grandkids start drinking it. But master tasters and distillers don't just preserve traditions. They also develop new varieties of bourbon, which means they have to anticipate trends and keep up with changing tastes as bourbon becomes more popular around the world. Oh, one other thing. At the distilleries with the most tradition, they have to do all that with their families.
3:54 Speaker 04 I wasn't for sure even wanted me here for a long time.
3:57 Speaker 03 That is not true.
3:59 Speaker 04 Oh yeah, it is.
4:00 Dan Pashman? Today on The Sporkful, I travel to Kentucky and talk with three bourbon masters, including one who's been doing it for more than 60 years, and another who's one of the youngest master tasters in the country, and one of the few women. I shall tell you, bourbon tastes aren't the only thing that's changing.
4:16 Speaker 01 When somebody reaches out and says something such as, "We've got this women in whiskey event going on." You're a woman, you go talk to them. It's great that these events are happening, but at the same time, as an industry, it's about time that we all start getting used to learning how to talk to everybody.
4:35 Dan Pashman? Stick around.
4:47 Dan Pashman? This is The Sporkful. It's not for foodies, it's for eaters. I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show, we obsess about food to learn more about people. So, bourbon. First off, quick bit of terminology. In this episode, you're gonna hear people use the terms bourbon and whiskey interchangeably. That's because bourbon is a type of whiskey. Scotch, bourbon, rye, they're all types of whiskey. If you make the whiskey in Scotland using barley for your grain, then it's Scotch. If you make it in America using corn, it's bourbon. There are other defining factors and varieties, but we'll leave it at that for now.
5:23 Dan Pashman? As I drove from Lexington to Louisville, I passed signs for one distillery after another. Within a 50-mile radius, you can find every bourbon you're likely to see in most bars in America. Jim Beam, Maker's Mark, Nob Creek, Bullet, Wild Turkey, Woodford Reserve, they're all neighbors. Turn off I-64 by Frankfurt, head south a bit into Anderson County, and you'll end up in Lawrenceburg, population 10,000, and home to the Wild Turkey Distillery. That's where you'll find Jimmy Russell. He's been Wild Turkey's Master Distiller since 1966.
5:56 Speaker 03 My grandfather worked in the bourbon business. My father worked in the bourbon business. My wife actually worked here at the Wild Turkey Distillery before I did.
6:05 Dan Pashman? Jimmy's 84, and he's the longest-tenured Master Distiller in the world. He's the last of the old guard, and in Kentucky bourbon circles, he is a rock star. Jimmy grew up here in the heart of bourbon country, just down the road from the Wild Turkey Distillery.
6:20 Speaker 03 In Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, there's a lot of old, say, distillery families, homes around here, and still some of them is around everywhere. We're all close friends. If one distillery gets in trouble, the others will do anything they can to help them out.
6:35 Dan Pashman? Yeah, I was surprised to read that actually everyone knows everyone else's recipe. Is that right?
6:42 Speaker 03 Just about, yeah. We know basically whatever one of them is.
6:46 Dan Pashman? You remember the first time you ever drank bourbon?
6:48 Speaker 03 No, not really, because I think they told me, raised in a bourbon family, that when you're cutting teas, they take a little bourbon and put on your gums, back in my day and time.
6:59 Dan Pashman? So you're a veteran, is what you're telling me?
7:02 Speaker 03 Didn't start drinking until I was 21, legally.
7:10 Dan Pashman? Jimmy isn't old enough to have been around before prohibition, but growing up, he heard plenty of stories about bourbon's early days. Today, Anderson County has two distilleries, but before prohibition, it had 12.
7:22 Speaker 03 The Dowlings, the Bonds, the Lillard's, the Waterfields, the Fraziers, all those were old family names here. Most of them also had farms. They would make bourbon in the wintertime.
7:34 Dan Pashman? Oh, so they would farm, and then in the offseason in the winter, that was the time to make bourbon?
7:39 Speaker 03 That's the best time to make bourbon in the cold weather. You know, we're cooking up to 212 degrees, and it just takes a long to cool it down and everything. In the wintertime, we were set on the banks of the Kentucky River. We got plenty of cold water. Just like, I use simple terms. You leave something on the stove and keep cooking it all the time. It gets, I call it mushy, not as good, that same way when you're making bourbon in the hot months.
8:05 Dan Pashman? Right, so you need that cold water in the wintertime to get it off the stove?
8:09 Speaker 03 Right.
8:12 Dan Pashman? So while you can make good bourbon in lots of places, Kentucky was always especially well suited. It had lots of corn and it had farmers looking to make extra income in the winter. Also, most of the early settlers to Kentucky had English, Irish, Scottish, or Welsh roots. In other words, whiskey roots. After all, the word whiskey comes from the Irish term for water of life. Today in Kentucky, those whiskey roots run deep. You heard Jimmy talk about how his grandfather and father worked in the bourbon business. Now his son Eddie is continuing the tradition. Eddie's 58 now. Along with his father, he's Wild Turkey's other master distiller. But when he was younger, he wasn't so sure he'd get into the business.
8:53 Speaker 04 Growing up in a little town like Lawrenceburg, it's only about 10,000 people now. You grow up thinking, I want to get a college degree and move to a big city. And that's basically what I was thinking. And I came here for a summer job, about a year of college left. And within a few weeks, then I realized this was the place I was supposed to be.
9:15 Dan Pashman? What made you realize that?
9:18 Speaker 04 Just the family feel here. You know, I knew everybody. We all got along. It just seemed to be the place that I was meant to be.
9:27 Dan Pashman? Jimmy, you remember when Eddie had that realization?
9:30 Speaker 03 Yes. Well, he tells a story that mama told me to put in work one summer. He says it's been long, 37 summers now. He's been here 37 years now.
9:40 Dan Pashman? Is he still classified as a summer employee?
9:43 Speaker 03 No, no.
9:44 Speaker 04 To Jimmy, yes.
9:49 Dan Pashman? But Eddie, as I understand it, when you, when you decided you were gonna follow in your father's footsteps, he didn't exactly just like hand you the keys to the car?
9:57 Speaker 04 No. When I told him one day, I said, you know, one day I'd like to be you. He said, which one? Engineer, plant manager, master distiller, human resources? And I'm like, man, he sounds conceited, but it was true. He was doing all those things back then. But my love was, you know, making the whiskey. So he brought me into the distillery and taught me how to do that part and then took over the maturation. And there isn't a job here I haven't worked.
10:25 Dan Pashman? While working some of those early jobs, Eddie also followed his father to events where Jimmy would give a talk about bourbon. That's when Eddie saw a different side of his dad.
10:34 Speaker 04 He stood up on the stage and talked for 45 minutes and had people laughing and, you know, going on. And I went home and told my mother, I said, he said more in 45 minutes than he said the first 21 years of my life. At home, he didn't talk at all hardly. He'd just give you that look if you were in trouble. And then, you know, I seen him out on the road and it was amazing to see, you know, what he was doing.
11:01 Dan Pashman? How did seeing him do that that first time change your perception of him?
11:07 Speaker 04 Even though you grew up in the industry and, you know, you watched your father work seven days a week, you just thought he wanted to get away from us probably. But it was just his passion and the love he had for what he did. And that, that sort of changed everything for me to see someone that, you know, had that much passion for what they did. And that's what happened when he got out in public and got to talk about it.
11:37 Dan Pashman? Now Eddie has the same passion. He came into the business during one of its low points in 1981. Back then bourbon had fallen out of fashion. The madman era was over. Everyone was drinking vodka. Today bourbon's back and it is big business. While Turkey is owned by the Campari Group, it's an Italian company with $2 billion in annual sales. Popular brands like Maker's Mark and Nob Creek, they're marketed as more artisanal, but they're actually made by Jim Beam, which is like the Budweiser of bourbon. And Jim Beam is owned by a big Japanese company. In the past 20 years, bourbon production in Kentucky has nearly tripled.
12:12 Speaker 03 It's been up and down, but I always, as I say, in teas and cut up, people drinks when they're happy and they drink when they're sad.
12:24 Dan Pashman? I guess that's a good business to be in, right?
12:26 Speaker 03 Right.
12:28 Dan Pashman? Jimmy, do you ever drink anything besides bourbon?
12:31 Speaker 03 Iced tea.
12:34 Speaker 04 And he's not kidding.
12:36 Dan Pashman? Do you ever put bourbon in the iced tea or you keep them separate?
12:39 Speaker 03 No, don't want to ruin good bourbon, don't want to ruin good iced tea.
12:44 Dan Pashman? I like that answer. I feel like nowadays, you know, in food and drinks, people want to combine everything. They want to do a mashup of everything. Sometimes things are better kept separate.
12:52 Speaker 03 Yes, you know, I, me, I drink mine neat or, and if it's real hot, maybe put a cube of ice in it. But you drink it in a way you like it. That's the way I feel about it.
13:03 Speaker 04 And that's definitely something different. Jimmy's only begun to say that in the last few years because when I started, you drink it neat or with an ice cube or maybe a drop of water. And that was it. That's what they told you, you know, so he, he's definitely changed on that account.
13:21 Speaker 03 When I started, bourbon was mostly a southern gentleman's drink, 45 and older. They got their cards or cigars or bourbon, went to the back room. Or now it's become a worldwide drink. Anywhere you go in the world now, bourbon is well known.
13:34 Speaker 04 You know, you have the young people that are starting out in a social setting in a bar. They're drinking a Manhattan or an old fashioned and they liking it and they're talking to the bartender about what's in it. Uh, it's, it's amazing. This Friday I'm supposed to go to Russia and the Ukraine. I've been to Poland, Switzerland, you know, everywhere, places that I never thought we would be selling bourbon. I mean, the export market's probably 35% of our business now and it's growing, it leaps and bounds. So you have to be out there.
14:07 Dan Pashman? Another big change that's driving a lot of this growth, master distillers are making bourbons at lower proofs, meaning lower alcohol content. So the bourbon doesn't burn so much when you drink it. That's making it more appealing to a wider audience. But as big as bourbon is today, when you're in Kentucky, it still feels very much like the hometown drink. It's just everywhere. Everyone's into it. Before my trip down there, I had kind of moved away from bourbon. I was on a major tequila kick. But drinking bourbon in Kentucky reminded me how much I like it and it made me enjoy it more once I got home. In fact, I'm drinking some right now.
14:46 Dan Pashman? See? You know, it's like drinking Guinness in Ireland or seeing Bruce Springsteen perform in New Jersey. Once you've experienced the thing at its source, every experience with it after brings you back to that place. I feel like I'm in Kentucky right now. As for Jimmy and Eddie, they don't need bourbon to transport them anywhere. They do say it's brought them closer together, but as Eddie, the son, says, that presents its own challenges.
15:11 Speaker 04 Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things where, you know, you're proud to carry on the tradition, but working for your family is definitely not one of the easy things for you to do.
15:24 Dan Pashman? That hasn't stopped Eddie from bringing his son, Jimmy's grandson, into the business. Bruce Russell is now working for Wild Turkey in Austin, but his dad and granddad are already anticipating the time when he'll move back home and become the next Russell to earn the title of master distiller. When that happens, I asked Eddie what advice he'll have for his son.
15:44 Speaker 04 Wild Turkey's not known for doing fads, but I definitely want Bruce to have an open mind about, you know, what he does, but he just has to keep in mind what Wild Turkey's about. So for me, it's about don't mess up what your granddad and dad have done, but you still have to sort of make your own way and do things that you think are important.
16:11 Dan Pashman? That's Jimmy and Eddie Russell, master distillers for Wild Turkey Kentucky Bourbon. Coming up, I arrive in Louisville and meet someone who I think is going to be a big part of the future of bourbon, master taster Jackie Zeichen. She'll talk about being one of the few women in her field and how she takes care of her palate on days when she has to taste 90 different barrels of bourbon.
16:32 Speaker 01 That was the first time I've ever had a moment where I was like, oh, my gosh, I can't do my job if something happens to my mouth.
16:40 Dan Pashman? Stick around.
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19:45 Dan Pashman? Please drink responsibly. White Claw Celta Works, Chicago, Illinois. Welcome back to another Sporkful Reheat. I'm Dan Pashman. You ever like go to our show page in your podcasting app and you're scrolling back and you're like, oh, that that seems like a good episode. Why? How did I miss that? Well, you missed it because you're probably not following our show in your podcasting app. And it's really important that you do. So please do this right now. Go to our show page in your podcasting app of choice. If it's Apple Podcasts or Spotify, you click follow. Other apps, maybe it's a plus sign, or a heart, or a favorite, or the word subscribe, whatever it is in your app. It's really important that you click it.
20:30 Dan Pashman? That way you won't miss great episodes. Super quick and easy. You can do it right now. Thank you so much. Now, back to this week's reheat. Earlier, we heard about bourbon's past, its history in Kentucky, and its present, expanding all over the world with new varieties designed to reach a broader audience. Now let's talk about bourbon's future.
20:49 Speaker 01 So we do our single barrel selections here. And when we dump barrels to go to processing.
20:55 Dan Pashman? You open the barrel and pour it into here?
20:57 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm. You screw through the bung.
21:00 Dan Pashman? At 33, Jackie Zeichen is one of the youngest master tasters in the country and one of the few women to hold the position. She's that Old Forester, a bourbon created by George Garvin Brown in 1870. Today, Brown's company has grown into Brown Foreman, a major spirits company that also owns Jack Daniels, Finlandia Vodka, and a bunch of others. But it started with Old Forester. Last year, Old Forester opened a brand-new $45 million public distillery in downtown Louisville. It's a tourist site and tasting room where they show you every step of the distilling process. So, walk me through what we're seeing. Talk to me.
21:35 Speaker 01 So, this is the beginning of the tour. So, as you come in...
21:38 Dan Pashman? When I was in Louisville recently, I asked Jackie Zeiken to show me around. First thing you see is a collection of some of the really old bottles that Old Forester used to be sold in. Some of them look like medicine bottles, because during prohibition, there was no ban on medicinal whiskey.
21:53 Speaker 01 Legally, we were still selling it. You would fake a cough, get a prescription, go get a bottle of Old Forester.
21:58 Dan Pashman? Right, right. As the tour moved on, Jackie showed me some giant metal vats, like the ones where they mix the mash. We should do the whole show in one of these vats.
22:08 Dan Pashman? And some of the charred barrels used to age the bourbon.
22:10 Speaker 01 Stick your head in that barrel.
22:12 Dan Pashman? Yeah, it smells like a barbecue.
22:14 Speaker 01 We toast it first, and then after that, we char it out. So, you're pulling all that nice sugar to the surface, and then getting a nice crispy char on it.
22:23 Dan Pashman? After the tour, we headed to Jackie's office. This is your office?
22:27 Speaker 01 Yeah.
22:28 Dan Pashman? Oh my God, this is the greatest office in history. It's basically a bar-kitchen hybrid. The centerpiece of the room is a big, beautiful island with a wooden butcher block top. Jackie calls it her desk. She's got a sink, a fridge, and where you might find pantry items, there's just a bunch of bottles of liquor. We sat down on stools as Jackie pulled out a couple of bottles.
22:49 Speaker 01 This is our lowest-proof whiskey. I'm actually gonna pour you some of our highest-proof, so I can show you.
22:53 Dan Pashman? I was excited to talk more with her about her work and to hear her thoughts on the bourbon industry. After all, Jackie's known not to mince words. Her last name is Zeiken, so her coworkers have nicknamed her Hot Mike Zeiken. But, as with any good conversation had over a couple of glasses of bourbon, before we could get to the heart of the matter, we had to drink a little. One of Jackie's jobs as a master taster is to check on different batches of bourbon as they age in their barrels, to see how they're maturing. On some days, she tastes 90 different barrels. Now, when I say Jackie tastes 90 barrels, I don't mean drinks. She tastes and spits it out. But still, that many tastes, you can't help but swallow some, right?
23:32 Speaker 01 Definitely. But you take breaks, and you eat, and you drink a ton of water. You drink a ton of carbonated stuff, like sparkling water.
23:40 Dan Pashman? Why carbonated beverages?
23:41 Speaker 01 Uh, they're just a little bit more refreshing. I'm, I actually like to have a really light beer to go along with it because it just helps to flush it out and break up the whiskey. I know.
23:53 Dan Pashman? Well, but, no, no, but it's like, it's like, you, your, your palate is like this, this like finely tuned instrument that has to be cared for.
24:02 Speaker 01 Yeah, I'm, oh my, that makes me think of a really funny story. I once judged this cocktail competition at a casino and I really hope the girl that, who was in it does not hear this, but she made this amazing cocktail. Um, she made a whiskey smash. So it was lemon and it was mint and it was bourbon and it was sugar, but she used liquid nitrogen to turn it into basically like a sorbet whiskey smash and then served it. But she didn't let it rest for a second. So when it was served to me, I had no idea that it had just come fresh from being mixed up with liquid nitrogen. And I went to like, take a little spoonful of it and it burned my entire tongue so much. And I don't know, maybe she's the smartest person ever.
24:44 Speaker 01 Maybe she did it on purpose because she knew I wouldn't be able to taste anything from anyone else after her in the contest. But that was the first time I've ever had a moment where I was like, oh my gosh, like I can't do my job if something happens to my mouth.
24:59 Dan Pashman? Fortunately, Jackie's mouth recovered. Now it was time for her to teach me a bit about how to taste bourbon like a master.
25:07 Dan Pashman? Walk me through the tasting process. What do we, what do you do first?
25:11 Speaker 01 So you've got a lower proof, that's eighty-six and our higher proof, that's a hundred and fifteen. So they're going to be very, very different if you go side by side with this comparison.
25:20 Dan Pashman? Are we tasting or spitting?
25:21 Speaker 01 I just tasted. I couldn't help it. We can spit.
25:25 Dan Pashman? Cheers. No, no, I, I'm gonna taste.
25:26 Speaker 01 If you take a tiny little sip, like you're drinking hot coffee, the first taste, no matter how low proof the bourbon is, it's always going to taste like alcohol, like pure alcohol. You have to acclimate yourself. So you have to coat your mouth a little bit with it and get used to the alcohol content. And then go back for a second sip and that's when you start getting all the flavor coming through.
25:45 Dan Pashman? Got it. All right. I'm going in for my first sip.
25:47 Speaker 01 Go for your first sip.
25:48 Dan Pashman? Cheers.
25:52 Dan Pashman? Yeah, I mean, definitely. Yes, I get what you're saying. A lot of alcohol, but still like, still sweet.
25:57 Speaker 01 Yeah, but go back for your second.
25:59 Dan Pashman? All right, go back for the second one.
26:00 Speaker 01 Okay.
26:02 Speaker 01 It's a totally different experience.
26:04 Dan Pashman? Yes.
26:05 Speaker 01 Get that warmth out of the way.
26:07 Dan Pashman? It was delicious. To me, good bourbon always tastes kind of like caramel candy, mixed with a cozy fireplace that warms you from the inside. This bourbon was straight, so it had a little more fireplace than I'm used to. I usually like mine with an ice cube or two. But I've also heard that quote unquote, "real" bourbon drinkers don't add ice. I wanted to get Jackie's take on that and on other perceptions about bourbon. Because she's heard it all. She bartended her way through college in Missouri, where she studied biology and chemistry. When she moved to Louisville, she fell in love with the bourbon culture there. Eventually, she became beverage director for a big restaurant group, overseeing all different kinds of restaurants. A job like that requires you to have not only a good palate, but also an understanding of trends and marketing.
26:49 Dan Pashman? She had to decide which liquors and cocktails to have at which restaurants. She had to know what every liquor brand was doing, how everything tasted. And since this group was based in Louisville, that meant she had to really know bourbon. So Jackie, I want to throw out a couple of perceptions, common perceptions, that I feel exist out there about bourbon. I want you to give me your sort of your take on them. Think of this.
27:11 Speaker 01 This is awesome.
27:11 Dan Pashman? This is Hot Mike Zycan is ready here, okay? All right, this is the rapid fire segment of the show, okay?
27:18 Speaker 01 Does it have to be rap- is it rapid?
27:19 Dan Pashman? I mean, I don't, not.
27:20 Speaker 01 As fast as you can?
27:21 Dan Pashman? I'm not setting a clock. Don't stress it about it. Older bourbon, which has been aged longer, and is typically also therefore more expensive, must be better.
27:32 Speaker 01 No, false, completely false. Every single barrel of bourbon has its perfect spot in proof, in age, in temperature, in everything. Every, inside every barrel is a unicorn everywhere. Put it that way.
27:47 Dan Pashman? A delicious bourbon unicorn.
27:48 Speaker 01 And I think with most things out there, most goods, the higher the price tag, the more the perceived quality of such. But people don't understand that with bourbon, as it ages over time, you are losing some to evaporation, so you're getting less and less and less and less of it. And so the longer it sits there, the more you have to charge to balance that out. There is a point where bourbon gets unbalanced. There is. Um, there's a point on both ends, both ends of the spectrum.
28:17 Dan Pashman? Too young and too old.
28:18 Speaker 01 Too young and too old. And everyone's own personal preference is different.
28:22 Dan Pashman? I discovered that I like Macallan Scotch 15 year better than Macallan 18 year. And that's a big price difference in the 15 year, 18 year. It's like close to double. So I'm like, this is great. Well, I don't need to buy the 18 year then.
28:36 Speaker 01 I'm so lucky to have a palate that prefers the younger scotch.
28:39 Dan Pashman? Exactly. Yeah, seriously. Another lightning round item for you.
28:42 Speaker 01 Yes.
28:43 Dan Pashman? Single barrel is better than blended.
28:47 Speaker 01 No, false, false, false, false, false, false. So every barrel is different. Let's break this down. Why, why does everybody think that the smaller the batch, the better it is? Why? What's your opinion on that?
28:59 Dan Pashman? Well, I, I think there's a perception that, that if it's a big batch, it was made through some sort of large mechanized process. And that small batch is more handcrafted.
29:07 Speaker 01 It all came off the same still. There's not like a tiny still that makes the small batch. Like it's all the same still. It's just a different number of barrels.
29:14 Dan Pashman? Right.
29:14 Speaker 01 It is harder to make a consistent blend with small numbers of barrels. The bigger the batch, the more forgiving it is to variance in flavor. But as far as quality goes, the amount of barrels that go into it is not a mark of quality. It's the juice that makes up those barrels that is the mark of quality.
29:30 Dan Pashman? Also, like if you have three different delicious barrels of bourbon and you mix them together, why should that be a problem? Like if they were all delicious in their own way and you mix them together, that makes them, it's also delicious. Like, why is that less fancy?
29:40 Speaker 01 No, exactly. It's not.
29:42 Dan Pashman? So where does that, where does the single barrel idea, where does the idea that that's better come from?
29:47 Speaker 01 It's just more exclusive. It is kind of like a fingerprints, a snowflake. It will never be repeated. It is there in its form.
29:54 Dan Pashman? All right. Lightning round item. There's a perception that real bourbon drinkers don't put it on the rocks.
30:01 Speaker 01 False.
30:01 Dan Pashman? Why?
30:02 Speaker 01 You are fully entitled to enjoy something in the way that you are comfortable enjoying it.
30:07 Dan Pashman? I also have to say, I feel like there's something that strikes me as like very male about that attitude. I was like, no, this is the way to do it. You're like, you're not tough enough. What you're watering it down.
30:16 Speaker 01 Is that, is that what it is? Is that that makes you a stronger person to be able to tolerate higher alcohol?
30:21 Dan Pashman? I think that's part of it. At least it's like guys who go out to the bar and they compete over who can eat the spiciest wings. Like that's a sign of being a bigger man. You know, it's like, it's just stupid.
30:30 Speaker 01 Oh my gosh, that's great.
30:31 Dan Pashman? But I feel like there's, I feel like that there's the stigma around putting ice, putting rocks in your bourbon is all, is part of that. Like, oh, what? Like you're not tough enough? You can't handle it?
30:40 Speaker 01 I mean, I definitely think that everything that you're saying is, it's something that exists out there. So bourbon as a category for a very, very, very, very long time was perceived as being a masculine beverage. And, but, but where did it start? You really have to like, look at that because women have always worked in the industry. They were always there in the production, but you just now hear about it. But the big influence was who was working in the marketing department? That's where it really roots down to. What consumer were you trying to get on your product? How were you portraying it out there? Because it's not just about what it tastes like. Women and men both equally love the taste that comes through with whiskey.
31:23 Speaker 01 But your perception of what it is and how it defines you as a person to drink it is completely an element that's created by a group of people in a marketing department.
31:35 Dan Pashman? And in fact, perceptions about whiskey go back to way before there even were marketing departments. Back in the 1850s, the largest retailers of whiskey in America were women. Prostitutes who sold whiskey in brothels. The prohibition movement highlighted this connection between whiskey drinking women and prostitution. And even after prohibition ended, that stigma remained. Some states passed laws making it illegal to feature women in liquor ads. It wasn't until 1987 that the Distilled Spirits Council, a trade group, lifted a ban on advertising liquor directly to women. 1987. But still in 87, it was mostly men who were making the ads. Jackie says now more women are in charge of how whiskey and the people who drink it are portrayed.
32:18 Speaker 01 That's why you're seeing a shift in women drinking more whiskey and it not necessarily being that sort of like cowboy juice grandpa's thing.
32:27 Dan Pashman? Well, I also perceive that there are, that now there's this increase in sort of marketing efforts targeted specifically at women. Like, we're gonna have a women's bourbon night, or we're gonna have a women's. What do you think of that? You're rolling your eyes. What do you think of that?
32:40 Speaker 01 I'm not rolling my eyes. I took a very deep breath.
32:44 Speaker 01 Because, and let me preface it with this, that I am fully understanding and appreciative of every single woman that came before me in the job that I have right now, or a job like the one I have right now, who didn't get to speak up at the meeting, or whose idea got flushed on the toilet, or stolen by someone else and credited to somebody else, or what have you, if they still stuck with it because they had passion about the subject matter. However, when somebody reaches out and says something such as, "Oh, we've got this women in whiskey event going on. You're a woman, you go talk to them." To me, I don't take that as a compliment. It's great that these events are happening because it just shows that there's a different moment to enjoy whiskey
33:27 Speaker 01 outside of just in a saloon and spitting tobacco on the floor somewhere, right? But at the same time, I think that as an industry, okay, it's about time that we all start getting used to learning how to talk to everybody. I should be seen as knowing what I know about whiskey and being an expert in my field outside of what my gender is.
33:48 Dan Pashman? And you, correct me if I'm wrong, but your, your first bartending job, or one of your first bartending jobs, was sort of like at a Hooters knockoff. Is that right?
33:55 Speaker 01 My god, yeah, it was.
33:57 Dan Pashman? How did that experience affect the way you think about marketing whiskey today?
34:03 Speaker 01 I know what it's like to be in the shoes of those girls who are doing promo model gigs and things of that sort, and I, I don't like it for them because I know what I went through in those, in that setting. Um, no one was holding a gun to my head to work there, but I have used that experience now in the position that I'm in to set an example that you don't have to be like that in order to sell booze.
34:30 Dan Pashman? When you say you don't have to be like that, what, what, what is like that?
34:33 Speaker 01 Well, you don't have to wear a low-cut shirt. You don't have to have your assets on display for everybody. You can have opinions and you can have an education. You can talk about a product in a way that is not using your body or your sexuality to sell it.
34:49 Dan Pashman? When Jackie talks about promo models, she's talking about the people, usually women, who give out samples of alcohol at publicity and industry events. It's also their job to know all about the brand so they can talk about it. At these events, you've got a bunch of booths, all different liquor companies offering free samples. The people taking the samples are mostly men, and the women giving out the samples are typically young and scantily clad, at least until Jackie got put in charge.
35:14 Speaker 01 I saw it firsthand from doing trade shows when I first started with the brand. And here I am, this person who's from Louisville and has been buying spirits for years and years and years, and I know what I'm talking about, I'm very educated, but you don't see that. You see me standing behind a booth in a branded shirt, and it's disturbing how low the level of respect is that the promo models, in quotes, promo models are given, and people would come up to the booth and go, "Oh, hey sweetheart, blah, blah, blah." Like, they don't care about the product. They don't care what you have to say. They don't assume that you even know what you're talking about. You're just there to look pretty and smile. Um, and so, right off the bat, it was, "This is never gonna happen
35:57 Speaker 01 again. We're not putting people in these positions." So, all of our shirts have now switched to being non-gender sizes. For Old Forester specifically, as a brand, we have stopped the use of those tight little dresses and tight little tank tops and all of that stuff. And- Like I said, like, it wasn't that women weren't involved in the industry. It's just that now you've got a woman who has a voice to be able to make that change, and that's how you change the industry. And so, we're not doing it anymore. I hope everyone else follows suit so that when people approach that booth, they are focusing on the product and not so much, "How can I get your phone number?"
36:40 Dan Pashman? Jackie says since she started out, things have gotten better, but we have a ways to go. She says she still goes to bourbon events where she'll be chatting with some guy, then she gets called up to the stage to speak, and he gives her this look like, "What? The bourbon expert I came to see is you?" Fortunately for all of us, Jackie's not going anywhere. Her roots are in Louisville now. Sure, people are into bourbon all over the place, but Jackie says, in Kentucky, it's a lifestyle.
37:06 Speaker 01 There's so much history, there's so much heritage to it, and honestly, it is so fun to taste them because they are all different. The best part of the entire process is when it reminds you of something that you experienced prior in life. Like, "This smells like that air freshener my grandma always had at her house," or, "This tastes like that one time, remember that one time we had that one meal at that one wedding, and, oh, and then it started raining, and it was what I..." And it just conjures up all... It's so much bigger than just that glass. That's, that's all, I love everything about it.
37:41 Dan Pashman? That's Jackie Zeichen, master taster for Old Forester Kentucky Bourbon. Speaking of bourbon, my glass is officially empty, which means it's time for this show to end. This show is produced by Ann Sanney and me, Gianna Palmer is our editor, additional editing by Emma Morgenstern. The show is mixed by the Reverend John Delore, music help from Black Label Music. The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher. Our executive producers are Chris Bannon and Jenny Radelit. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman. And I'm Shelby Withers from Lexington, Kentucky, reminding you to eat more, eat better, and eat... Eat more better.
38:21 Dan Pashman? This reheat was produced by Gianna Palmer. The team that produces The Sporkful today includes me along with managing producer
38:27 Speaker 01 Emma Morgenstern.
38:28 Dan Pashman? And senior producer Andres O'Hara. Our engineer is Jared O'Connell. The Sporkful is a production of Stitcher Studios. Our executive producer is Camille Stanley. And hey, did you know you can listen to The Sporkful on the SiriusXM app? Yes, the SiriusXM app, it has all your favorite podcasts, plus over 200 ad-free music channels curated by genre and era. Plus, live sports coverage. Does your podcasting app have that? And there's interviews with A-list stars and so much more. It's everything you want in a podcast app and music app, all rolled into one. And right now, Sporkful listeners can get three months free of the SiriusXM app by going to siriusxm.com/sporkful. Until next time, I'm Dan Pashman.
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