I got the passion to distill just from
being a Kentucky boy growing up around
bourbon. When I left the military, I was
looking for that next thing and had a
mentor say, "Well you can do anything you
want," so I sought out distilling. So I
have a new baby at home, she's a month
old, and...
my wife... we live on a small farm with
horses, and cow, and chickens, and ducks,
and we kind of are trying to grow our
own food and live as much as possible
on stuff that we make and that we
raised.
I enjoy trail riding with my family and
really being close with nature and close
with animals...just working with my hands...
being out on the farm.
I love Wendell Berry, and kind of his
philosophies on living an Agrarian life
and enjoying that kind of aspect. I try
to bring that as much as I can to the
distilling side and I think it'd be
really cool in the future if I were to
be able to grow, you know, a crop that I
could eventually firm it and distill
from beginning to end.
Coming from a person that's from
Kentucky, in the the long heritage of
bourbon being in Kentucky, it's cool
join those ranks, and as distilling is
getting more scientific and more
industrialized, to look back on what
makes it a trade and bring back the
art to distilling. And then also from the
consumer standpoint, like when you go
into a bar or you're at a party or
you're sitting around a fire with
friends being able to share spirit with
them...and especially as a distiller
sharing something that I made that I I
know the story of. I've met the farmer
that made the grain, you know, I've made
the still, I've met the still maker, and
just the the different portions of
people that go into making the products.
And then also, you know, understanding the
process and knowing that you know a
hundred people have probably touched
that product that I'm sharing with my
friends and bringing that community
together. Everyone in the program is
coming from a different backgrounds, a
different previous career, or maybe this
is, you know, their their first foray into
a career. So you have these people from
different backgrounds of different
industries sharing their input. You get
to experience a lot of home brewers
that have been home brewing for, you know,
10 to 20 years. And then you're also
sharing ideas throughout the project
process. It's it's really cool to have
that sounding board in that peer group.
There's a lot of programs out there for
people that, you know, they want to spend
a weekends. But there's no...this is the
first program that you get a actual
degree. It's also interesting because
each weekend is different. You're getting
a different viewpoint from industry
professionals that have been working in
the industry for years. From, anywhere
from scientists, you know,
who work on the science of fermentation
all the way to the actual
craftsman the Brewers, the bottlers, the
people that work in marketing, and just
the whole span of the people that you're
gonna interact with on a one-on-one
basis is really cool. The size of the
cohort, and then the size of the sub
divisions in the cohort, make it really
easy to interact directly with your
instructor. To have that one-on-one time
where there's a lot of programs don't
have that yet, it's really cool to be a
part of.
