Loads of Bourbon History Facts You Never Knew in the first 20 Minutes!

Welcome to Thirsty Thursdays @3PM EST! 👏 Let's celebrate National Bourbon Heritage Month!

I have learned more about bourbon in the first 20 minutes of Maggie's interview than I had in 20 years due to the extensive information Maggie knows about Louisville (Luhvul), KY & bourbon's extensive historical background. 

She sprinkles more and more history throughout as well as her journey and how she became one of America's most respected bourbon writers.

Maggie has had an amazing year being named Spirits Writer of the Year at the Bourbon Women WOW Awards for 2024. Congratulations Maggie!

The original audio was published on May 31st, 2023. Now on YouTube!

📢I talk🎙️with Maggie Kimberl, content editor of American Whiskey Magazine and co-chair of the World Whiskies Awards among others. Maggie lives and is from Louisville, (Luhvul) Kentucky, and feels blessed to be right in the epicenter of the bourbon world. 👏🍷 🎇 🎉 ✨ 👏 🥂  😁

Watch On YouTube!
https://youtu.be/O5SGciu9LEU

Words of Wisdom: Drink Responsibly and "If you Shoot it, You Only Get to Drink it Once!"

As past president of the Bourbon Women Association, she started a blog series called “Meet the Makers” in which she featured a different woman in the global brown-water industry.

She has and still does write and contribute as a freelance spirits journalist who focuses on whiskey culture in the United States. If there’s a whiskey fest going on in the US you can be rest assured, she will be there to write about all that you missed, so you don’t miss a beat.

One aspect I love about this interview is Maggie’s dream of being a travel writer came full circle for her as she writes a travel blog and writes about all the great opportunities there are for family fun in the Louisville metro area.

I’ve met a lot of people in our industry including bourbon distillers and aficionados alike but no one tops Maggie’s all-in approach to bourbon and her extensive knowledge and passion of all bourbons.

Natchez Trace Trail - Where Bourbon and Thoroughbreds Meet
https://www.nps.gov/natr/learn/historyculture/index.htm

You can reach Maggie on Twitter @LouGirl502 

Thank you for listening and be sure to subscribe to be notified of all new episodes! 

NOW ON YOUTUBE!!! Thank you for Listening! Join us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter!

Host Jessie Ott's Profile on LinkedIn

Chapters

• 0:00 Start
• 0:22 Subscribe to Thirsty Thursdays @3PM EST
• 1:12 Where Maggie is Calling From
• 1:18 How to Pronounce Louisville (Luhvul)
• 2:47 History of Luhvul Pronounciation
• 4:02 Interesting Fact about Luhvul Water
• 5:26 Luhvul is a Beverage Town
• 7:05 History of the Word Bourbon
• 8:43 History of Flat Boats from KY To NOLA
• 9:33 How KY Thoroughbreds Started & Natchez Trace
• 9:44 People Requested that Bourbon Street Whiskey
• 10:51 The Word Bourbon Started in mid to Late 1800's
• 18:42 What BOAT Stands For
• 19:26 Where Maggie is From
• 20:03 Bourbon Trail
• 22:41 TX & CO Growing # of Bourbon Distilleries & How Distillers Work Together
• 23:40 More Bourbon History
• 24:35 How Maggie Started in the Bourbon Industry
• 29:24 Maggie Wanted to be a Writer
• 31:10 Accidentally Became a Travel Writer
• 31:43 How She Dove Head First
• 33:32 Meeting all Master Distillers
• 33:55 Starting Writing for the Whiskey Wash
• 33:58 Started Writing for the Alcohol Professor
• 34:04 Colleague & Mentor Fred Minnick offered to Work for Whisky Magazine
• 34:24 Launched American Whiskey Magazine
• 34:46 Contribute to Imbibe
• 35:02 Mentor Michael Veech
• 37:48 More Mentors
• 38:00 Mentors Kyle Swartz @kswartzz
• 38:47 Mentor @lewbryson
• 38:51 Mentor Albert Schmid
• 39:00 Kentucky Colonel Status
• 40:50 Economic Impact of Bourbon in Kentucky
• 41:33 Bourbon Industry Very Friendly
• 44:42 Booker Contributed Small Batch Specialty Bourbon in early 90's
• 46:56 Batching vs Blending Barrels
• 47:30 Little Book (Freddy Noe)
• 52:45 Pain Points - Oak Trees at Risk & Big Glass Mnfture is in Ukraine
• 54:09 Emerald Ash Borer (EAB)
• 55:28 Talk about Not Requiring New Oak
• 56:02 Tobasco Sauce made with Bourbon Barrels
• 56:29 New Barrel Requirement Came from WPA (FDR New Deal)
• 58:40 Trends
• 1:01:50 Following Pedigree & Heirloom Grains Trends
• 1:03:16 Experimentation with Small Grains
• 1:03:52 Mammoth Distillery & Rosen Rye Grains
• 1:11:50 Words of Wisdom
• 1:14:05 Bonus Question: What would you do if You Won the Lotto!
• 1:17:00 Jimmy Russel Master Distiller and Legend
• 1:18:33 Produced by Fedora J Productions

Transcript

00:00:10:02 - 00:00:11:01
Jessie Ott
Welcome to Thursday.

00:00:11:01 - 00:00:20:17
Jessie Ott
Thursdays at 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. My name is Jesse at the host of this podcast, which is all about beverage innovation. I talk with innovation pioneers from.

00:00:20:17 - 00:00:23:05
Jessie Ott
Agriculture to glass.

00:00:23:07 - 00:00:35:09
Jessie Ott
Thank you for listening, and be sure to subscribe to be notified of all new episodes. Welcome to Thursday, Thursday at 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. My name is Jesse and I have Maggie here today. How are you doing?

00:00:35:15 - 00:00:38:14
Maggie Kimberl
I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. How are you today?

00:00:38:16 - 00:00:45:04
Jessie Ott
I'm doing. I'm doing well, but I don't think I'm doing quite as good as you. It looks like you've got about 50 bourbon bottles sitting next to you over there.

00:00:45:04 - 00:00:47:14
Jessie Ott
Yeah, just one amazing office.

00:00:47:14 - 00:00:47:19
Maggie Kimberl
There.

00:00:47:19 - 00:00:49:08
Jessie Ott
On one wall.

00:00:49:10 - 00:00:51:02
Maggie Kimberl
And in my dining room.

00:00:51:02 - 00:00:53:04
Jessie Ott
So, yeah.

00:00:53:06 - 00:00:56:01
Maggie Kimberl
Quite the fire hazard I'm sitting in right now.

00:00:56:02 - 00:01:01:00
Jessie Ott
Yeah. So you're the you're the party. The party cove over there.

00:01:01:02 - 00:01:01:09
Jessie Ott
Yeah.

00:01:01:10 - 00:01:07:08
Maggie Kimberl
Not a lot of partying going on. Just a lot of business. Whiskey business business. Just like any other business.

00:01:07:10 - 00:01:09:13
Jessie Ott
Yeah, it sure is. Good people on it, too.

00:01:09:18 - 00:01:11:05
Maggie Kimberl
Oh, absolutely.

00:01:11:07 - 00:01:13:07
Jessie Ott
So where are you calling from today?

00:01:13:09 - 00:01:14:19
Maggie Kimberl
Louisville, Kentucky.

00:01:14:21 - 00:01:19:00
Jessie Ott
Oh, Louisville. Louisville. I have a handy chart on the wall.

00:01:19:00 - 00:01:20:04
Maggie Kimberl
Behind me of.

00:01:20:04 - 00:01:21:23
Jessie Ott
All the different versions of.

00:01:21:23 - 00:01:25:20
Maggie Kimberl
Louisville. But if you're from here, you say Louisville.

00:01:25:22 - 00:01:28:14
Jessie Ott
Louisville? Well, Vol.

00:01:28:16 - 00:01:31:22
Jessie Ott
Oh, I did it wrong then, didn't I? Look.

00:01:32:00 - 00:01:35:12
Maggie Kimberl
There are plenty of people who say it that way. So that's that's why we have the sign.

00:01:35:13 - 00:01:36:22
Jessie Ott
This is so you just cringe.

00:01:36:23 - 00:01:38:06
Jessie Ott
You're like, oh.

00:01:38:07 - 00:01:39:07
Jessie Ott
A photo.

00:01:39:08 - 00:01:50:02
Maggie Kimberl
Of a neon sign that is in our visitor center downtown. So when you actually come to Louisville, you can get your picture taken by this.

00:01:50:04 - 00:01:57:08
Jessie Ott
That's funny. I like that. Now. I don't think people that aren't from there will ever get it right, or at least I won't.

00:01:57:10 - 00:02:14:18
Maggie Kimberl
It's, you know, it's it's funny because like, I, I went to there are some other Louisville's and you know around the United States and I went to, Louisville, Colorado, and I was like, hey, I'm trying to find Louisville. And they're like, what.

00:02:14:20 - 00:02:25:22
Jessie Ott
Was like Louisville? And they're like in Lewisville. And I was like, no.

00:02:26:00 - 00:02:31:04
Jessie Ott
Oh that's funny. Yeah. See, it's just Louisville people.

00:02:31:06 - 00:02:32:13
Jessie Ott
Yeah.

00:02:32:15 - 00:02:36:21
Jessie Ott
Or Kentucky. And I would, I would imagine everybody knows how to say it.

00:02:36:23 - 00:02:38:10
Maggie Kimberl
It's every once you go.

00:02:38:10 - 00:02:39:04
Jessie Ott
Outside it really.

00:02:39:09 - 00:02:46:02
Maggie Kimberl
Yeah. It's it's see once you go outside of the city, like you have to actually be from Louisville to know how to say Louisville. Right.

00:02:46:04 - 00:02:50:06
Jessie Ott
What do you know the history behind that? If you don't, it's okay. I'm just curious why.

00:02:50:07 - 00:02:58:17
Maggie Kimberl
So the pronunciation or the name? Because I know the history behind the name, but the pronunciation is just I mean, that's that's a whole that's a whole other podcast right there.

00:02:58:17 - 00:02:59:12
Jessie Ott
Okay.

00:02:59:13 - 00:03:12:20
Maggie Kimberl
So it was named for King Louis. That was this was part of, the French territory, for, for a long time. And, so Louisville was founded in like.

00:03:12:22 - 00:03:14:08
Jessie Ott
16.

00:03:14:10 - 00:03:35:01
Maggie Kimberl
Like 1789, I think. So it's a pretty old city, but it's, you know, this used to be the western frontier of the United States. And, or. No, I guess it was found. It was founded before the country was founded. And so the country was founded 1776. But I don't remember at.

00:03:35:03 - 00:03:39:11
Jessie Ott
Think it's a I didn't mean to pop that in it. Is that.

00:03:39:13 - 00:03:39:15
Jessie Ott
The.

00:03:39:18 - 00:03:55:15
Maggie Kimberl
Name for King Louis the 16th? You know, you'll see Fleur de Lys all over, you know, all over the, like, our street signs all have floor tiles on them and all that kind of stuff. It's kind of like the unofficial, symbol of of the city or the official symbol of the city, I guess. Probably.

00:03:55:17 - 00:03:57:18
Jessie Ott
Yeah, that's really cool. I like that a lot.

00:03:57:23 - 00:03:58:17
Jessie Ott
Yeah.

00:03:58:19 - 00:04:00:17
Jessie Ott
Good. Rich history.

00:04:00:19 - 00:04:21:11
Maggie Kimberl
Oh, definitely. And one of the really interesting things is, about our water, which kind of has a lot to do with the reason that bourbon was so successful. So Louisville actually has one of the oldest and most sophisticated water treatment facilities in the United States. Because, at one time, Louisville was known as the graveyard of the West.

00:04:21:11 - 00:04:42:18
Maggie Kimberl
So during westward expansion, people would would come through Louisville and get get typhus or cholera or whatever and die. And so, a lot of people decided to get together and start treating the water so it would be safer for people to drink. And between that first typhus epidemic and the second typhus epidemic, that's when that took place.

00:04:42:20 - 00:05:08:07
Maggie Kimberl
And by the second typhus epidemic, came around, people in Louisville were much better off than people like, out, out in the rest of the state and, you know, the other parts of westward westward expansion. So even to this day, we have, you know, we're we're pretty much a liter and in water treatment, and people come here to learn how to handle, water treatment and, and things like that.

00:05:08:07 - 00:05:21:01
Maggie Kimberl
So, and that that kind of plays into the bourbon industry because. Yeah, for sure, you may have probably heard one of the reasons that, Kentucky Bourbon is so good is because we have that awesome limestone filtered water.

00:05:21:03 - 00:05:22:19
Jessie Ott
Absolutely.

00:05:22:21 - 00:05:29:01
Jessie Ott
Very interesting. I didn't know that. So I guess Louisville is just a big old beverage town.

00:05:29:03 - 00:05:30:23
Jessie Ott
That it really has. We also have a.

00:05:30:23 - 00:05:54:16
Maggie Kimberl
Louisville Ale Trail. That's, that's a fairly new thing, I think, that just launched maybe a year or two ago. And we have a lot of, breweries as well. And historically, we have always had a lot of beverage, beverage type stuff. So there was a, pretty big German population in here, you know, probably about the mid to late 1800s.

00:05:54:18 - 00:06:23:21
Maggie Kimberl
And so there there were a lot of, breweries as a result of that. But also like when you look at the, you know, the history of the Kentucky bourbon industry as a whole, the different immigrants that that made that you know, you have everything from, you know, I suppose Bernheim was an Eastern European, Jewish man who who immigrated here and ended up running the second largest distillery and owning the second largest distillery in Kentucky.

00:06:23:23 - 00:06:49:00
Maggie Kimberl
Or no, that was, Henry Craver, also an Eastern European Jewish man, the second largest, I suppose. Bernheim, I think, actually had the, the, the largest. But there are people, you know, like from Wales and France and, you know, all just all over, immigrants from everywhere who, came here and made their mark on, the distilling industry.

00:06:49:00 - 00:07:00:03
Maggie Kimberl
And even now we're starting to see a lot of, history being uncovered of, you know, the African American, influence in the distilled spirits industry.

00:07:00:05 - 00:07:17:18
Jessie Ott
Yep. Absolutely. Yeah, that's that's very interesting. So do you have, based on, you know, obviously you're the bourbon girl. Do you have any insight or what is your opinion on the history of the word bourbon and where it came from?

00:07:17:20 - 00:07:21:03
Jessie Ott
There's I heard the whole Orleans Bourbon Street thing.

00:07:21:03 - 00:07:21:18
Jessie Ott
And so.

00:07:21:18 - 00:07:22:06
Jessie Ott
That's.

00:07:22:07 - 00:07:50:09
Maggie Kimberl
The predominant theory. So a lot of people say, oh, it came from Bourbon County and that's not entirely true. Bourbon County, we do have a Bourbon County. There is a distillery there now. There certainly were distillers there. Pre-Prohibition. But like when you put together the available historic information, it just doesn't support that, really. And the predominant theory is put out there by my colleague Michael Veach, the Bourbon historian.

00:07:50:09 - 00:08:08:20
Maggie Kimberl
He's the author of Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey and American Heritage. And he actually teaches this class. He just, got off of, River cruise. He got home from a river cruise yesterday. He does a bourbon cruise every year on, paddlewheel boats on the on the river. And he teaches, historical.

00:08:08:20 - 00:08:09:09
Jessie Ott
Finds.

00:08:09:09 - 00:08:17:22
Maggie Kimberl
About bourbon. And one of the things that he teaches is the connection between, you know, Kentucky bourbon whiskey.

00:08:18:00 - 00:08:19:12
Jessie Ott
The river.

00:08:19:14 - 00:08:43:09
Maggie Kimberl
Markets like New Orleans. So, you know, at one time, New Orleans was the main export market. And this was, you know, before steam power was even available. And so, you know, a lot of times, these barrels of whiskey. And before that, they would be in earthenware jugs, which is kind of why we transitioned, to barrels, because the earthenware jugs would often break during the journey.

00:08:43:11 - 00:09:10:12
Maggie Kimberl
They would be loaded on slot boats and they would go down the Ohio River, down the Mississippi River, and then be unloaded in New Orleans. And those flat boats would be dismantled. So the other kind of fun fact there is, New Orleans pre Hurricane Katrina was the largest collection of shotgun houses in the United States after, Katrina, I think it's the second or third because a lot of those unfortunately got wiped out.

00:09:10:14 - 00:09:24:16
Maggie Kimberl
But that lumber that was in that is still in a lot of those shotgun houses, were disassembled flat boats. And that lumber came from Kentucky. So you would take your flat boat, you know, obviously you couldn't get your flat boat back up the river because.

00:09:24:16 - 00:09:25:06
Jessie Ott
Right.

00:09:25:08 - 00:09:39:04
Maggie Kimberl
Is any sort of locomotion. But, you know, once you got down there, you had you sold your whiskey, you sold your boat, and then, a lot of times you a buy a horse, ride it back up the Natchez Trace. And that's where Kentucky thoroughbreds came from.

00:09:39:06 - 00:09:40:13
Jessie Ott
No way.

00:09:40:13 - 00:10:15:06
Maggie Kimberl
So that's the predominant theory. But the the the idea there is, you know, people came to request some of that Bourbon Street whiskey. That's that's really the theory that Michael Veach, has come up, has come upon after, you know, his decades and decades of research. And, and the reason why is, you know, there are a number of factors I always like to tell people like bourbon, wasn't that like people weren't sitting around a boardroom table saying, we should make this stuff and we should put it in this barrel, and we should call it bourbon, but it just didn't happen that way.

00:10:15:11 - 00:10:35:06
Maggie Kimberl
It was out of necessity because you needed to preserve crops. You needed to have something that could be used for medicine calories during the winter, you know, to clean, cut some streets, to barter for a bucket of nails to build your barn and all that sort of thing. And so, you know, whiskey had a very utilitarian function.

00:10:35:08 - 00:10:59:14
Maggie Kimberl
And so, like, on the frontier, they would distill it, they would put it clear whiskey into an earthenware jug that was fat. They could trade a jug of whiskey for whatever they needed, you know, from their neighbors. But, you know, when it comes to bourbon becoming bourbon, you know, we don't see the, the word bourbon used until about the early to mid 1800s.

00:10:59:16 - 00:11:26:16
Maggie Kimberl
There was, advertisement and a newspaper advertising for bourbon whiskey. And then, you know, the incremental improvements that took place over time were things like, okay, the earthenware jugs break, so let's put it in a barrel. And then we have, in the Corless papers, which are at the Filson Historic Society. We have a letter from a grocer to a distiller saying, hey, can you char the inside of that barrel?

00:11:26:16 - 00:11:38:18
Maggie Kimberl
Because that's what they do with that brandy. And you know, those people down in New Orleans, they really like that French brandy. So maybe if we char the inside of our barrel, it'll kind of mimic that French brandy characteristic. So you have.

00:11:38:18 - 00:11:40:06
Jessie Ott
All these likely cool.

00:11:40:06 - 00:12:08:04
Maggie Kimberl
Things that took place that that turned it into bourbon. So it's really hard to pinpoint, you know, a lot of people want to say like, oh, Evan, William or no, Evan Williams was actually a person. He was the wharf master in Louisville. Elijah Craig, Elijah Craig, Baptist preacher, father of Bourbon. You know, there's this kind of, mythology that's built up around him, like, oh, he had a barn fire and it burnt, you know, charred one side of his staves.

00:12:08:04 - 00:12:24:21
Maggie Kimberl
That were leaning up against the wall. Then he just decided to go ahead and make a barrel out of it and put his whiskey in there. And so he's the father of bourbon and just, you know, that's that's a really neat and tidy marketing story. It just didn't happen that way. History doesn't happen that way.

00:12:24:23 - 00:12:33:08
Jessie Ott
Yeah, that's very true. Well, that's a lot of history in a short amount of time that I had no idea. So I appreciate that. That was really cool.

00:12:33:09 - 00:12:34:04
Jessie Ott
You bet.

00:12:34:06 - 00:12:44:03
Jessie Ott
Yeah. Because I know that, the steamboat had a lot to do with it as well, which I think did not increase the bourbon production and and down the.

00:12:44:03 - 00:13:14:15
Maggie Kimberl
Oh, absolutely. I mean, like when you have the ability to transport things easier. Yeah. And you have more of an ability to open up a market, it's easier to get your products moved. It's easier to, you know, when when things like that become easier, that they naturally are going to expand. Right. So like if you have to personally load a bunch of jugs of whiskey onto a flat boat and, you know, like kind of just float down the river for, you know, two months or whatever, like that's, that's going to deter a lot of that trade from taking place.

00:13:14:15 - 00:13:35:17
Maggie Kimberl
But then when you have a steamship, because the the round trip was like six months, eight months, something like that. So it'd be like, you know, six, eight weeks going down the river to New Orleans. But then that would be, you know, like 4 or 5, six months getting back to Kentucky. So the steamship really cut a lot of time out of that.

00:13:35:17 - 00:13:55:13
Maggie Kimberl
So I think with a steamship you can get from Kentucky to New Orleans and ten days or something like that. So, you know, it's it's it's really interesting. You know, how all those advances kind of impact the, you know, it's just these little shifts that kind of took place throughout history.

00:13:55:14 - 00:14:05:01
Jessie Ott
And didn't, weren't there a lot of accidents with the flat boats? Which is why, they were pushing towards, an alternative because of the.

00:14:05:03 - 00:14:05:22
Jessie Ott
The I mean, that.

00:14:05:22 - 00:14:27:11
Maggie Kimberl
Certainly makes sense. I don't know, a whole lot about the history of flat boats. I, I did actually, there was, I went to visit a distillery in Missouri. 3 or 4 weeks ago, the McCormick distillery, which was also, the Ben Holiday Distillery. I've got some of their, whiskey right here.

00:14:27:13 - 00:14:37:13
Maggie Kimberl
Nice. So this is actually a distillery that was founded, in 18. I'm going to I'm going to forget now, 1860.

00:14:37:13 - 00:14:40:05
Jessie Ott
Four, I think, by.

00:14:40:05 - 00:15:06:05
Maggie Kimberl
A couple of brothers from Kentucky during that westward expansion. So Ben Holiday, holiday. You've probably heard his name before. He was a stagecoach king, but he also, founded the the. You know, he and his brother got to Missouri. They got to the Kansas City area. It's in west and right outside of Kansas City. And they they found like there's this river, there's this limestone spring water, and they're like, hey, we know what to do with this.

00:15:06:07 - 00:15:26:04
Maggie Kimberl
So they settled with that distillery. His brother actually ran it while he went on to, to like the Pony Express. You've heard of the Pony Express that was been okay. And so there's there's actually, a really cool, steamboat museum there and the Missouri River, that one of the big problems is that it's very muddy and murky.

00:15:26:06 - 00:16:09:10
Maggie Kimberl
And so you don't have quite that problem with the Ohio River. And, you know, it's probably a little bit muddy in the Mississippi River, but like the the Missouri River is very muddy. And so even with the steamboats, they would oftentimes get impaled by logs. So there are a lot of like sunken steamboats. And so this, this, museum that I went to in Kansas City was all about, recovery efforts of digging up, there was an earthquake that rerouted the, the Missouri River at a certain in the 1870s, I think, as, like 30 or 40 years after this, this boat sunk and they they dug up all these artifacts

00:16:09:10 - 00:16:54:22
Maggie Kimberl
from this, steamship, wreck. So it was and they think there are, you know, literally hundreds more of these steamship wrecks. So certainly, you know, boating was not as, straightforward as it is today. So I live right off of the Ohio River. I'm about, that the Ohio River is like a mile that way. So I, I grew up on the river and, you know, one of the, the main differences in the modern era versus you know, pre 1920s, you had a lot of, shipping channel dredging, from the Army Corps of Engineers in the early 1900s to make those, waterways more viable.

00:16:55:00 - 00:17:25:04
Maggie Kimberl
And so, you know, like one of the, one of the challenges for flatboat, during the, the frontier days was, the Ohio River, like, kind of stopped and morsel. And there was what's called the falls of the Ohio. And so, in times of the year when the, water, water levels were lower, you really could not get through there because it was like, just, you know, a stone outcropping.

00:17:25:04 - 00:17:44:21
Maggie Kimberl
There are lots of fossils in there. There's a park there now. And so what they ended up doing was building, a lock and dam system, so that boats could get through there. But before that, you would have to completely unload your flatboat, portage around, and then reload it and go on down the river. So, you know, it was it was.

00:17:44:22 - 00:17:46:08
Jessie Ott
Painful, difficult.

00:17:46:08 - 00:18:12:04
Maggie Kimberl
Journey. And and I'm sure there were more places along the these river channels that were like that. We don't have that today because the Army Corps of Engineers went around and was like, hey, we're going to make this a viable shipping channel. And so, you know, like if you go to the river now in Louisville, you can watch barges go down all day long carrying, you know, they'll carry grain, they'll carry coal, all those different things, just all day long.

00:18:12:06 - 00:18:24:03
Jessie Ott
Yeah. We grew up, near the Mississippi. So we had locks over there, too. So I'm familiar with that system, but I can't imagine what it was like to have to deal with that before all that was built. You know, you.

00:18:24:03 - 00:18:27:20
Jessie Ott
Know, to, to to think about, I mean, you know, it's it's amazing to think about those.

00:18:27:20 - 00:18:34:15
Maggie Kimberl
Challenges that, that, you know, these are things that we just take for granted. Now you want to go somewhere, you just put your boat in the water and go.

00:18:34:17 - 00:18:36:22
Jessie Ott
Yep. If you can afford to get one.

00:18:37:00 - 00:18:39:01
Jessie Ott
You can.

00:18:39:03 - 00:18:41:00
Jessie Ott
There's no expense. Everything's expensive.

00:18:41:02 - 00:18:44:21
Maggie Kimberl
Oh yeah. Well, you know what? You know what boat stands for, right?

00:18:44:22 - 00:18:46:22
Jessie Ott
I guess not a stout.

00:18:46:22 - 00:18:48:01
Maggie Kimberl
Another thousand.

00:18:48:03 - 00:18:50:14
Jessie Ott
There you go.

00:18:50:16 - 00:18:52:12
Jessie Ott
Or a few thousand?

00:18:52:14 - 00:18:53:04
Jessie Ott
Yeah.

00:18:53:06 - 00:18:58:17
Jessie Ott
We didn't have a very big boat, but we could ski and and tube and stuff behind. It was really fun.

00:18:58:19 - 00:19:06:06
Maggie Kimberl
Yeah, my my dad had a sailboat when I was growing up, so he was. Everybody else was out there water skiing, and we were on a sailboat.

00:19:06:08 - 00:19:10:14
Jessie Ott
Yeah. Sailing is awesome though. That's really cool. Do you still do it?

00:19:10:16 - 00:19:12:21
Maggie Kimberl
Oh, no. Not for decades. No.

00:19:12:23 - 00:19:22:16
Jessie Ott
Yeah. Me neither. We will rent a boat once in a while and take the nephews out. Here locally, but nothing to often. But it's fun. Something different.

00:19:22:18 - 00:19:25:10
Maggie Kimberl
Yeah. It's always nice to be out on the water.

00:19:25:12 - 00:19:30:05
Jessie Ott
So you say you grew up on the Ohio River. So where are you originally from?

00:19:30:07 - 00:19:57:23
Maggie Kimberl
So I, I've lived in Louisville my whole life, and my mom's side of the family has been in Louisville, like, pretty much since the founding. My, my mom's mom's family from Louisville, many, many, many, many generations. And then, my mom's dad's side of the family, was from eastern Kentucky, Harlem. So I, I was born and raised in Louisville.

00:19:58:01 - 00:20:09:20
Jessie Ott
Okay, nice. It's a great town. I've been there once or twice. We we've done a bourbon trail with, my old my old job in the past. And I really want to get out there again and do it with some friends.

00:20:09:22 - 00:20:26:12
Maggie Kimberl
Yeah, it's really fun. And the nice thing now. So, like, when I first started doing this, there were no distilleries in, in Louisville, that were operating. And so since I started doing this, there are I have to like, count it up in my head on a map.

00:20:26:14 - 00:20:30:09
Jessie Ott
One, two, three.

00:20:30:11 - 00:20:37:19
Maggie Kimberl
4567, eight. I think there are eight. Like within.

00:20:37:21 - 00:20:38:20
Jessie Ott
Oh. Wow.

00:20:38:22 - 00:20:58:09
Maggie Kimberl
Ten block stretch. Which is pretty amazing. And they've done some really. It's amazing. I think it's actually ten now. Bob Dylan actually just opened a or is opening a, satellite, tasting experience in downtown Louisville.

00:20:58:09 - 00:20:59:23
Jessie Ott
And then opening.

00:21:00:01 - 00:21:08:05
Maggie Kimberl
A distillery out in Kentucky. So, you know, it's it's it's reach that level of popularity at this point.

00:21:08:05 - 00:21:10:23
Jessie Ott
Where the celebrities are coming in. Bob Dylan's like.

00:21:10:23 - 00:21:13:13
Maggie Kimberl
Yes, I'm going to put my distillery right there, which I think is.

00:21:13:13 - 00:21:15:08
Jessie Ott
Pretty cool. Yeah.

00:21:15:08 - 00:21:21:04
Maggie Kimberl
So you have an entire like weekend and not see all the distilleries in Louisville.

00:21:21:05 - 00:21:34:18
Jessie Ott
Wow. Yeah. That's incredible. Well, I know that they're kind of spread out too, because, you know, we what was the major brands? It was beam. I was with beam at the time, and then we had, Wild Turkey and then Heaven Hill.

00:21:35:00 - 00:21:56:08
Maggie Kimberl
Yeah, I mean, so when I started this, there were basically like the big eight distilleries in Kentucky, and then there were starting to be a few little craft distilleries here and there, I believe were up to like 75 or 80 in Kentucky now. And then, you know, when I started doing this, it was basically like a cluster.

00:21:56:08 - 00:22:26:21
Maggie Kimberl
And in Kentucky, two distilleries in Tennessee, one distillery in Indiana. And then, of course, this one, place out in Missouri. And that was like basically, you know, there's, one distillery out in California that opened up, you know, like 30 years ago. So, like there were maybe 40, 50 distilleries 15 years ago, and now there are 3400 in the United States.

00:22:26:21 - 00:22:28:14
Maggie Kimberl
Wow.

00:22:28:16 - 00:22:31:12
Jessie Ott
The landscape. Wow. I didn't really changed.

00:22:31:14 - 00:22:37:21
Jessie Ott
Yeah, a lot of those I bet are in Texas too. Not not a lot. Not majority of those, but a lot of them.

00:22:37:21 - 00:23:03:15
Maggie Kimberl
There are a lot of distilleries in Texas. Texas and Colorado are two of the places, that I'm paying the most attention to right now because they've gotten to that level where they they're starting to realize, hey, we need to work together to get people to come here. And that's, you know, when when those distilleries start forming those associations and working together for their mutual benefit, that's really when you have something special.

00:23:03:17 - 00:23:22:10
Jessie Ott
Right? And that's what happened in Kentucky, too, because I, you know, I've met, Bill Samuels, jr and Jimmy and, you know, they all held hands and, you know, bourbon wasn't always a big thing. And so when a, when bourbon wasn't selling there, they weren't it was a it was tough. Yeah. You know, but they all got together.

00:23:22:10 - 00:23:39:19
Jessie Ott
They're all friends, you know, working with Jimmy and, with Fred. No. Meaning Fred. No. And how basically, you know, Jimmy's. Fred's like a father figure. Now that they're that close. Like, it's really. It's a really cool touch association. Yeah, really.

00:23:39:19 - 00:23:47:16
Maggie Kimberl
It's touching. But, you know, there's also, like, a lot of really interesting history that I'm just starting to kind of get into. And.

00:23:47:19 - 00:23:48:19
Jessie Ott
So, you know, I.

00:23:48:21 - 00:24:17:11
Maggie Kimberl
This goes back to, you know, like the 18, the mid 1800s where everybody was like, hey, why don't we all agree to not produce too much so we don't flood the market and then like one person's like, screw you, I'm going to do whatever I want and floods the market and like tanks, everything for everybody. So like, it's kind of the cycle that keeps happening where it's like, you know, somebody comes in and they're like going to take advantage of this popularity and then they end up screwing it up for everybody.

00:24:17:13 - 00:24:26:02
Maggie Kimberl
And, and it's just the cycle that has happened over and over and over again. It's really it's really interesting to dig into that history.

00:24:26:02 - 00:24:27:01
Jessie Ott
Yep.

00:24:27:03 - 00:24:29:03
Jessie Ott
Ego. You just did this. So is.

00:24:29:03 - 00:24:30:18
Jessie Ott
There.

00:24:30:20 - 00:24:45:01
Jessie Ott
I'm going to be better. Yeah. Interesting. So how did you get into bourbon. Like what did your parents or dad did your grandparents or something. It was it always part of your life or really something that you discovered on your own?

00:24:45:01 - 00:25:03:18
Maggie Kimberl
Nope. Just discovered it on my own. So I was a stay at home mom when my kids were little and, I needed a, I needed to get out of the house and go to a place where there were no children. And so I thought, getting a job at the liquor store would be a good way to do that.

00:25:03:20 - 00:25:19:15
Maggie Kimberl
So I walked up to the liquor store in my neighborhood, and I got a job, and I worked three nights a week. My husband would come home from work, and I would walk out the door and I would go work my shift, come home at like 1030 at night, and then do the mom thing during the day and then liquor store at night.

00:25:19:20 - 00:25:43:16
Maggie Kimberl
So, you know, that was, you know, really a good opportunity for me that I didn't I didn't realize quite, what a good opportunity that was at the time. I originally thought that I was going to learn about wine because I had spent, you know, basically a decade, in food service. And I thought, you know, if I'm going to continue that, when it's time to go back to work for real.

00:25:43:18 - 00:25:46:15
Jessie Ott
Quote unquote,

00:25:46:17 - 00:25:54:15
Maggie Kimberl
I should probably have some more marketable skills. So I'm gonna learn about wine quickly discover that wine people were not my people.

00:25:54:17 - 00:25:55:08
Jessie Ott
You know, they're.

00:25:55:10 - 00:25:59:21
Maggie Kimberl
A little low pinkies in the air for me. So.

00:25:59:21 - 00:26:01:04
Jessie Ott
I.

00:26:01:06 - 00:26:22:07
Maggie Kimberl
Was. I've always been really into the farm to table movement. You know, like, I grew up in a family where we had a huge vegetable garden every year. Afterwards, grandson, of course. I moved in with my dad on his farm, and, you know, he had chickens and ducks and, eventually, after I moved out, he had goats and hogs and cattle and all kinds of different stuff.

00:26:22:07 - 00:26:23:04
Jessie Ott
I love that.

00:26:23:04 - 00:26:47:17
Maggie Kimberl
And and so, you know, like, I was always into the farm to table movement. And, you know, I always had a big garden when my kids were little, you know, like, number one, I was poor and I needed the food. But number two, that was a skillset that I had. Right. Yeah. So, I, I started to kind of, I remember like, standing at the cash register one day, kind of staring at the bourbon aisle, and I was like, you know what?

00:26:47:17 - 00:26:51:19
Maggie Kimberl
They make that stuff here. Like, that's made just right down the street.

00:26:51:21 - 00:26:53:03
Jessie Ott
It really doesn't get any more.

00:26:53:03 - 00:27:17:14
Maggie Kimberl
Locavore than that. And I should probably learn about that stuff. So I started to kind of pay more attention to it. And this was, you know, 13, 13 years ago was when I started this. And, back then the bourbon boom was really just kind of percolating. And so master distillers would come in and do tastings and bottle signings.

00:27:17:14 - 00:27:27:07
Maggie Kimberl
Nobody knew who they were. Nobody cared. This was kind of like what prompted the Bourbon boom to take off, because these guys got out there and they just spent so much time.

00:27:27:09 - 00:27:28:01
Jessie Ott
On their sleeves.

00:27:28:07 - 00:27:44:07
Maggie Kimberl
The consumer is like, hey, if I can get you to taste this, then maybe you'll like it. Maybe you'll understand the craftsmanship that goes into this. And so, you know, probably Chris Morris from Woodford Reserve made me my first mint julep. You know, there on.

00:27:44:07 - 00:27:44:15
Jessie Ott
The.

00:27:44:17 - 00:28:03:05
Maggie Kimberl
Liquor store one year. And so I got to meet a whole bunch of, master distillers and, and, you know, learn a little bit. And it wasn't something where I was, like, intentionally, like, I'm going to learn, you know, I'm going to talk to these guys. And it was just kind of like, organic, like, they're here. I'm going to talk to them.

00:28:03:07 - 00:28:16:08
Maggie Kimberl
And so then one week during Derby week, Jim Rutledge was in my store back when he was still with Four roses. And this was about ten years ago. And so, I don't know if you ever heard of the Kentucky Derby. Kind of a big deal.

00:28:16:08 - 00:28:19:08
Jessie Ott
Yep. It's a little bit of everything.

00:28:19:08 - 00:28:34:18
Maggie Kimberl
Is pandemonium during during the entire three weeks leading up to the Kentucky Derby, everything is fine. But even the liquor store and so I was standing at the cash register, and every time I would try to go talk to Jim Rutledge, a whole horde of people would come in and I'd have to go right back to the cash register.

00:28:34:20 - 00:28:49:23
Maggie Kimberl
And it was like that. He was there like three hours, I think, and I was like that the whole time. And then he was packing up to leave and I had to go on break. So I went to the break room, and I was sitting there eating my sad little peanut butter sandwich. And the next thing I knew, Jim came through the door with bottles in one hand, cups on the other hand.

00:28:49:23 - 00:29:08:18
Maggie Kimberl
These, like, you don't get to do my tasting. And he sat down with me. He taught me, like the history of Four roses, the ten different recipes, which recipes were in which bottle, proper bourbon tasting technique. And it was just this light bulb moment. I was like, this is amazing. I have to tell the world about this. And so.

00:29:08:18 - 00:29:09:06
Jessie Ott
I yeah.

00:29:09:06 - 00:29:12:09
Maggie Kimberl
Job and started writing about whiskey.

00:29:12:11 - 00:29:15:14
Jessie Ott
That is really cool. So you already had the degrees in.

00:29:15:16 - 00:29:17:05
Maggie Kimberl
English and philosophy?

00:29:17:07 - 00:29:22:14
Jessie Ott
Yeah, English and philosophy. So you're always you're kind of already going towards that direction.

00:29:22:14 - 00:29:43:16
Maggie Kimberl
Well so like and so this was so ten years ago, I had already been out of college for a while and I had done some different things. When I was in college, I wanted to be a writer, and I worked on the newspaper staff intermittently. And just, like, couldn't make it work. I, I'm a first generation college graduate on my dad's side of the family.

00:29:43:18 - 00:30:00:04
Maggie Kimberl
And so, you know, like, I had to work full time and go to school full time. So I didn't really have a whole lot of, spare time for for stuff like that. But I still wanted to be a writer. And then I had, you know, at least one professor. And I think it was actually 2 or 3 who were like, don't be a writer.

00:30:00:05 - 00:30:03:08
Maggie Kimberl
You'll never make any money. And they were right.

00:30:03:10 - 00:30:04:06
Jessie Ott


00:30:04:08 - 00:30:25:04
Maggie Kimberl
And so, like, I tried literally everything else and, you know, just didn't connect with anything, you know, like, I can do anything. I, I nothing is beneath me. I've done it. I've done it all. But, you know, it just wasn't it wasn't connecting. I just kind of felt like I was spinning my wheels always. And, you know, I just wanted more than anything to be a travel writer.

00:30:25:08 - 00:30:26:05
Maggie Kimberl


00:30:26:07 - 00:30:27:11
Jessie Ott
Yes.

00:30:27:13 - 00:30:43:17
Maggie Kimberl
And, you know, because I just I love getting out there, meeting people, having new experiences and all that kind of stuff. And so, like, ultimately, like what I tell people is like, it's a compulsion. Like, it's like it's a character flaw that I'm a writer. Because it's.

00:30:43:18 - 00:30:44:20
Jessie Ott
It's quite.

00:30:44:22 - 00:30:48:09
Maggie Kimberl
Something I would choose something that paid a living wage.

00:30:48:11 - 00:30:49:13
Jessie Ott
But, like, I can't.

00:30:49:13 - 00:31:10:14
Maggie Kimberl
Not be a writer, so I may as well make a little bit of money at it. Right? Yeah, absolutely. So, that's that's kind of how that came about. But it was, it was kind of, interesting. You know, I think it was probably about 2 or 3 years ago as kind of like sitting there reflecting about my life and the journey that I was on and everything.

00:31:10:16 - 00:31:24:21
Maggie Kimberl
And I kind of had this realization, that I accidentally became a travel writer just for whiskey. And so that was kind of a fun realization to have. Yeah. It is, you know, I was like, oh, hey, I have this dream that I did like I had.

00:31:24:21 - 00:31:26:07
Jessie Ott
No.

00:31:26:08 - 00:31:40:23
Maggie Kimberl
Inkling whatsoever of how people became writers, and I didn't have anybody that I could talk to. You know, I didn't see anybody who was on this path who I could, you know, emulate. I just literally had to go figure it out.

00:31:40:23 - 00:31:41:08
Jessie Ott
On my own.

00:31:41:09 - 00:31:44:12
Jessie Ott
Figure it out. Yeah. So how did you do it?

00:31:44:14 - 00:31:45:16
Jessie Ott
Well, it was well, I mean.

00:31:45:16 - 00:32:10:04
Maggie Kimberl
I just so I had been writing for a local mom blog here called Louisville Family Fun. I'm still writing for them. And so like that, that was like kind of my, you know, write about things that I do with my kids. And I done a little bit of travel writing for them as well. But I had there was another mom there who was also a writer, and she was writing for louisville.com.

00:32:10:04 - 00:32:38:11
Maggie Kimberl
She's a librarian. And so she was writing about, you know, library things. And I said, hey, I see locums hiring, and I see that you're, writing for them. Like, who do I need to talk to here? And so I it was, really kind of serendipitous that I got in at the time that I did with the editor that I did and everything, because they were really trying to, increase their digital footprint.

00:32:38:13 - 00:32:56:05
Maggie Kimberl
And the deal was write about whatever you want under this beat. We're not going to be really, very much, but, I was making, like, I think three I was making $4 to $8 per article back then, I think.

00:32:56:07 - 00:32:57:00
Jessie Ott
Oh my God.

00:32:57:00 - 00:33:13:02
Maggie Kimberl
And they were just like, do whatever you want as long as it falls under this beat. So I was like, I was like, okay, one of these is food and dining and I'm just going to write about bourbon. So like, I didn't tell them that I was just going to write about bourbon, but I was like food and dining.

00:33:13:08 - 00:33:32:01
Maggie Kimberl
Surely bourbon falls under this. And so I just kind of started writing about bourbon all the time and they're like, oh, hey, you're really good at that. Keep doing it. So I ended up doing that for like two years. And, it was it didn't pay very much. I had to have I had a whole other job on top of that to support my writing habit.

00:33:32:03 - 00:33:32:12
Jessie Ott
Right.

00:33:32:12 - 00:33:38:09
Jessie Ott
So were you out meeting all the master distillers and going and visiting all the distilleries and getting connected?

00:33:38:09 - 00:34:01:07
Maggie Kimberl
Absolutely. Like basically anything anybody invited me to, I went, you know, basically, like any opportunity I had, I, I took it, I was looking for opportunity, you know, I was out there and people, you know, came to know my work and came to trust my work. And so that made it a lot easier. And then I started writing for the whiskey wash, and then I started writing for the alcohol professor.

00:34:01:09 - 00:34:14:11
Maggie Kimberl
I'm still writing for the alcohol professor. And then, my colleague Fred Minnick, said, hey, do you want to come right with me at, whiskey Magazine? I said, absolutely, yeah.

00:34:14:13 - 00:34:15:06
Jessie Ott
And so.

00:34:15:06 - 00:34:42:17
Maggie Kimberl
I've, I've been with whiskey Magazine for about 6 or 7 years now. And, about 4 or 5 years ago, we launched American Whiskey magazine, and I've, I've been with them from the beginning. So I'm, currently the content editor for American Whiskey magazine. I contribute to whiskey magazine. I contribute to relish and Whiskey Magazine, which is behind me on the wall here.

00:34:42:19 - 00:35:08:01
Maggie Kimberl
I, I just had my first opportunity to, contribute to imbibe, which is right over here as well. And, you know, it's it's been, a lot of fun. And then also along the way, I met, so Fred Minnick is really somebody who has helped and mentored me a lot, in my career. And the other person, who has helped and mentored me a lot has been, Michael Veach, the Bourbon historian.

00:35:08:03 - 00:35:27:06
Maggie Kimberl
So I met him back during my Volcom days as well. I would I would go to both Fred Maddox and Michael Beach's events and cover them for a little Volcom, and got to know them a little bit. And, so eventually, with Michael, I kept saying like, hey, do you have a website? And you'd be like, oh, it's it's on the list of things to do.

00:35:27:07 - 00:35:28:20
Jessie Ott
And after like.

00:35:28:22 - 00:35:37:07
Maggie Kimberl
Months of, like, is it moving up on the list or like, what's going on here? I was like, can I just build you a website? It'll take me like two hours.

00:35:37:09 - 00:35:38:13
Jessie Ott
So I went over, went over.

00:35:38:13 - 00:35:48:18
Maggie Kimberl
To his house and I had my laptop, and I was like, doo doo doo doo doo. Here's your website. And I was like, can you just run it for me? And I was like, okay, so, I built and I run his website. I'm still running it today.

00:35:48:20 - 00:35:49:12
Jessie Ott
Oh that's cool.

00:35:49:12 - 00:35:53:22
Maggie Kimberl
He's been a really great friend and mentor over the years.

00:35:54:00 - 00:36:14:20
Jessie Ott
That's really cool. That's awesome. It's always nice to have those people that see, see, you know, the passion and the and the love that you have for something. And you share that. And you want to help people within the industry. And I think there's a lot of that. Throughout our industry, I was I was talking to Nico Martini, which I, you know.

00:36:15:01 - 00:36:25:02
Jessie Ott
Right. Nico. Yeah. In fact, I think that's how he connected on LinkedIn. Your name popped up and I was like, yes, I would love to interview her. It was so cool.

00:36:25:04 - 00:36:27:02
Jessie Ott
Yes, he is. He tells people on.

00:36:27:02 - 00:36:31:16
Maggie Kimberl
His boss, which like, I'm not his boss at all, but I'm just like, yes, yes, I'm totally Nico's boss.

00:36:31:19 - 00:36:36:05
Jessie Ott
Yes. Hold on, your boss, because you're you, right? For me? Yeah, exactly.

00:36:36:06 - 00:36:39:02
Maggie Kimberl
You're working for me, buddy?

00:36:39:04 - 00:36:52:05
Jessie Ott
Yeah. He's funny. My friends have known him for a long time, and he. We didn't even get through half of his stuff, but, Yeah, he was a very interesting person. I can't wait to meet him in person. Is. I know a lot of people.

00:36:52:07 - 00:36:53:12
Maggie Kimberl
He's a really fun guy.

00:36:53:16 - 00:36:59:09
Jessie Ott
Yeah, I look forward to it. So do you have any other mentors that you want to mention?

00:36:59:11 - 00:37:36:02
Maggie Kimberl
You know, really like there have been so many people who have helped me, along this path. You know, a lot of times. So being a woman in any industry has some pretty unique challenges. And one of the things that I think, really leaves an impression on me is, when people go out of their way to, you know, kind of support, support women who are clearly not being supported or just to say like, hey, I think this person's work is really great.

00:37:36:04 - 00:37:47:08
Maggie Kimberl
And there have been a number of those people, throughout the years who have either, you know, given me good advice or said kind words about me, when I wasn't there, that have made a difference in my life.

00:37:47:10 - 00:37:48:01
Jessie Ott
You know.

00:37:48:03 - 00:38:07:15
Maggie Kimberl
Lou Bryson, Chuck Cowdery, you know, there are just so many people, who have really, What when somebody, Kyle Schwartz is another one. He is, probably one of my biggest cheerleaders right now.

00:38:07:17 - 00:38:08:07
Jessie Ott
Yeah, it's it's.

00:38:08:10 - 00:38:25:23
Maggie Kimberl
It's really great to have, you know, because, like, sometimes I'll just kind of be down and, you know, like, working as hard as I do and making as little money as I do, it gets very discouraging sometimes, even though, like, I'm doing something that's really fun and all this kind of stuff, I'm like, this is important work, a lot of money, and it's very discouraging.

00:38:26:01 - 00:38:45:08
Maggie Kimberl
But then every once in a while, I'll have, you know, a colleague who will publicly recognize me for something. And Kyle Schwartz is one of those people who just continues to do that, like, oh, hey, by the way, you know, I have a lot of respect for Maggie's, you know, journalistic standards and ethos and all that kind of stuff.

00:38:45:10 - 00:39:03:18
Maggie Kimberl
You know, and, and, Lou Bryson actually, mentioned me, in his, his most recent book, Albert Schmid, you know, has been just absolutely fantastic. He mentioned, mentioned me and his latest book as well, but he also made me he went a step further and made me a Kentucky kernel, for the work.

00:39:03:21 - 00:39:04:11
Jessie Ott
Okay.

00:39:04:12 - 00:39:05:02
Maggie Kimberl
Industry.

00:39:05:02 - 00:39:06:08
Jessie Ott
So what does that.

00:39:06:08 - 00:39:07:02
Jessie Ott
What does that mean?

00:39:07:02 - 00:39:08:07
Jessie Ott
So, I heard the.

00:39:08:07 - 00:39:35:19
Maggie Kimberl
Kentucky kernel program is, you're like a special attache to the governor, and you become a turkey colonel by doing something to material materially benefit, the lives of Kentuckians. And so, like, there's a charitable aspect of it, but then there's also, you know, like, what are you doing to materially benefit, Kentucky. And so, you know, for me, like, I travel all over the world and spread the gospel of bourbon.

00:39:35:21 - 00:39:37:07
Jessie Ott
That's right. Know, that's.

00:39:37:08 - 00:40:00:09
Maggie Kimberl
Like we're we're in this really special time. You know, when I was growing up, you know, tobacco was really kind of, the the king. And it was kind of going away and like, coal was also, you know, just has since the 30s has had just so many challenges as far as being able to, sustain a positive public image and things like that.

00:40:00:11 - 00:40:29:07
Maggie Kimberl
And so, like when I was growing up, you know, I was watching our, our main, economic drivers kind of shrivel and die, which, by the time I graduated from high school and, and eventually college, all of my friends left, because there were not careers here. And so, you know, one of the things that makes this so important and so personal to me is because I'm watching these careers come back to Kentucky, okay?

00:40:29:10 - 00:40:59:17
Maggie Kimberl
Because of the bourbon industry. Urban. Yeah. And so, like, one of the reasons that I work so hard, despite, you know, the dozens of dollars I make as a writer, is because I want this to be a place that my children can stay if they choose to. I want those jobs to stay here. And right now, the distilling industry, the Kentucky Distillers Association puts out an economic impact report in conjunction with University of Kentucky every other year.

00:40:59:19 - 00:41:25:12
Maggie Kimberl
I think we're two for one this year. But the economic impact of the Kentucky bourbon industry is staggering. There's never been an industry like this before. I mean, we do a lot of auto manufacturing and things. A lot of, manufacturing in general. But really right now, the the biggest thing that we have going for us is the distilled spirits industry.

00:41:25:14 - 00:41:45:01
Jessie Ott
Yeah. That's great. It doesn't surprise me. I mean, it's worldwide in a major way now. And, every day. Yep. And just to kind of go back to when I brought up Nico for the same reasons you just explained on how friendly and helpful people can be to each other in the industry. And that's really important. And it makes it what it is.

00:41:45:01 - 00:41:47:10
Jessie Ott
Right. So that's why we love it. That's one of.

00:41:47:10 - 00:42:09:04
Maggie Kimberl
The things that I love so much about this. You know, like, I, I, I tend to be somebody who has a lot of social anxiety. But what has made it tolerable over the years is no matter where I go, I know people, you know, I can I can travel, I travel alone a lot. I spend a lot of time on the road.

00:42:09:06 - 00:42:29:07
Maggie Kimberl
I can go places. And I always know. I can always find somebody to have dinner with. Or you know, find somebody to have a drink with when I. When I first get there, you know, like, I, I, I go to all these festivals and I know, like, half the people there, that makes it that makes it really nice to know really nice, kind, wonderful people.

00:42:29:09 - 00:42:52:07
Maggie Kimberl
When I went to the New Orleans Bourbon Festival this year, the first night I was there, I saw Marty Duffy, who is a master of Scotch, and is the current, North American brand ambassador for Glencairn. Crystal. And so I went and sat with him and talked with him. He's like, hey, I'm going to dinner with my niece and her husband.

00:42:52:07 - 00:42:55:15
Maggie Kimberl
You want to join us? And I was like, absolutely. And so, yeah.

00:42:55:18 - 00:42:56:11
Jessie Ott
It's it's always.

00:42:56:11 - 00:43:10:03
Maggie Kimberl
Just really nice. And so I get to meet, you know, not only do I get to hang out with with these people all over the, the world, but also I get to, you know, meet their families and we know each other, you know, we know each other's kids, we know each other's families and all that kind of stuff.

00:43:10:03 - 00:43:23:22
Maggie Kimberl
So, it is a really close knit, kind community. And it's, it's I can't imagine this happening at, like, Coca-Cola, you know? Right. Cola and Pepsi are not like, hey.

00:43:24:00 - 00:43:28:14
Jessie Ott
How's little Johnnie doing? You know, it just doesn't happen that way.

00:43:28:14 - 00:43:33:08
Maggie Kimberl
And I think that's one of the things that's that's so unique about this industry, because.

00:43:33:08 - 00:43:34:14
Jessie Ott
Everybody, like, we.

00:43:34:14 - 00:43:48:14
Maggie Kimberl
Have this history that has repeated itself over, like we know what's coming next if we don't work together. And so I think that that's a really, unique thing about the industry.

00:43:48:16 - 00:44:11:02
Jessie Ott
Yeah, I, I agree, I see it in bourbon for sure. The other place that I, that I saw firsthand because I worked for them is, was Saint-Michel. Ted Basler. He was always about promoting Washington wines because if, if if there's a Washington wine on a menu, then we all win because we're all trying to help promote, you know, Washington wines.

00:44:11:02 - 00:44:26:22
Jessie Ott
And so it's kind of the same camaraderie of of people getting together and helping each other out. And I know that there's a lot of, you know, the same types of relationships out there that they are in Kentucky. Absolutely. And that just makes it it just makes it warm and fuzzy and makes you smile. Yeah. You just.

00:44:26:22 - 00:44:28:17
Jessie Ott
And then it just makes you love it even more at.

00:44:28:17 - 00:44:30:07
Jessie Ott
The end of the day. And, and if you're working.

00:44:30:07 - 00:44:35:20
Maggie Kimberl
In the beverage alcohol space and you're not having a good time, like you're probably not in the right and in the right, you're.

00:44:35:20 - 00:44:39:17
Jessie Ott
Not in the right industry. Yeah, we work hard, but we play hard times. We have.

00:44:39:17 - 00:44:41:14
Maggie Kimberl
Fun. Absolutely.

00:44:41:16 - 00:45:08:13
Jessie Ott
So has, I think about this, story Fred uses to, talk about with his dad. Booker. You know, he loved his dad, and his dad was amazing. And, you know, Fred says that he was kind of the beginning of the, specialty Bourbons, you know, not making it at mass, but making it, you know, the real, you know, like, not new, but like, different styles of bourbon.

00:45:08:15 - 00:45:09:23
Jessie Ott
So, like, everybody.

00:45:09:23 - 00:45:35:08
Maggie Kimberl
Kind of in the industry had had their own niche. Right. So single barrel Bourbons. That was definitely more Elmer Tilley, over at Buffalo Trace. So you had, Blanton's, which was arguably, so there's kind of like this, this little caveat I like to have here. So Blanton's was really the first, like, commercially produced single barrel bourbon.

00:45:35:10 - 00:45:59:17
Maggie Kimberl
However, in in the beginning of bourbon, all Bourbons were single barrels because they did not bottle it, they just sold it by the barrel. And you would go down to the tavern and fill up your jug or whatever. And so, like as far as, like commercially available consumer packaged single barrel, whiskeys, that would be Blanton's at Buffalo Trace.

00:45:59:18 - 00:46:13:05
Maggie Kimberl
The small batch, definitely was Booker and that but but when you look at a small batch in Jim Beam scale versus a small batch in some of the craft distilleries now.

00:46:13:05 - 00:46:15:17
Jessie Ott
That did not exist when Booker was around, right.

00:46:15:20 - 00:46:40:01
Maggie Kimberl
They're still very different animals. So, you know, Booker's small batches are, you know, you know, a few hundred barrels maybe, whereas, you know, a small batch at a craft distillery might be five or 10 or 20 or something like that. So, so that it has changed dramatically over the last 10 to 15 years.

00:46:40:03 - 00:46:44:00
Jessie Ott
Yeah. And this is I'm talking early 90s is what he was saying.

00:46:44:00 - 00:46:46:05
Jessie Ott
And so he would travel early 90s. Yes.

00:46:46:05 - 00:47:03:18
Maggie Kimberl
He, he was really. Yeah. And and Booker interestingly Booker never wanted to do single barrels because he felt that you really had to have the ability to blend multiple barrels together. We call it batching in Kentucky because blending has traditionally been a dirty word.

00:47:03:20 - 00:47:05:15
Jessie Ott
But like you.

00:47:05:17 - 00:47:25:01
Maggie Kimberl
You would have to, you know, but Booker always felt that you would have to batch together multiple barrels just to get, like, kind of consistency and, and, a better quality product. But now, you know, today, Jim Beam absolutely makes single barrel products. So, you know, it's it's it's changed so much since we lost Booker.

00:47:25:03 - 00:47:38:12
Jessie Ott
Yeah. I wish I, could have met him, because he just speaks so highly of him, and he says his son is, is like his dad, so that's really exciting. I'd love to meet him and talk to him.

00:47:38:12 - 00:47:39:10
Jessie Ott
They call him, but it's.

00:47:39:11 - 00:48:07:03
Maggie Kimberl
He's actually such a fun guy and one of the most exciting projects that has come out. And I don't think I have a bottle of it here. I'd show you, Jim Beam just came out with their first American single malt, and that was all ready. You know, so I think it's really interesting, the direction that he's taking, you know, he's he's a very creative person, and he's such a nice, like, his dad I love, but, like, I just kind of freeze up around Fred.

00:48:07:03 - 00:48:08:03
Maggie Kimberl
No.

00:48:08:05 - 00:48:11:09
Jessie Ott
You do. He is such a like. He's funny. He is.

00:48:11:09 - 00:48:17:04
Maggie Kimberl
He's Fred. No. Is hilarious. Love him. We'll take every opportunity that I.

00:48:17:04 - 00:48:17:19
Jessie Ott
Can.

00:48:17:21 - 00:48:27:03
Maggie Kimberl
To, you know, be in his presence. But then, like, if I'm if I'm five feet from him, I'm just a statue.

00:48:27:05 - 00:48:28:19
Jessie Ott
Yeah, but Freddie is.

00:48:29:00 - 00:48:40:07
Maggie Kimberl
Such an amazing, like, warm, kind, humble person. And, you know, he's he's very creative. I really like the direction that he's going, with all.

00:48:40:08 - 00:48:41:09
Jessie Ott
Yeah, it's pretty exciting.

00:48:41:09 - 00:48:42:17
Maggie Kimberl
He's doing.

00:48:42:19 - 00:48:48:18
Jessie Ott
He would be perfect for the podcast because I know he's doing a lot of cool innovation. Maybe I can get him on some time.

00:48:48:18 - 00:48:49:23
Maggie Kimberl
Definitely.

00:48:50:01 - 00:48:57:16
Jessie Ott
In in medium. I've heard him on other podcast before, so hopefully, hopefully he'll be open to.

00:48:57:16 - 00:49:15:21
Maggie Kimberl
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, well, so, I know that he's been on. I can't remember the name, but Bourbon Lens I think is Jake Llewellyn's podcast. And I think that that Jake and Freddie used to play football together, and that's.

00:49:15:23 - 00:49:18:03
Jessie Ott
The connection that makes sense. Yeah.

00:49:18:09 - 00:49:23:05
Maggie Kimberl
But yeah, he, he definitely, is available for that stuff from time to time.

00:49:23:07 - 00:49:25:21
Jessie Ott
Cool. Maybe I'll get the snatch him one of these days.

00:49:25:23 - 00:49:26:07
Jessie Ott
You should.

00:49:26:07 - 00:49:28:18
Maggie Kimberl
You should reach out and see what you can find.

00:49:28:20 - 00:49:32:03
Jessie Ott
Yeah, I tried Instagram, but I don't know, you know how often they.

00:49:32:03 - 00:49:33:09
Jessie Ott
You have to go to the.

00:49:33:09 - 00:49:34:21
Maggie Kimberl
PR people?

00:49:34:23 - 00:49:36:05
Jessie Ott
The most of those. Okay.

00:49:36:06 - 00:49:51:21
Maggie Kimberl
Most of those guys, you know, it used to be back in Booker's day and back in, in Fred's day, you could approach them directly and you know, there were a lot of master distillers I could just call up and be like, hey, I have a question about X, y, Z. And I'd be like, yeah, sure, it's this.

00:49:51:21 - 00:49:59:05
Maggie Kimberl
And and that would be it. But now it's like everything is so, structured that.

00:49:59:08 - 00:50:00:06
Jessie Ott
They won't even talk to me.

00:50:00:07 - 00:50:02:04
Maggie Kimberl
You know, for their peer.

00:50:02:05 - 00:50:27:02
Jessie Ott
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I get that, yeah. They're busy people. So what? I was, going to ask you in thinking about Fred and how he said, Booker, travel the world, you know, is early is in, you know, early 90s, mid 90s as a, as, you know, the bourbon girl. Does any of the master distillers ever contact you and say, hey, we're going on a trip.

00:50:27:02 - 00:50:29:03
Jessie Ott
Let's, let's take you around.

00:50:29:03 - 00:50:30:02
Maggie Kimberl
And gosh, I.

00:50:30:02 - 00:50:33:13
Jessie Ott
Wish they would know that.

00:50:33:15 - 00:50:35:18
Jessie Ott
Now you got to work, that girl. You got to get that angle.

00:50:35:18 - 00:50:39:04
Maggie Kimberl
I mean, I, I can't well so like.

00:50:39:04 - 00:50:40:03
Jessie Ott
I.

00:50:40:05 - 00:51:02:22
Maggie Kimberl
Definitely have been invited to distilleries and but you know, that's, that's really my main focus is I write about it. I write mostly about consumer experiences. And so, you know, I'll write about whiskey festivals, I'll write about, you know, go going and visiting distilleries. I'll write about, you know, I do a lot of book reviews and things like that.

00:51:02:23 - 00:51:30:03
Maggie Kimberl
You know, I'm not really covering the industry. And so, like, I would have to, really think about how I would angle that so that that would be something where I would be of value to them. And really, you know, I definitely get invited to like, things that don't have anything to do with distilleries. And I pretty much just say, I don't know what to do with this, so I'm going to decline.

00:51:30:05 - 00:51:43:21
Maggie Kimberl
I got invited to a Denver Broncos game one time because a distillery out there was, sponsoring them, and I was like, number one, a football game is totally wasted on me.

00:51:43:23 - 00:51:45:07
Jessie Ott
There are so many people who would get.

00:51:45:07 - 00:51:47:08
Maggie Kimberl
So much more enjoyment out of that.

00:51:47:10 - 00:51:49:08
Jessie Ott
And number two, like.

00:51:49:10 - 00:52:09:18
Maggie Kimberl
This is not something that a consumer can buy a ticket to. So I don't know, like what I would be writing about really, other than like, hey, be jealous of me because I got to go to a football game. So, you know, like, I, I, I'm, I'm very selective about the stories that I do because I feel like it has to I have to be able to make the case that it makes an impact to a consumer.

00:52:09:19 - 00:52:15:19
Jessie Ott
Yeah, well, I just would imagine there's quite a few consumer facing events that they do. And then some of the.

00:52:15:20 - 00:52:16:16
Maggie Kimberl
Event will.

00:52:16:18 - 00:52:18:12
Jessie Ott
Tastings and yeah, I mean.

00:52:18:12 - 00:52:37:02
Maggie Kimberl
Like I, I do go to a lot of whiskey festivals and I'll teach classes and I'll host panels and things like that. I, I'm not, it's the kind of thing where if somebody is like, oh, hey, tag along with us, I'll be like, yeah, I mean, if I can really make any money doing this, I don't really see a point in doing it.

00:52:37:04 - 00:52:43:13
Maggie Kimberl
Because, like, it is a lot of fun, but this is not my hobby, you know, like, this is my my profession, right?

00:52:43:18 - 00:52:45:19
Jessie Ott
Yeah. No, I get that. That's cool.

00:52:45:21 - 00:52:46:18
Jessie Ott
What do you.

00:52:46:18 - 00:52:51:04
Jessie Ott
Think are the main pain points for the bourbon industry, or do you see any from your point of.

00:52:51:04 - 00:53:14:07
Maggie Kimberl
View? There are a lot of them right now. I mean, so one of the biggest ones, so two of the biggest pain points right now are barrels and glass. And so shortages, the war in Ukraine actually had a major impact on the availability of glass bottles in the United States. One of the biggest glass bottle producers, is in Ukraine.

00:53:14:09 - 00:53:40:00
Maggie Kimberl
And then the other thing is, the issues surrounding, Oak. So, you know, this is something that distillers are actively working together to address this, and you have, for the last, you know, ten plus years, you've had people doing, things where, like, if you buy a bottle of Angel's Envy in April will plant an oak tree.

00:53:40:02 - 00:54:08:03
Maggie Kimberl
So Angel's Envy has been doing that for ten years. Then you have, like, the Forest Foundation, which is partnered with, the U.S. Department of Forestry, I think, and also like different distillers associations, to better manage, and be better stewards of the oak that's available now, there is a new challenge. I don't know if you've heard anything about the emerald ash borer.

00:54:08:05 - 00:54:09:00
Jessie Ott
No.

00:54:09:01 - 00:54:25:18
Maggie Kimberl
So, the emerald ash borer became a problem about 15, 20 years ago, where it was killing ash trees. And at this point, ash trees in the United States are effectively, extinct, I believe.

00:54:25:20 - 00:54:32:01
Jessie Ott
And we had that problem in Iowa. In Wisconsin, too. Yeah. There's just trees that are just gone. Yeah, just wiped out.

00:54:32:04 - 00:54:33:07
Jessie Ott
And so the.

00:54:33:09 - 00:55:03:13
Maggie Kimberl
Main issue there is now the emerald ash borer, has eaten through all of its food and is running out of things to eat because they've effectively wiped their favorite food off of the planet. And now they're starting to go after the oak, which is, terrifying. So, you know, really, there are a lot of people doing a lot of work, toward better management and stewardship of forests and biodiversity and things like that.

00:55:03:15 - 00:55:19:06
Maggie Kimberl
But right now, like, there's it's very difficult, to get barrels and it's going to become more difficult as, you know, the, the oak availability, becomes more of a challenge.

00:55:19:08 - 00:55:26:00
Jessie Ott
Yeah. I mean, I don't know how you would substitute something like that or, you know, synthesize or.

00:55:26:02 - 00:55:49:06
Maggie Kimberl
Well and, and really, it's there are a lot of people who are talking about, rolling back, one of the standards of identity that it has to be a new barrel, because currently a lot of the distilleries will, sell their bear after they dump the bourbon out. They'll either use it for a different type of whiskey, or they'll sell them on the, on the open market.

00:55:49:10 - 00:56:04:01
Maggie Kimberl
So, like, a lot of Scotch is aged in, ex-bourbon barrels, a lot of Canadian whiskey is aged and export barrels, tequila, maple sirup, like all these different things. Make use Tabasco sauce is actually made.

00:56:04:06 - 00:56:05:10
Jessie Ott
Really.

00:56:05:12 - 00:56:08:09
Maggie Kimberl
Used for everything. Things, which is really interesting.

00:56:08:15 - 00:56:09:22
Jessie Ott
So,

00:56:10:00 - 00:56:34:15
Maggie Kimberl
There is definitely a market for used barrels, but there are a lot of people saying, you know, maybe we don't actually have to have a new barrel every time. Maybe we can, you know, work out a compromise where it can be a portion of used barrels because, a lot of people don't realize that's the the standard of it being only a new barrel came from the WPA.

00:56:34:19 - 00:56:57:07
Maggie Kimberl
Are you familiar with the WPA? No. So this was the program that put people to work during the Great Depression and after the Great Depression, sponsored by the federal government, where they were looking for different, you know, industries. So when you go to a lot of the national parks, a lot of the buildings there were built during the WPA years, a lot of the trails were built during the WPA years.

00:56:57:13 - 00:57:19:15
Maggie Kimberl
And so, this was an attempt to put more people to work. And so they made this one of the standards of identity, was that you had to use a brand new barrel because that would keep Coopers in jobs. And so, like, historically, most bourbon, you know, before the industrial period would have been just sold in the barrel.

00:57:19:15 - 00:57:46:16
Maggie Kimberl
And you didn't expect to get that back. That was kind of one of the justifications of it. But when you're talking about that brief period of really the industrialization in the 1880s, 1890s up until prohibition and, you know, even a little bit after, I think, when producers would dump a barrel, they could absolutely reuse it. And a lot of times they did, because barrels are very expensive.

00:57:46:18 - 00:58:10:22
Maggie Kimberl
So there, there is historical precedent for having, re-use barrels in bourbon. It's not super common. It wasn't super common even when it was allowable, but it's still happened. So, you know, that's that's one of the things that people are starting to kind of murmur about is what if we undo this until we can get this oak thing under control?

00:58:10:23 - 00:58:13:02
Jessie Ott
Yeah, I think they're going to have to.

00:58:13:04 - 00:58:34:11
Maggie Kimberl
It's hard to say. I mean, right now, I think that with all the steps that they're taking, they're telling me that, you know, I think things are going to should be fine for, you know, the next 20, 30 years. And that's really why they're putting so much emphasis on addressing it now, because you can't just plant an oak tree and harvest it tomorrow.

00:58:34:15 - 00:58:38:05
Jessie Ott
No. So it's not about.

00:58:38:05 - 00:58:40:19
Maggie Kimberl
Just a big challenge.

00:58:40:21 - 00:58:49:02
Jessie Ott
Do you see any, any trends or anything new coming out of Kentucky or in the, in the bourbon industry?

00:58:49:06 - 00:59:15:04
Maggie Kimberl
There are lots of trends. I mean, there's there are always, new things popping up. You know, when I first started doing this, it was, you know, everything was basically, you know, the same standard recipe bottle the same way, you know, and, you know, if everybody has their own, you know, footprint. Because obviously, if you do the same process in different places, it's going to be a little bit different.

00:59:15:06 - 01:00:03:10
Maggie Kimberl
But, you know, then, Angel's envy. Lincoln Henderson was the father of the Woodford Reserve brand. He's the one who really kind of brought that whole site back to life, along with Stephen Thompson. And, Dave, sharp. And, so Steve and and, Lincoln are unfortunately no longer with us, but one of the things that Lincoln did after he retired from what reserve was started, Angel's envy with his grandson or his son and his grandsons and, one of the things that really set him apart was, he started age or finishing bourbon in wine barrels and that was unheard of at the time.

01:00:03:12 - 01:00:28:08
Maggie Kimberl
And there were a lot of people who, felt that that no longer met the definition of bourbon because it had something added to it. And there's still people who will debate on that, that topic. But, you know, really we're seeing so many barrel finishes now and different combinations of barrel finishes. And one of the really interesting things I wonder, I don't see any of it up here right now.

01:00:28:10 - 01:00:48:06
Maggie Kimberl
There are so barrel, craft spirits, which is barrel with two tools. They've been doing a lot of different combinations, like, well, there they'll take this portion of barrels and finish it in this type of thing, this portion, and then they'll kind of batch it all together and they put so much detail on those labels, which I love to see.

01:00:48:08 - 01:01:08:04
Maggie Kimberl
I feel like the more information you give consumers, the better. And they'll say, you know, it was this that was distilled here that was aged this long, that was finished in this and this, that was distilled here, that was aged as long and finished in this. And they'll have all of that stuff on that label. And it makes a very complex and complicated product.

01:01:08:06 - 01:01:43:09
Maggie Kimberl
But they have a cult following. Another one of them is Broken Barrel, which is based and, their production is in Kentucky, but they're headquartered in, California. And so basically what they do is they do like a stave finish, recipe where they like, cut staves, into different proportions and put them in the barrel. And that's kind of a play on the research that maker's Mark had been doing, where they came up with their, all their different private select and their wood finishing series and all that kind of stuff.

01:01:43:11 - 01:01:58:17
Maggie Kimberl
So that's, I mean, finishes and and staves and all that kind of stuff is, you know, all really big right now. One of the things that I'm following the, the most closely is, the experimentation with pedigreed grains and heirloom grains. Oh.

01:01:58:17 - 01:01:59:04
Jessie Ott
What's that?

01:01:59:10 - 01:02:26:23
Maggie Kimberl
So basically, all Kentucky bourbon is made with the at number two corn. It's just whatever. The farmers all grow whatever's available commercially on the market, and, you know, you can buy it from here. You can buy it from there. You can buy it from anywhere. And so, a lot of the smaller producers in particular are saying, well, but you know what, like 150 years ago, this yellow at number two wasn't really a thing.

01:02:27:01 - 01:02:48:17
Maggie Kimberl
It certainly wasn't as widespread as it is. And, you know, all these different farmers had different varietals that were, optimized for their microclimates and things for things like that. And they had completely different flavor profiles. So, we see a place like just the Creed, which has built their brand on bloody butcher corn, which is a red heirloom variety of corn.

01:02:48:19 - 01:03:09:17
Maggie Kimberl
And then, you know, we look at, grains. And so now there are whiskey's on the market made with black corn, blue corn, white corn, orange corn, you know, all the different colors of corn you can think of. There's a lot of that going on in Texas. Obviously, there's a Mexican, whiskey brand that's, made with black corn.

01:03:09:19 - 01:03:16:19
Maggie Kimberl
That's it's really interesting to watch that. And then on top of that, I'm sorry.

01:03:16:20 - 01:03:17:18
Jessie Ott
Yeah, that's really cool.

01:03:17:21 - 01:03:20:01
Maggie Kimberl
I, I, I really geek out about this.

01:03:20:01 - 01:03:21:08
Jessie Ott
Stuff on and then.

01:03:21:12 - 01:03:43:09
Maggie Kimberl
You know, on top of that, we're looking at we're seeing more people experimenting with different small grains. Small grains are more expensive. They're harder to come by. That's your wheat, your barley, your your rye. Triticale people are doing all kinds of different, there's, there's a whiskey that recently got produced, from a perennial wheat grass.

01:03:43:09 - 01:04:11:19
Maggie Kimberl
So, you know, it's it's really interesting, all these different things that are becoming available at a wide enough scale to actually produce whiskey with it. So one of the coolest stories that I did last year, there's a distillery up in Michigan called Mammoth Distilling. And, basically what happened was their whiskey maker, Ari Sussman, discovered that rose and rye actually originated in the United States, in Michigan, at Michigan State University.

01:04:11:21 - 01:04:36:00
Maggie Kimberl
And he traced the the heritage of that. And then, you know, tried to get some on the open market. And it really was not available. Simultaneously, over in Pennsylvania, Laura Fields and the Delaware Valley Fields Foundation had been, bringing that back for Dick Stoll before he passed away at Stolen Wolf Distillery because back then he was the master distiller at Victor's in Pennsylvania.

01:04:36:02 - 01:04:56:05
Maggie Kimberl
That was the type of rye grain that he used. And so, he fortunately lived long enough, to see that first run of, rose and rye whiskey come off the stills there at Stolen Wolf. But, you know, even though it was really popular in Pennsylvania and it grew in 30 states, it originated in Michigan.

01:04:56:07 - 01:05:17:21
Maggie Kimberl
And so the folks at mama's got a little, little seed packet from the USDA seed bank and took that to an uninhabited island, South Manitou Island, at Bears Ears National Park, and cultivated that on one of the original farms where, where it grew, you know, 40, 50 years ago.

01:05:17:23 - 01:05:19:04
Jessie Ott
And so it's.

01:05:19:08 - 01:05:35:02
Maggie Kimberl
A painstaking process, going from an almost extinct grain to having enough to actually be able to distill it. And I think this year they will have enough to finally distill a small run of, of rose and rye. There.

01:05:35:04 - 01:05:38:15
Jessie Ott
That is really cool. So what kind of flavor profile is that? You know.

01:05:38:17 - 01:06:00:03
Maggie Kimberl
It's hard to say. Right? So I've had some of the distill it from Stolen Wolf and it it is a different flavor profile, but it's really, it's really, hard to kind of pinpoint that because, it's unaged at this point. And so you would have to compare it to an unaged rye whiskey that that's made with a common rye.

01:06:00:05 - 01:06:04:15
Maggie Kimberl
And so I'm really interested to see what the stuff looks like once it matures. We just don't.

01:06:04:15 - 01:06:06:01
Jessie Ott
Know. Yeah.

01:06:06:03 - 01:06:08:23
Jessie Ott
Oh that's exciting. Is that love ryes are going to love that.

01:06:08:23 - 01:06:10:13
Maggie Kimberl
Absolutely.

01:06:10:15 - 01:06:17:10
Jessie Ott
Yeah. And that's the thing. I mean for me it adds a little spice. And, I really like it.

01:06:17:12 - 01:06:20:05
Jessie Ott
I like, you know, it's fun.

01:06:20:06 - 01:06:30:00
Jessie Ott
Yeah. Yeah, that's really, really awesome. I guess it'd be mean to, to, ask what your favorite is, so I won't do that.

01:06:30:02 - 01:06:32:01
Jessie Ott
Oh, you can ask.

01:06:32:03 - 01:06:39:00
Jessie Ott
Yeah. That's okay. Yeah. I don't I don't want to put you in that position because I know you. You love everybody in the industry so. Well, my.

01:06:39:01 - 01:06:43:17
Maggie Kimberl
Unofficial official line, when somebody asks me what my favorite is, is whatever you're buying.

01:06:43:19 - 01:06:49:18
Jessie Ott
Yeah, exactly. But do you have a do you have a style? Is rye your favorite or other?

01:06:49:18 - 01:07:11:22
Maggie Kimberl
I really don't have a favorite style. You know, like, I, I judge a lot of, spirits competitions. Cocktail competitions. I go to a lot of different distilleries. I'm excited about American single malt. But, you know, obviously, like, bourbon has my heart, as a as a tried and true Kentucky gal and, you know, I really love rye whiskey.

01:07:11:22 - 01:07:37:06
Maggie Kimberl
I think that rye whiskey has a lot to do with the resurgence of the cocktail culture. And kind of getting us back into, you know, decent cocktails instead of the Day-Glo green shelf stable sour mix era, which was just awful. So, you know, I really, I appreciate, you know, whenever people are like, you know, what's your favorite, this or that?

01:07:37:07 - 01:07:50:11
Maggie Kimberl
I'm like, you know what? Like, I just I really appreciate the hard work and the blood, sweat and tears that goes into this is not an easy industry to to very control.

01:07:50:11 - 01:07:51:05
Jessie Ott
Right.

01:07:51:07 - 01:08:19:18
Maggie Kimberl
Like you can't build a distillery and flip a switch and start making a product that you can sell. You build a distillery and then you make your product and then you put it in a barrel and you put it in a warehouse and you store it for six years before you sell it, you know, and that's that's like nobody you don't, like, make a, afford truck and put it in a lot for four years, all ages.

01:08:19:20 - 01:08:22:13
Jessie Ott
You know. So that's it's kind.

01:08:22:13 - 01:08:23:09
Maggie Kimberl
Of crazy, right.

01:08:23:14 - 01:08:24:12
Jessie Ott
So like.

01:08:24:14 - 01:08:34:07
Maggie Kimberl
I think a lot of the people in this industry are a little crazy, a little unconventional. And that's I think that's that's why I found my people.

01:08:34:09 - 01:08:59:17
Jessie Ott
Yeah I like that. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, and it's a community too, that you found yourself that you, you, you loved and, they loved you back. And it just kind of fit into, you know, who you are and what you wanted to do. And I think that's super cool. And I love the the story told us about the realization of travel, how it kind of came full circle and on its own without even really, I mean, expecting that, I think.

01:08:59:21 - 01:09:10:21
Jessie Ott
Right. So, so do you write about different bourbon trails and like where to stay and like anything like that?

01:09:10:23 - 01:09:16:07
Maggie Kimberl
So the where to stay peace. You know, like I, I have.

01:09:16:07 - 01:09:17:21
Jessie Ott
Visited.

01:09:17:23 - 01:09:40:11
Maggie Kimberl
Other states the only place where I have been invited where they actually took us to multiple distilleries is Virginia. And so I did do a piece about that. I have done, articles about, you know, different distillery trails and what's available because I think that a lot of people don't realize that there is anything else out there other than Kentucky Bourbon Trail.

01:09:40:13 - 01:09:49:03
Maggie Kimberl
And there are bourbon trails in Colorado. And,

01:09:49:05 - 01:10:17:07
Maggie Kimberl
Arkansas, I think in, they're definitely in Virginia, New York state. It's a big one. Texas, obviously. I don't know if I said Colorado already. I'm really excited about Colorado. There's some stuff kind of percolating in California. The California distilleries. I've only been to to one. And that was blanking out. Well, it was really great.

01:10:17:10 - 01:10:36:01
Maggie Kimberl
They're doing a great job out there. I need to get up into northern California because. And in the Napa region, Napa and Sonoma, there are a ton of distilleries and a lot of them are doing American single malts, which is just absolutely fabulous.

01:10:36:03 - 01:10:50:14
Jessie Ott
Wow. I didn't know that. That's interesting. I got to get out there. Yeah, I really do. I've been out there for work a couple of times, but not just to go and discover, you know, different wines. And I didn't know that that was happening out there too.

01:10:50:14 - 01:11:09:21
Maggie Kimberl
Yeah. Well, and, I, I went to a distillery in, Portland, Oregon. There are several distilleries out there, but again, I, you know, I, I only was able to visit the one on that trip, Washington state, several distilleries there. You know, there's just some really interesting stuff happening all over the country right now.

01:11:09:23 - 01:11:13:15
Jessie Ott
Yeah, I love it. I think it's I think, you know, there's enough room for everybody.

01:11:13:15 - 01:11:15:05
Jessie Ott
Absolutely.

01:11:15:07 - 01:11:32:03
Jessie Ott
You know, there's enough love. And like you said, look to from the locals perspective, that's how you fell in love with bourbon and Kentucky. So, you know, you have other people in Texas and, you know, Oregon and Washington, California that are, you know, going to want to do the same thing.

01:11:32:04 - 01:11:33:13
Maggie Kimberl
Absolutely.

01:11:33:15 - 01:11:47:09
Jessie Ott
Support their local distilleries. You know, Dallas has a lot to, not distilleries, but we have, you know, breweries and some wineries and whatnot. And so it's always kind of fun to support, you know, your local breweries.

01:11:47:11 - 01:11:49:08
Maggie Kimberl
Absolutely.

01:11:49:10 - 01:11:56:17
Jessie Ott
Yeah. So is there anything that, we missed or that you want to say to the audience before we sign off?

01:11:56:19 - 01:12:03:07
Maggie Kimberl
I mean, I think, you know, obviously, I have to say drink responsibly. You shoot it, you only get to taste it once.

01:12:03:09 - 01:12:04:08
Jessie Ott
So.

01:12:04:10 - 01:12:05:23
Jessie Ott
That's and that's a bummer. With bourbon.

01:12:05:23 - 01:12:06:17
Jessie Ott
It really is.

01:12:06:17 - 01:12:19:04
Maggie Kimberl
Like I was doing a tasting, someplace one time, and, somebody I knew walked up and was like, oh, bourbon. I hate the stuff. And I was like, of course you hate it. If that's how you drink it.

01:12:19:06 - 01:12:23:04
Jessie Ott
It, But enjoy it. Take take.

01:12:23:04 - 01:12:31:03
Maggie Kimberl
Your time. Learn to enjoy it. Stay hydrated. Don't do anything stupid.

01:12:31:05 - 01:12:31:19
Jessie Ott
Those are a.

01:12:31:19 - 01:12:56:04
Maggie Kimberl
Lot of the things. But really, you know, most people live within a couple hours of the distillery now. So if you think this might be something that you want to start exploring, find out who your local producers are, get to know them, go visit them, learn the process in your own backyard. And then if you want to level up and come to Kentucky, you kind of already have, you know, a lot of people say, oh, I like bourbon, but I only care about I only care about Kentucky.

01:12:56:06 - 01:13:04:09
Maggie Kimberl
And like, you know, really like as much as I love to hear that, I also want you to know there are a lot of people making really awesome stuff, probably also in your backyard.

01:13:04:11 - 01:13:10:09
Jessie Ott
Right. Well, I know Garrison Brothers, in South Texas. They I think they spent time with beam, I mean.

01:13:10:10 - 01:13:12:00
Jessie Ott
Oh, yeah. Well, you can do.

01:13:12:00 - 01:13:37:06
Maggie Kimberl
A lot of people get talent in Kentucky industry. Milam and Greene there in Texas also. Irene, Holmes is. She worked at beam, and Heather Greene worked, at the Flatiron Room in New York. And these are two people in the industry who have amazing talent who are running that, but really, like Iron Republic and Denison, Texas, which nobody's ever heard of.

01:13:37:08 - 01:13:46:18
Maggie Kimberl
They've won best, best corn whiskey in the world once and best world's best bourbon twice.

01:13:46:20 - 01:13:48:23
Jessie Ott
Texas. You're kidding.

01:13:49:01 - 01:13:55:16
Maggie Kimberl
So, I mean, there's a lot of really amazing stuff happening in your own backyard, if you're willing to go look for it.

01:13:55:18 - 01:13:57:00
Jessie Ott
Yeah, I need to get up there.

01:13:57:02 - 01:13:58:10
Jessie Ott
Absolutely.

01:13:58:12 - 01:14:09:04
Jessie Ott
It's not that far. Well, I didn't know that I didn't I did not realize that. Thank you for sharing that solutely. So I do have one bonus question. It's kind of a fun question.

01:14:09:04 - 01:14:10:00
Maggie Kimberl
Okay.

01:14:10:02 - 01:14:19:18
Jessie Ott
But if you were to win the lotto, doesn't matter. Million 10 million doesn't matter. Would you do anything different or what would you do differently?

01:14:19:20 - 01:14:35:01
Maggie Kimberl
I really don't think I would do anything differently, honestly. I mean, I enjoy what I do, obviously if I'm doing it for, dozens of dollars, I, I would very much enjoy to keep doing it and not have to worry about money.

01:14:35:02 - 01:14:37:09
Jessie Ott
So you wouldn't open a distillery.

01:14:37:11 - 01:14:38:08
Jessie Ott
I mean.

01:14:38:10 - 01:14:47:18
Maggie Kimberl
People ask me all the time, like, would you ever consider working for a distillery? And I've had offers, to. Yeah, work for distilleries or to, you know, consult and all that kind of stuff.

01:14:47:19 - 01:14:48:06
Jessie Ott
Yeah.

01:14:48:06 - 01:15:00:17
Maggie Kimberl
And, you know, I always say, if I find the right opportunity, I will, you know, like, I, I definitely don't want to get myself into a situation, where it stops being fun.

01:15:00:19 - 01:15:10:09
Jessie Ott
Gone. Exactly. I see you more being like, a retailer with all the different Bourbons and doing more educational pieces and having.

01:15:10:10 - 01:15:11:10
Jessie Ott
I actually kind.

01:15:11:10 - 01:15:16:03
Maggie Kimberl
Of miss working in retail. I miss having regular customers having that interaction.

01:15:16:05 - 01:15:17:13
Jessie Ott
On a on a regular basis.

01:15:17:13 - 01:15:20:02
Maggie Kimberl
Yeah. I could have something to think about.

01:15:20:04 - 01:15:36:08
Jessie Ott
Yeah, 100%. I mean, my two favorite jobs that don't pay, they don't pay. I worked at total, and I love talking about wine and spirits from all over the world all day long. I just loved it. I lost weight, I did a job like three sizes because you're going up and down ladders or anything.

01:15:36:13 - 01:15:37:17
Jessie Ott
Yeah. Yep.

01:15:37:19 - 01:15:53:18
Jessie Ott
Yeah. And, my other favorite was, a bar here, wine bar called Cork where they didn't have food. They just had, like, cheese plates, but they had cards where you where are you? Just go and get an ounce of this. And out of that, I think there was like 25 wines on tap.

01:15:53:20 - 01:15:55:12
Jessie Ott
Oh. Well that's but,

01:15:55:14 - 01:16:15:14
Jessie Ott
It was really it's a great experience. But, you know, getting home at two and then, you know, it doesn't work out with the other person because they're, they're, they're normal business hours. And so it's just it's yeah, it's hard. But I yeah, I love retail. I loved it a lot. And it's fun. It's fun just talking about what you're passionate about.

01:16:15:14 - 01:16:16:13
Jessie Ott
My feelings hurt.

01:16:16:13 - 01:16:17:09
Maggie Kimberl
Thinking about it.

01:16:17:09 - 01:16:34:17
Jessie Ott
So I know, I know same same. Absolutely the same. Yeah. For sure. Well, you've been an awesome guest. I love your passion. I hope we can meet soon. And, you know, definitely have you back on the podcast ever again.

01:16:34:17 - 01:16:36:06
Maggie Kimberl
Thank you. Let me know.

01:16:36:08 - 01:16:42:10
Jessie Ott
Well, the plan is we got to I got to plan a tour, with some friends and just go for, like, 3 or 4 days.

01:16:42:10 - 01:16:42:22
Maggie Kimberl
Totally.

01:16:43:01 - 01:16:45:16
Jessie Ott
And just hit as many places as we can, and.

01:16:45:22 - 01:16:47:07
Jessie Ott
And I'm going.

01:16:47:10 - 01:16:50:04
Maggie Kimberl
Many questions when you're planning. I'm happy to help.

01:16:50:06 - 01:17:05:15
Jessie Ott
Oh, that'd be great. Yeah, I appreciate that because I only know what I know, which is the places that I, you know, the people that I've worked with. So, you know, outside of that, like, I haven't been to Heaven Hill. I really want to go see Jimmy and, you know, Wild Turkey, Jimmy's amazing.

01:17:05:21 - 01:17:10:18
Maggie Kimberl
The visitor center every now and then, but, he's getting up there, so get.

01:17:10:18 - 01:17:11:23
Jessie Ott
While, you know.

01:17:12:01 - 01:17:25:17
Jessie Ott
I know, I gotta go. I, I had the pleasure of working with him and a wonderful man. Amazing. A couple of times I've actually got to work with Jimmy. And I'm telling you, that man is the last person to leave the bar.

01:17:25:21 - 01:17:26:19
Jessie Ott
Yep.

01:17:26:21 - 01:17:33:08
Jessie Ott
Every time, you know, because we we'd be there from 7 to 7, then we go eat and we just hang out.

01:17:33:08 - 01:17:34:21
Jessie Ott
It was. And to Bali.

01:17:35:02 - 01:17:37:17
Maggie Kimberl
One of the kindest, most wonderful people you'll ever.

01:17:37:19 - 01:17:58:05
Jessie Ott
Absolutely. Yeah, I, I just adore that man. It's so cool. It's a such a, like, you know, a hero in a sense, right? Like, up to him so much about, you know, I heard his grandson, on another podcast, and, you know, it's a lot to look up to, right? That being said.

01:17:58:05 - 01:18:02:18
Maggie Kimberl
He has granddaughter Joanne Street. Oh, really? Okay.

01:18:02:18 - 01:18:04:04
Jessie Ott
And a half.

01:18:04:06 - 01:18:09:15
Jessie Ott
Okay. Joanne Street. Okay, I had to I had to find her. What does she work for the company.

01:18:09:15 - 01:18:18:17
Maggie Kimberl
She does. She's their national brand ambassador now. But she started off, working, summers as a tour guide at the distillery.

01:18:18:18 - 01:18:31:01
Jessie Ott
So she knows. She knows where everything is. That's really cool. Thank you for the tip. I will I'll reach out to her. Alrighty. Well, thank you so much. Take care. Thank you.

01:18:31:01 - 01:18:31:11
Maggie Kimberl
Take care.

01:18:31:11 - 01:18:31:20
Jessie Ott
Bye bye.

01:18:32:02 - 01:18:38:02
Jessie Ott
All right. Bye bye. This week's episode was produced by Fedora Jay Productions.