Interview with Marsha Wiechman, April 30, 2009

TROLAND: My name is Tom Troland, from the University of Kentucky. We're interviewing today Marsha Wiechman, It's April 30, 2009. This is part of the Buffalo Trace Oral History Project. We are located here at the Buffalo Trace Distillery. Marsha, I'd like to thank you so much for taking time out for this interview.

WIECHMAN: You're welcome. Glad to do it.

TROLAND: Let's begin with having you tell me just a little bit about yourself.

WIECHMAN: Like, how much do you want to know? I was born and raised in Kansas, and lived there for thirty-eight years, and moved here to Kentucky. And been working here at the distillery for twenty-two years, and I was born and raised on a farm in Kansas, and was a licensed hairdresser-beautician for fifteen years in Kansas, prior to moving out here. And--found a job at the distillery, which I fell in 00:01:00love with, and haven't left since.

TROLAND: What brought you to Kentucky?

WIECHMAN: Long story, (laughs) long story. Oops! I knew that thing was going to fall off of there.

TROLAND: Should we stop just for a minute while?

HAY: We could just leave it--you want to just leave it there?

WIECHMAN: You want to just leave it there? Fine with me. Yeah. It was, it was a long story. And I, I wanted to get out and do new things, and go places and see new people. And get away from the cold, extreme cold and extreme heat. And Kentucky does that for me. And it didn't take long when I moved out here to meet and find new friends. And it's been home for me, and it still is, and probably will be for many years to come.

TROLAND: Tell me a little bit about your parents.

WIECHMAN: Farmers. Row crop farmers, wheat farmers. They're still 00:02:00alive and well today. We celebrated their sixty-fifth wedding anniversary two years ago, and they're doing well. They're retired. They live in town now. But--worked on the farm all their lives. We- -I went to a country school for eight years; a one-room schoolhouse. One teacher, one room, eight years. (laughs) And, of course, the little rural high school, it was small, too. There was fifty-two kids in our high school. And twenty-three of us, the year I graduated, was seniors. So, they had high school one more year there when I graduated, and after that they didn't have high school there no more. They switched and put it--they unified some school districts. So, it 00:03:00was pretty small, and pretty uncomplicated in my world, up 'til about 1960. '65, I guess, is when I graduated from high school. So, that's when I got out and about, and more complicated.

TROLAND: Any interesting stories of your good deeds or misdeeds when you were young there, and growing up in Kansas?

WIECHMAN: Misdeeds when I was young there. Well, there's a lot of stories. (laughs) Lots of stories; we rode a horse to school. And I've had a barn at the, at the uh, school yard, where we kept the horses. Kept them fed. The schoolyard--schoolhouse is still there. The barn has fell down. Our outhouses, of course, fell down. Didn't have no indoor plumbing. And we had coal heat. They had an old coal 00:04:00stove in there that we burned coal in to keep warm, first few years. And then it went--was wood heat. And the last couple of years, they had pur-, furchas-, purchased a propane heater that they used in that one-room schoolhouse. But, yeah. Them was the days.

TROLAND: What about your parents? Are there some interesting lessons that you learned from your parents when you were growing up?

WIECHMAN: How to work hard. We--that's--we worked hard, we played hard. We played as a family and worked as a family. And that's the way it was. It was a, a working family.

TROLAND: So, you were hard at work on the farm, when you were growing up.

WIECHMAN: Yes. Yes. Yep. In my early years, I can remember them using horses to work with. And then, of course, through the years, uh, we 00:05:00got tractors and made it a little easier. But, they was hard years. They were hard years, growing up, working. I--we didn't have no indoor plumbing. Didn't have no electric when I was real little. I remember studying with coal oil lamps and lantern--and candles. And then even when I got older, the electric would go out a lot in the winter, in the snow, and we had lots of snowstorms out there in Kansas. Lots of tornadoes in Kansas. I can't count on my hands how many tornados I've seen. Go into the--we had a underground tornado shelter we would go in. We'd go in, and all sat down there and prayed. When we come out, you never knew if you was gonna have a house left or not.

TROLAND: Did you ever see a tornado?

WIECHMAN: Oh, yeah. Yes. Lots of them. Lots of times on our way in to 00:06:00go underground, we'd see them coming. And usually they'd pass. They always did pass our farm. They never did hit us, but it got close. We'd come out. We've have windows blowed out. We've had tractors turned around backwards and wagons turned. And--but never no damage that was unfixable.

TROLAND: What type of farm was this? What did you grow there?

WIECHMAN: Wheat. Row crop. We'd grow, uh, milo. Of course, we had- -let's see. We had around a hundred head of sheep. About 150 head of cattle. We had a few hogs, raised mainly just for our own benefit, to eat. And, of course, ducks and chickens, and--

TROLAND: Are you from a large family?

WIECHMAN: Not--well, there's only three of us. I got a sister older, one sister older, and one sister younger. So, there was three of us in the family. And the girls, we worked like boys would have worked if we'd had boys in our family. So, it didn't make too much difference whether we was boys or girls. We worked.

TROLAND: So, where in Kansas were you born, and when were you born?

WIECHMAN: In--I was born in Concordia, Kansas. And lived in Washington County, which was in the northeastern part of, uh, Kansas. It's about fifteen miles from the Nebraska line, in the northeastern corner. So-- and probably about 100 miles from Missouri line. So, we was right, right 00:08:00in the bottom corner of Kansas. Around the Flint H-, Flint Hills area.

TROLAND: And when was that? When you were born?

WIECHMAN: Nineteen-forty-seven. (laughs)

TROLAND: I'm 1948.

WIECHMAN: Was you? Well.

TROLAND: What--what interested you, as a young person, in, say, early teens? What did you think you might do?

WIECHMAN: Rode horses. Rode horses. I went to a lot of showdeos. Rode--had a lot of, a lot of showdeos. Roping and riding and, you name it, I did it. I enjoyed the riding horses. I really did. Of course, we used horses to herd cattle, to herd our sheep. It wasn't always fun and games on the horses. Everybody always says, "Oh, wouldn't that have been so fun, to grow up riding horses?" And--well, it was and it wasn't. There was times when you had to ride a horse you didn't really want to, and it was work to have to go out, and have 00:09:00to do what you had to do. But- yeah, we had fun riding horses, also. But, there was times it was hard work.

TROLAND: What were your thoughts at that time, regarding what you might like to do in your future? Did you have any ideas then?

WIECHMAN: As a young girl, I always wanted to be a nurse. And a lot of the school system, when I got to high school, didn't teach a lot of the courses that you need in the math end. And after I graduated from high school, and I went and took my entrance exam for nurse's college, I was gonna have to take a few years of college before I could go, because I didn't have the prep that I needed in them small schools back then. And I, I guess I just didn't have the go in me to want to work my way through. And so I went to beautician college at that time, 00:10:00cosmetology school, and became a hairdresser. And when I got out, I opened my own beauty shop, and ran my own business successfully for fourteen, almost fifteen years. And I got burned out on it. I worked so many hours, and got tired of it, and wanted to do and expand and go new--do new things. Worked as a construction worker for a while. I went to welding school. I welded on a nuclear plant there in Kansas, at the Wolf Creek Nuclear Power Company. I welded, and I also was a pipe fitter, certified. And I was a carpenter. I helped build bridges for a couple of years, and then I moved to Kentucky. Got tired of some of that hard work, and I come out here, and found a job at this 00:11:00distillery. Rolling barrels was just as hard. But I enjoyed it.

TROLAND: So, you didn't come to this distillery just for the easy work, I gather.

WIECHMAN: No. No, I did not. I--when they interviewed me, they said, "Now, this is not gonna be no easy work. The only work we have for you is--you'll be in the warehouse." They were moving barrels from the warehouse, to sell some of these warehouses in the back. They said, "We're gonna be moving barrels, and it's all--that's all you're gonna be doing, is rolling barrels." And I said, "There's no work hard--too hard for me. I'd enjoy it." I needed the work. And it looked like fun. And it was fun. It was hard work, but it was fun. We had a good time. When--back when the days when I first joined this company, we really had a good time working here. We really did. It was hard work, but it was fun.

TROLAND: So, when did you decide to leave Kansas?

WIECHMAN: In '87--'86.

TROLAND: And did you have an idea at that stage as to where you'd like to go, and what, what you'd like to do?

WIECHMAN: Nah. I moved to Cincinnati for a short time, and uh, I was gonna--I went out there to interview with General Electric as a welder, and as a welding consultant. And about the day or week I moved out there, GE put a freeze on their hiring, and I didn't get hired for the job that I would actually--moved out there to get. And, uh, I knew a couple of people that had worked on the power plant where I worked in Kansas. That's how I knew to go to Cincinnati, to go there to General Electric. And so I did know a few people. But then I lear-, I met 00:13:00more new people. I met some people from Frankfort, and that's how I moved to Frankfort then, and I found this job here.

TROLAND: So, when you first moved to Frankfort, you did not, at that point, have the job here.

WIECHMAN: No, I didn't.

TROLAND: You moved because you knew people who lived in this area.

WIECHMAN: Yeah. Yeah. I worked for a courier service that picked up, uh, checks. It was the Pony Express Courier Service, out of, uh, Lexington, that I worked for. Picked up blank checks from banks all over Kentucky. All over Southeastern Kentucky and Lexington. All over that area, until I found this job here.

TROLAND: Just going back a little bit in your life.

WIECHMAN: Okay.

TROLAND: If you think back upon adults you knew as a child: parents, or other adults, perhaps non-parents, is there one adult in particular that you think of who had a strong influence upon who you are today?

WIECHMAN: Oh, my. My mom and dad. They made me who I am. (laughs) Whether that be good or bad, they made me who I am. And I think it's a good thing.

TROLAND: Let's talk a little bit about your very early years here at Buffalo Trace. You came to Frankfort, looking for a job. How did you find this job?

WIECHMAN: Newspaper, actually. It was a, a ad come in the paper, that they needed laborers, at--it was Ancient Age, at the time. And I came out and applied. And interviewed the same day, of course, that I applied. And they--I think--I can't remember if they hired me that 00:15:00day, or they told me they'd call me. I think they told me they'd call me in a day or two, and-- by the time I got home, the phone was ringing, and they was saying that we needed ya--that they needed me, and to come back. So. And I was very glad.

TROLAND: Remind me, that was what year that you were first hired here?

WIECHMAN: Nineteen-eighty-seven.

TROLAND: So, what were you doing here at the distillery in those early years? You talked about barrel rolling.

WIECHMAN: Working in the warehouse. Working in the warehouse, and uh, rolling barrels.

TROLAND: Anyone with whom you worked who was especially colorful, and for whom you have interesting memories, or possibly a story?

WIECHMAN: Oh, oh, no, I don't know. Leonard Riddle was our team leader back then. Ronnie Eddins, who is still here, was the--one of the 00:16:00supervisors. And I--we were laid off off and on. And they'd always laid off, lay off, like, some of the bottom few, and say, "We'll call you back." And they'd say, "You can go get another job if you want to, but we'd like to have you back. We'll be calling." They'd always tell me how many days we was gonna be laid off, or sometimes it'd be six weeks, we'd be laid off. And they'll say, "But we'll call you back." And they always did call me back, and it was always--it was--at one point, I got a job as a welder. At Southern Molding, out here. And I was--I worked out there probably six months or better. And they called one of the supervisors from the warehouse, she's no longer here, Judith Thorg called, and said, "Marsha, we're gonna be needing you back in a cou-, few weeks. I don't know where you're working, or if you're 00:17:00working, but, but we need--we'd like to have you back."

[Pause in recording.]

WIECHMAN: And I said all right. Sounds good to me. I said, "I'll, I'll probably come back." And I- so then I had to make a decision whether I wanted to quit them, that company, and come to this company. And then at that time, that company offered me more money to stay. They even offered me a supervisor position in the welding end, because they had never had no woman--female welder before. And with my welding credentials, they'd have liked to have kept me. And I made a crucial decision at that point to come back here, because I felt that this company would probably be here longer than that company, which turned out to be so. That company's been gone a long time, and I'm still here. And, and it was the people here, I think, that made me want to come back here, because there were some really good people that I worked 00:18:00with. And then at that point, when I came back, I didn't get laid off as much. I worked more. We were down, however, to about--I don't know, I can't remember, it was fifty or fifty-one people. And I was the bottom one on the totem pole. So when they had to lay off one or two people for two or three days, I was the one that got laid off. But I always came back. They always--it was always, "You'll be back. Just give us a day or two. We just--." They just had to do that, to make ends meet. And it was well worth the time spent waiting to get back.

TROLAND: Was fifty employees the, the minimum? Was that the bottom, in some sense?

WIECHMAN: That was, I think, the bottom line. I'm not sure. You'd have to ask somebody for sure at what point--how low we was. But there wasn't very many. And our main bottling house would only run, 00:19:00sometimes, four or five days out of a month. So, most of them was working--we were either working at Blanton's, at the--at the Single Barrel Blanton hall, or we were working in the warehouse, rolling barrels. And generally, I was, at that point, rolling barrels, because my seniority wasn't high enough to let me work in the better places where some of the older employees was.

TROLAND: So, what was it like to be working in a distillery that at that time had reached kind of the bottom of its economic cycle?

WIECHMAN: It was scary, real scary. Because we didn't know for how long it would be open. I mean, it just kept--the top end of management kept going down and down and down. I mean, they kept laying more and more off. Not laying them off, they just--they would lose their jobs. We was down to just bare minimal people, that was working. Not just union 00:20:00employees, and labor employees, but professional end was going at a constant rate, going down. And it was scary for everybody, because we had--none of us knew how long we was gonna be able to keep our jobs, at all. It was, it was a real scary situation.

TROLAND: Any--

WIECHMAN: For a lot of years, I'd say it was like that for, I'd--ten years or so, for me. Up until the current situation occurred, when, uh, Buffalo Trace bought this distillery. That was a big turning point for us out here. Huge turning point.

TROLAND: Let's focus, at least briefly again, on those low years.

WIECHMAN: Okay.

TROLAND: A few employees, and hard times. Any stories from those days that are interesting to remember?

WIECHMAN: Uh, we was putting up new whiskey one year. And it was raining, and they were--we had a barrel truck loaded with barrels. One of the barrels rolled off the back of the barrel truck. And the rain--it'd been raining. There was puddles of water out there in that back, around some of them back warehouses, where it wasn't always, uh, blacktop. And it was around where the old railroad track went through here, there at the time. And when the barrel truck went over the railroad track, it bumped and jumped; barrel bounced off the back end of there, full. Of course, it had--it was clear full, uh, fifty-three gallons of white dog liquor, fresh out of the still, rolled off and busted out there in that, it broke right by one of them main water 00:22:00puddles. And we always had--it was probably a flock of five or six ducks out here. They came off the river, and they'd come up, and the guards would feed them grain; they ate grain around the granary down here. They was out in that--in them water puddles out there by that distillery that day, or by the warehouse. And I said, "Oh, my. That whiskey's all ran right in that water puddle." I said, "Boy, them ducks are gonna have fun now, aren't they?" Of course, everybody laughed, and we didn't really think too much about it. And as the day wore on, them ducks got to where they couldn't hold their head up. They was like--(gestures to imitate ducks)--their, their heads, their neck was hanging down, and they was, they were--(gestures)--it was like--talk about swan dykes just--swan ducks doing a swan dive, they were doing it. It was funny. We all laughed so hard, they was the drunkest ducks I believe--(laughs)--I've ever saw. Yeah, we just--we enjoyed that. I 00:23:00remember Jill Sork coming, looking--she was locking up the warehouses that night. And she asked me, "What in the world is wrong with them ducks out there?" And I said, "I think that's where that barrel got spilled, and, and they got in that, and of course, was taken baths in it, and drinking it." And I-- they were some drunk ducks. However, it didn't hurt them. They was just fine the next day, and ready to eat. So--and I think that's what they was waiting on, is another barrel to run off one of them trucks. (laughs)

TROLAND: I always advise ducks not to drink on the job.

WIECHMAN: Yeah. That's right, that's--

TROLAND: So, those were the hard times.

WIECHMAN: Yeah.

TROLAND: And then, when did things begin to pick up?

WIECHMAN: About ten years ago, when Buffalo Trace bought this--bought this distillery. Everybody was worried; they knew somebody'd bought 00:24:00us, but we didn't know who had bought us. And we didn't know which direction, whether they was gonna take us down and just close us out, or buy us and make us better. And when they announced that it was being bought to make us better, we was all like, "Well, we hope it is, and we hope for the best," and it was for the best. It was the best thing that ever happened to this place. Because it's been on the upswing ever since. I've never seen a place do such an immaculate turnaround. From--just from A to Z, I mean, it's-- it's, uh, from the grounds, to the warehouses, to the upkeep, the management. Everything is just--I just can't, I can't explain the growth in this place that 00:25:00I've seen. In the--in the bottling lines, the whiskey that goes, you know, the bottling production. I never dreamed I'd ever see production lines going out of this place as it's going today. Wonderful.

TROLAND: During those down years, what were you doing, primarily? Rolling barrels? Or did you do other things, too?

WIECHMAN: Oh, I-- there's--I did-- just--there's only about four, five jobs out here that I haven't done. I've moved all over the distillery. I'd--they would have job bids, put up for bid. Of course, that's on the, the union job bid program. But I--yeah, I bid on all--a lot of the jobs I--there isn't too many jobs that I didn't do. Most of the 00:26:00jobs--a lot of the jobs, uh, some of the girls had never, ever done out here before. Now, there's a lot of girls that had rolled barrels. But when I bid on uh, I bid--let's see. They, they give me a job in the dry house at one time, loading trucks. I didn't bid on that one. They give me that one. That one was a hard one. And, uh--

TROLAND: Could you explain what the dry house is?

WIECHMAN: Well, it was where we dried the grain from the--after, after it was distilled in the mash, and they had squeezed everything out of it. And the, the, the dried grain, we would put it in the dryers. They would coat it and we'd resell it for, uh, cattle feed--hog feed. And it would lay on the feed house, on the floor up here. And at the time, we had no way of loading the trucks except by hand, with shovels and scoops. They used coal buckets, they called them. These big coal- 00:27:00like wheelbarrows that we used. And we'd load them, and take them, put them out of chutes, out onto the truck. Out onto the, the--they had all sizes trucks. They had--some of them was semis, some of them was just regular farm-sized trucks. But they sold grain, and they still do. Makes it pretty self-sufficient in the distillery end. But yeah, I worked over there in the distillery, and did all them things, too. All them things was different, and it was fun; and you work from one end of the distillery to the other. And you can get to working on one end, and the other end seems like it's not even a part of the same distillery. You can work there and not see people that you've--that you work with. You might not see them for a year or two, unless you see them at the company parties, or at the Christmas parties. It's 00:28:00like this is a whole--there's are a lot of worlds out here. Lot of different worlds, and I bid on processing. I was the first girl that ever was a processor out here. Bid on product handler. I--there had never been another girl that had been product handler before, until I had, and they was always like, "Are you sure you can do it?" If it can be done, I'll do it--(laughs)--and I've done it. And I enjoyed it, I really did. I processed for a lot of years up in Blanton at the single--at our premium bottling hall. Still the best place to be working on, I think. I enjoyed it, bott-, the premium bottling. Meet a lot of nice, wonderful people coming through there.

TROLAND: Can you explain to us what processing means?

WIECHMAN: Well, there's two or three different places where you process 00:29:00out here. And processing would mean to different people, different things. In the premium bottling house, it would mean dumping one barrel at a time in a bottling trough, and putting it in a, in a tank. And uh, proofing it, to see what proof it is, and how--and gauging it, to see how many, how many gallons are in that barrel. And then you would, uh, cut it with limestone water. And then we chill filter, to take all the fatty acids and stuff out, and all the impurities that are in the alcohol. And when it's clean, and when the lab okays it, we would reheat it, run it into the, uh, tank, to be finalized before 00:30:00we get ready to bottle it. And then we would finalize it and cut it to the exact proof, with limestone water. You--while it was filtering, we would cut it down to within two or three tenths of the exact proof. Because when you're filtering it, it will take some proof off of it. The, the agitation system in it will lower the proof of it a little bit, so. There's some that will come off, so you don't want to cut it too low, because you can't bring it up. Once it's too low, it's--you, you, that's, you can't bring it back. You can always take it down, but you can't bring it back up. Especially with a single-barrel bourbon. With, with the other bourbon, say, like, if it was in the main bottling hall, and you--there was some that was, say it's a little bit low. It, it isn't single-barrel, you could put more of the same batch with it, to raise it. But on a single barrel, it's a little bit tougher, cause 00:31:00it's--you can't add nothing to a single-barrel. It has to be right the first time, or it doesn't, doesn't cut. It didn't, doesn't, didn't get cut the first time right, it's not going to the next time, either. So, a little bit harder to do the premium bourbons up there.

TROLAND: So, let's think about all of the positions you've held here, some of which you've already mentioned. Barrel-handling, processing, which we just discussed. Drying the grain after it's come out of the still. What else?

WIECHMAN: Well, like I said, product handling. Making sure the right product goes on the lines. We have many different products running. Of course, now, especially when we've got all the lines running, you have to know which line's running which product, and hope the right 00:32:00lines--to make sure the right product's going on the right line. And that's, that's a pretty important job, too. And I've been a taster, a taster for years out here. And uh, that's a pretty important job. It's a good job--(laughs)--you get to taste a lot of the good bourbons. A very important job, though, too. I mean, it's, it's a serious job, to make sure that the quality's there. Because they're not all, they're not all to be selected for the very best.

TROLAND: Tell me a little bit about the tasting procedure. Who participates? How often do you do it?

WIECHMAN: Well, um, they--they'll use you as much as you can be used. You can't do it every day, or your taste buds would, of course, be 00:33:00ruined. But you can do it two or three days a week. And, of course, it depends on how much you're there to do it them days. But they don't, they don't overuse you. And you could be overused. Like I said, your taste buds do tell, tell, tell the story of it. But, they conduct taste tests up in the lab. And there's a panel of them, that, that, go up and taste all the single-barrels. Elmer T. Lee usually selects most all of his own barrels for his Elmer T. Lee stock. And of course, they have other ones that help him do that, also. But he, he mainly selects his own. And always has. Elmer has been an awfully big help to me out here over the years. Any time I ever needed any help, 00:34:00or understanding on filtering or, why does this do that, or why, why do we have to do this, to this to make it this, Elmer's always been there for me. I could call Elmer and say, "Elmer, why am I doing this?" And Elmer would say, "Well, what do you want to know?" I would ask him, and he would always have the right answers, and he would tell me. And, Elmer and I always have got along. We kind of clicked. Elmer is the same age as my father. And I guess maybe that's what--he just--him and I clicked pretty good together. And I always enjoy when Elmer comes in and visits. I don't think there's a time I visited with Elmer that I didn't learn something. He's--he was a man that's taught me a lot of things about bourbon.

TROLAND: Any stories about Elmer?

WIECHMAN: Um, no, not really. Not really. We've had a lot of fun 00:35:00together. We went and done a lot of, lot of--how do I want to say this? Talks together. We've went down here, and when they would have the Expo, Elmer and I have went down here several times and talked. And I would always be nervous, and I'd say, "Oh, Elmer, I don't know if I can do this or not. What if I don't know what they're gonna ask me? What am I gonna say?" Elmer'd say, "Don't worry about it. I'll help you." He said, "Just make it up. It don't make any difference." I said, "Oh, Elmer, I can't do that." And he'd just laugh, and he'd say, "I'll be right there beside you. If they ask you something you don't know, I'll take it up." And I'd say, "You're gonna have to probably do most of it. I probably won't know what they're asking." He'll say, "Yeah, you do. I've taught you all you know. You know what to say." But, yeah. Elmer, he's, he, he is a, a walking encyclopedia, when it comes to bourbon, and the things out here. He's, he's a pretty good master distiller. And I learned a whole lot from him. Probably most everything I know come from Elmer.

TROLAND: Any secrets to good bourbon production that you've picked up over the years?

WIECHMAN: Oh, not really. Not really. Can't leave out our secrets (laughs).

TROLAND: Oh, don't worry.

WIECHMAN: Can't leave the--can't, can't tell the stories about those good sweet barrels, and those, those good barrels. That--those are secrets that have to stay. You know, (laughs) them sugar barrels, they have to stay where they're at.

TROLAND: Tell me about sugar barrels.

WIECHMAN: Yeah. How about that? (laughs)

TROLAND: What is a sugar barrel?

WIECHMAN: They're sweeter. They're just sweeter barrels than some of the rest of them. And-- believe me, if you've ever worked in a warehouse, the warehousemen will tell you they know where the sugar barrels are. They just, they just do.

TROLAND: And what happens to those sugar barrels?

WIECHMAN: They get sipped on, I can know, I know that, (laughs) But, yeah. They--what happens to them? Most, mostly, they end up as Elmer T. Lee barrels. Or some of the, some of the private--they're the best, premium bourbon barrels. They, they really are. Because they are a little bit sweeter, and they're just a little bit better. It's strange, what--you can have two barrels, sitting right side-by-side. And this one's gonna be better, and this one's not gonna be quite what this one is. It--it's strange how it happens, but it does happen.

TROLAND: Is it up to the tasting panel to decide?

WIECHMAN: Yes. Yes. Yes. The tasting panel does--they, they, they'll take a sample out of each barrel, on the rick. They'll go in, and, and then we drill samples, and catch it in a little fifty mil bottle, and, 00:38:00uh, take it up to the lab. And it's labeled exactly what barrel it is, what rick it come off of. And they will sample it. And they know--you can taste them. I mean, it, it's--they know exactly where some of the best ones are. And, and over the years, most of the sugar barrels come from the same spot, and the same place, in the same houses on the same, same floors. They, they know where they're at. That doesn't always hold true, I mean, there, there's always, you know, the exceptions to the rule. But generally, they know where their sugar barrels are coming from, and what, what are the--where the best spots for them are. I, I suppose with the heat and the cooling of the warehouses, and the--where the sun shines in from the sunlight, it all plays a big part in, in the bourbon process.

TROLAND: When you're on the tasting panel, how many members of the panel 00:39:00typically serve at once? And how many barrels do you typically sample?

WIECHMAN: You know, I'm not real sure. Because we'll go up there at different times; generally, on a, on a--say, a marriage of Buffalo Trace, there's eight or nine of us that'll go taste. And it all has to, it has to pass everybody. Everybody has to pass it. If just one person says it doesn't--something's not right, they have to re-taste and re-do the whole, the whole batch that they've dumped. Cu-, and they won't let it go. If some--if one person says it's just not the way it should be. So, it has to go through a pretty rigorous test before it gets put out, to ever be released for Buffalo Trace, or for anything. For all that matters, I mean, Elmer, I'm not sure. I think Elmer pretty much picks his own. I don't know how many. You'd have to ask on that one. That one, I don't know. But for Blanton, it's 00:40:00the same way. It's not just--they--and they'll get different tasters. They get different tasters to come up at different times. They'll call and say, "We need some more tasters to come up and taste some more barrels." And I'm not real sure how many they get to--I'd say eight or nine, probably, on the Blanton barrels, too. I'm not real sure how that runs. But I do know on their Buffalo Trace, they have certain ones. And they have to all agree on, agree on the taste, or it doesn't get bottled.

TROLAND: Tell me a little bit about what you're doing now at the distillery, your current job.

WIECHMAN: I'm a--currently, I'm a team leader in Blanton Bottling Hall. And that curtai-, I mean, I help watch the processing. I help watch, make sure that we get the right barrels from the warehouse that they send us. That--we all have to have--pretty much have a hand in making sure that nobody has got the wrong barrels from the wrong place. 00:41:00And it does happen. I mean, I--we're all human. And I help our--my supervisor, that he helps--I help him make sure that what's going on in Blanton is all quality, and everything is done the way it's supposed to be done. We've got so many particular different items, stock items for Blanton items. There's a lot of different countries, foreign countries. And they all call for different stickers, different--their import--importers are all--have their own--I don't know how, how to say that. They have their own stipulations and regulations on what they 00:42:00need to be able to come into the country.

And we have to make sure all that's on the carton, and on the cases, and make sure that all the, the--what we're bottling, is what's actually going in the bottles. And I also get--we order all the labels for the Blanton bottles have to be hand-written. We've got four label-writers. And they're all retired state workers. And they can do it at home. And they come in, pick up the labels, and I give them the particulars on what barrel number, and what rick number, and what house it's coming out of. And they take them home and write them and bring them back. And it gives them something to do at home, and gives them a little added income. And so, I more or less keep that going and keep the lines moving every day, and help coordinate the mechanics, if we need 00:43:00line changeovers, or if there's a break in the line, or anything, why, I'll help get a hold of the mechanics, and help them come up, do the changeovers, and help keep the totals and the production going. And make sure we're, we're running at a even rate. Or, you know what I'm saying, every day.

TROLAND: How long have you had that position, as being one of the supervisors in the bottling hall?

WIECHMAN: Oh, gosh. I--going on four, almost five years.

TROLAND: And is that a position you like, or is there--

WIECHMAN: Oh, yeah. I love it. I enjoy it. Because, I mean, it's--I'm over about everything that I've done. I've done everything in Blanton. I, I used to work on the lines a lot up there. I was on the hand 00:44:00bottling line, putting labels on. And I've done all the, all the jobs in there. I think it helps when you've done all the jobs. When you've actually had a hands-on experience, it helps you with the people that you're working with, to explain to them, or help them if they've got problems with what they're doing. It helps to know you've actually been there and done what they're doing. And when they've got major complaints, or whatever, you can more or less deal with them a little easier, because you've had hands-on experience, and know what they're talking about.

TROLAND: Is there another job here at the observat-, at the observatory. Excuse me. At the distillery. Is there another job at the distillery that you wouldn't mind getting your hands on some time?

WIECHMAN: No, I really, I'm--I love what I'm doing. I really do. I 00:45:00started out, there--I guess to back up this whole thing a little bit, in Blanton, we started in that little one, in the Weller building. And we did one barrel a day, tops. And at one point, we wasn't even doing one barrel a day. We'd get like, maybe thirty cases out, and there was four or five of us women up there working. And we had the old filler, like--(gestures)--we filled each bottle by hand. And we had the old eyedropper. If it got too full, you'd have to eyedropper so much out and put it back in another bottle. Or put some in, to make it just right. And where we've got the, the vacuum filler now, that vacuum fill, and every one of them they fill five at a time, and they're all just perfect. But back when I started doing it, it was hand--all hands- on. And the waxers was the same way. The corker was the same way. We pushed them in, and we hammered them in, or whatever. And the waxers 00:46:00didn't have no little turntables on, like they're turning them now. We turned them by hand. And we used to laugh. All of us have got scars on our hands where the wax used to come over, burn your hands. And we'd always say--if they said they'd worked in Blanton, we'd say, "Let me see your hands. We'll tell if you've worked at Blanton or not." If you don't have scars on your hands, you didn't used to--you--we knew that they didn't work in Blanton. (laughs) There's not too many of us--those left. I think there's only three of us up there that's got scars on our hands yet from working in Blanton's over the years. But, yeah, they took, of course, that--they took that out, because it was- -and it was a health--that, I mean, that--those--that wax is hot. And boy, would it burn. We kept a pot of aloe vera growing by the window. And every time somebody'd get wax on them, we'd get the aloe vera, pop 00:47:00it and put it on you. And that old pot of aloe vera grew up there for a long, long time. I guess that would be another little story, that, you know. It was an old--one of the old ways of curing a burn, but it did its job. Of course, safety issues got in the way of us, and we had to start doing it a little different. Had the collars that they put on now, that --to keep your hands. And of course, they wear gloves now. So, it makes it a whole lot different.

TROLAND: So, you've bottled Blanton's, and you have the scars to prove it.

WIECHMAN: That's right, (laughs) yeah.

TROLAND: You've been here at the distillery now for many years. You've seen it through the bad times and the good. How would you say the work environment for employees in general has changed over the last decade or more?

WIECHMAN: The environment is wonderful. I mean, it's , it's a much better environment than it was, you know, not that I, I don't want to, I don't want to get that wrong, I don't--because we've always had fun working out here. The fun, fun end of it, we've always had fun. But the working environment to make it much prettier and safer and nicer is 100 percent better than it was. It used to be pretty rugged. I mean, you know, there was no--none of these safety things come up that much. You just kind of had to watch yourself, and take care of yourself when it come to safety. They didn't have a lot of safety issues; it was pretty much you took care of your safety and of yourself. If you wanted to stay well and keep yourself well, you knew how to do it. But, of course, now, on the safety end, they've got a lot of safety 00:49:00issue and measures in place to keep the workplace safe. Not that they didn't have then. But it wasn't as severe as it is now. And, of course, there wasn't as many people as there are. But, oh, it's made a 200 percent turnaround, in the twenty-two years I've been here. Just completely. I, I can't, I can't begin to explain how--what a big turnaround this place has made, and how much, how much better it is to work, work here.

TROLAND: What about this distillery as a work environment for women? You are involved in what could be described as non-traditional-type work for women. How has that worked out for you, and, how has it--has it changed with time?

WIECHMAN: I--there was days it was tough. There was days when--you're a woman, working in a man's world, you have to prove yourself. Sometimes the men feel like, "If you're gonna do your job, if you're gonna do our job, do it." And then there was days when the men would help you. "Look, we'll help you." You know. "We'll help do it." But generally, they would be like, if you're wanting to work in a man's world, give it all you've got. We're willing to help you, if you'll do your share. And that's the way I look at it. They'll--I haven't seen a man out here that wouldn't help a woman do anything. As long as she does her fair share, they're willing to help you. And they'll do their fair share, so, as far as I'm concerned, when it comes to that, I, I've had good luck with--I've enjoyed working with all the guys out here that I've worked with. I mean, you know, it's, it's a pretty give and take 00:51:00situation. If you don't want to work, then you shouldn't be there to start with. But if you're there and willing to work, everybody's there willing to work with you. When it comes to the men and the women, that's the way it's always been for me. I, I'd really have to say that, because I can't, I can't remember a, a time when the men wasn't there to help me if I really needed it. And same with me, for them. If they--because there are some that--there's some men that can't handle some men jobs, and same, same. There's some women that can't handle women jobs--(laughs)--but, pretty much out here, there, there was--they, they helped one another. From the way I, the way I look at it, even back when I first was hired, in the warehouse, they were there. They, they expected you to do your job. But if you did your job, they was there to help you do it. So.

TROLAND: So, the environment for a woman working in more male traditional 00:52:00occupations, that environment has, in your experience, always been pretty good? Or has it changed with time since you've been here?

WIECHMAN: In my experience, it's always been pretty good. Now, there's some that'll probably tell you no. But there again, it depends on whether they're willing to work or not. That's a two-way street. You- -it's--and it's all in your, your own mindset. If you set your mind to do your job, and want to work, and be--work as a team player, a team member, they'll work with you as a team player or a team member. But if you don't want to be a team player, they're not gonna work with you. And I don't think anybody would want to work with somebody that didn't want to work as a team. And to me out here, everybody tries to work as a team. And I try to get them to. I mean, we, we've got--there's always exceptions to the rule, on any rule, and anywhere you'd work. 00:53:00We--you've always got them people that don't want to be team players. But--and there'll always be that. But I think out here, and pretty much in any job that I've ever had, working as--and some of the jobs I've done have been really masculine jobs and I've had to work. But, like I said, they, they--my experience, as long as you do your job, they'll help you do it.

TROLAND: Have you had experiences here where a male colleague initially was quite skeptical about a woman's ability to do a job--

WIECHMAN: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

TROLAND: --and then things changed with time?

WIECHMAN: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Very much so.

TROLAND: Without naming any names, are there any interesting stories, perhaps, that come from that type of experience?

WIECHMAN: Not really. I think when I first came here--now, some of the guys told me that when--a lot of them didn't know where I was actually 00:54:00from. They thought I'd moved here from Cincinnati. They thought I was actually from Cincinnati instead of just from Kansas. And this was in the first few months that I had moved here. And I guess that the story went, in the warehouse, that I was a woman wrestler (laughs) and when I found that out, I really had to laugh. I said, "Oh, that couldn't be any further from the truth. In all my life, I've never wrestled. No, no, no." (laughs) I guess, I don't know whether it was just that old farm work, that--the strength that I had as a woman, they just hadn't seen that, I guess, maybe, in a lot of women. And they had--yeah, it got out that I was a woman wrestler. But I never was. I never did do that. (laughs) And I wasn't from Cincinnati. I only lived there about two months before I moved here. So, they had it, they had that kind of wrong, and they still, a lot of me laugh and tease me about me being a woman wrestler from Cincinnati. (laughs)

TROLAND: Apart from your career here at Buffalo Trace, what else interests you in life?

WIECHMAN: I like to camp. I like to go camping. I, I want to retire in Arizona someday. I got a daughter that lives there, and two grandchildren, and a son-in-law. And I would love to go there. I'd be there today, if I could retire, (laughs) but it's a little ways--a little, little far off for that, right now. But, yeah. I, I enjoy the warm, the heat.

TROLAND: Someday, I'm sure they will write another history of this distillery, and perhaps your name will be mentioned. What would you like to have someone say about you and your time here?

WIECHMAN: Oh. That's a tough one. I really don't know. I really don't know. I wouldn't--I wouldn't know what to say about that. As long as they left the lady wrestler out, maybe I'd be-- (laughs)

TROLAND: Do you drink bourbon at all yourself?

WIECHMAN: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I, I, I drink bourbon. I like bourbon, uh, I drank more bourbon when I lived in Kansas than I did after I moved here. But, I can tell you one thing I was really, really surprised at, is I used to say, "There's no way they keep that bourbon around all them years. They don't--you know, ten years old, twelve years old. How do they know?" And when I actually came out here and went to work, and I actually seen how they really did keep track of it, and how the federal government keeps track of it, and how the tax system works, my eyes got really open to a whole different world. I mean, 00:57:00it was, it was a learning experience, and it has been ever since. I think I learn something every day I come to work out here. I--there's very few days I don't go home without learning something from this distillery, and I guess that's what keeps me from not getting tired of my job out here, as long as I keep learning, that's the way I like it. I don't--if my mind gets idle, I don't--I like to keep learning new things, and learning. And, like I said, I learn something more every day out here. And the tourists that'd come through our bottling house up there, I learn stuff from them every day, and they ask me all kinds of questions up there. I--from--every day, we look forward to the tourists coming through. There was a jockey went through yesterday. And he even knew some of the people I knew in Kansas, some of the horse trainers and stuff. And we got to talking, and--yeah. He was quite the little guy. He was retired, and, and, actually, I think 00:58:00our paths had met in Kansas, years ago, on the off season, when they wouldn't be racing, why they'd be there. He was there for the Kentucky Derby this week. And, yeah he was quite the little guy. So it's just, you never know who you're gonna run into up there. And I enjoy that. I really do. They--this distillery's got a lot of history behind it, and a lot of people behind it. And a lot of people that come in from year to year, you know, that'll come in just to come in and visit and talk, and come through again. I really enjoy that.

TROLAND: What's your favorite bourbon?

WIECHMAN: I enjoy Buffalo Trace. Don't think I don't. But my favorite is Van Winkle. I'll have to say. Twenty-year-old Van Winkle, I love that; pocketbook can't handle it, but I like it. It's--would be my 00:59:00favorite bourbon, if I was gonna drink bourbon all the time. That would probably be my favorite bourbon. It's, it's a sweeter bourbon. I don't know if it's because I like the more wheated bourbons. Maybe it's because I'm a wheat farmer from Kansas. (laughs) Maybe that's got something to do with it, I don't know. But I do like the sweeter bourbon. It just tastes better.

TROLAND: Is there anything else you'd like to say that I haven't already asked you?

WIECHMAN: Nothing that I can think of.

TROLAND: Well, Marsha, thank you very much for taking time out for this interview.

WIECHMAN: You're welcome. You're welcome. I, I don't know if anybody's ever told you about all the, the ghosts we've got up here in Blanton Hall, and in the bottling house. Have they?

TROLAND: No. Perhaps you should tell us about those.

WIECHMAN: You haven't ever heard about the, the ghosts?

TROLAND: I'm not sure I have.

WIECHMAN: Well, they've got them. And I used to process out here at 01:00:00night, up there in Blanton. And you could hear noises. Our break room used to be where the clubhou-, or, where the gift shop is. You go over there and sit on break, and it'd be real quiet, and there'd be nobody out here except me and the guard, setting at the guard gate up there. And you could hear footsteps upstairs. And I'd look out, and the guard was there. And I'd wave, and he'd wave back. He'd come down, he'd say, "What is it, Marsha?" And I'd say, "Listen." And the guard would say, "Our ghost is at it again, aren't they?" "Yeah. The ghost is at it again." Well, a few years ago, they had a, a medium come in out here. And they said there was a lot of orbs up over our bottling house over here. There was five or six, at least, and there was two in our Blanton Hall over there. I wasn't here the night that the, the medium come out, but I told them the next time they came out, I would love to be--because I've heard them--because I've came into this place 01:01:00so early, of a morning, so many years. And I've heard and seen things that just would scare you. I mean, just make your hair stand on ends. And there's no, no explainable reason for it. I'm surprised somebody hasn't said something before now. Nobody's said anything about that?

TROLAND: I haven't heard those stories so far, but I'm glad to hear them now.

WIECHMAN: Well! (laughs) They truly are. They--it is--they, they always say Colonel Blanton's up there walking around. And I truly believe he is, some days. It can be real quiet, and you can hear things going on. It's like--(laughs)--"Okay! Glad to know you're there." So, yeah, if you ask them, they'll tell you. They probably just didn't think about 01:02:00it.

TROLAND: Marsha, I knew you had at least one more good story.

WIECHMAN: Oh. And that, that's, that's the truth. It truly is. (laughs) I've heard them.

TROLAND: So, again, thank you very much.

WIECHMAN: You're welcome, you're very welcome.

[End of Interview.]