Interview with Parker Beam, Craig Beam, August 28, 2013

DIXIE HIBBS: I'm Dixie Hibbs and I'm interviewing, uh, Parker and Craig Beam, father and son, here, on August 28, 2013, for the Kentucky Bourbon Tales. It's an oral history project of the University of Kentucky, the [Louie B.] Nunn Center for Oral History. And we've been having, uh, a spirited time here in this warehouse, uh, going back over time and, uh, talking about Parker's memories and, and his legacy here in the distilling industry. And now, with Craig brought in, uh, I was going to ask you about your, uh, the new fundraising that's going on with the, uh, the bottle that we have here. It's called the, uh, Promise of Hope Bottle. And wondered if you would, uh, explain what the Promise of Hope Bottle is about.

JOANNA HAY: We were going to pause--

PARKER BEAM: --well--

HAY: --you quickly.

HIBBS: I'm sorry.

UNKNOWN MALE: Can we scoot you back, just a couple of inches?

HIBBS: Sure.

UNKNOWN MALE: There we go.

HIBBS: He's just going to make me do that all again--

UNKNOWN MALE: --should be good--

HIBBS: --you know that--

UNKNOWN MALE: --is this the--

HAY: --no, we've got that part--

BRITTANY ALLISON: Okay, sorry.

CRAIG BEAM: --take two--(laughs)--

HIBBS: --okay--(laughs)--

UNKNOWN MALE: --the Promise Bottle--

PARKER BEAM: --yeah--

HAY: --yeah--

HIBBS: --sorry--(laughs)--

HAY: --that's the Promise bottle--

HIBBS: --I'll just get this out of the thing--

UNKNOWN MALE: --you all want to hold that--

CRAIG BEAM: --okay, alright--

HIBBS: --is that part of it--

HAY: --um-hm--

HIBBS: --yeah--

HAY: Can we get a little lighting?

UNKNOWN MALE: Um-hm.

HAY: I like that.

UNKNOWN MALE: Okay.

ALLISON: It looks good.

HAY: Okay, go ahead, Dixie.

HIBBS: Uh, do that again, is that what--no, you say you have that, okay.

HAY: Yeah, we're just--or, are you ready for the answer.

PARKER BEAM: Yeah, uh--

HIBBS: --I'm done with that, yeah--

PARKER BEAM: --I've been overwhelmed by the, uh, aspect of what's a, what this means to me, uh, far as, uh, they, the company and what they've thought of me over the years. And when I was diagnosed with ALS, which is better known as Lou Gehrig's disease, uh, they, uh, stepped up to the plate in my honor and wanted to, uh, produce a Parker's heritage product. And, uh, that I chose the barrels 00:02:00that would go into this product. And it's going to be a single barrel at 96 proof of, to my liking, which I selected, which I said prior to that. And they've also been generous enough that they're going to produce to our--well, it will produce twenty dollars for every bottle sold to the ALS Foundation. And it's, uh, it's, uh, supposedly it'll raise between $250,000 to $300,000 for the ALS. So I've, I've been very honored by that aspect of, of their contribution.

HIBBS: And now, this is the group, the Parker Beam Promise of Hope is what it's--

PARKER BEAM: --right--

HIBBS: --organized in your--

PARKER BEAM: --right--

HIBBS: --in your honor there and, and to support this. It's a beautiful bottle. Beautiful bottle, there. Uh, someone was telling me, I think, that this choice of your bottle came from, uh, one of the warehouses somewhere else here. Is that correct? Am I thinking about it, uh, Samuels?

CRAIG BEAM: Oh, T.W. Samuels?

HIBBS: Yeah.

PARKER BEAM: Yeah--

HIBBS: --yeah--

PARKER BEAM: --that--

CRAIG BEAM: --yes--

PARKER BEAM: --yeah--

CRAIG BEAM: --um-hm--

HIBBS: --yeah, sorry, that's what--

CRAIG BEAM: --right--

PARKER BEAM: --yeah, that's where, yeah, we selected a number barrels out of the warehouse, or that complex.

HIBBS: Um-hm.

PARKER BEAM: I always liked the high aging that some of those warehouses, because they were tiered, you had a certain number of barrels up in that tier part.

HIBBS: Right.

PARKER BEAM: And they always age well and they've got a lot of air and a lot, a 00:04:00lot of the sunlight.

HIBBS: Um-hm.

PARKER BEAM: They were well-positioned to produce, uh, that kind of a product. I always like to select--

HIBBS: --um-hm--

PARKER BEAM: --out of those houses.

HIBBS: The, um, every year you put together a, a Parker's, um, heritage group. But this year, this is going to be the, the primary--

PARKER BEAM: --right--

HIBBS: --bottle for the people--

PARKER BEAM: --that's the Promise--

HIBBS: --for collector's--

PARKER BEAM: --yeah--

HIBBS: --and those who, who want to, uh, to actually not just taste good whiskey, but to serve it to their friends, and--

PARKER BEAM: --right--

HIBBS: --in, in your honor and, and, uh, also for what you are accomplishing. Craig, what do you think about what's going on here with that?

CRAIG BEAM: Oh, I think it's, it's fantastic--

HIBBS: --right--

CRAIG BEAM: --what, what Heaven Hill's doing for, for Dad. I think is wonderful, yeah.

HIBBS: In talking with your father about how he came up through the distilling, uh, process is from sweeping the, the, uh, office to the, uh, cleaning out the mash tubs and all, you know, the hands-on. He did share with us that you had 00:05:00some sweeping to do, too, when you first came here.

CRAIG BEAM: Oh, right--

HIBBS: --yeah--

CRAIG BEAM: --right. Yeah, not, one of my first jobs were, uh, down there, at the T.W. Samuels plant. Uh, they have a facility, they bought that, I guess, sometime around, I guess, [19]80, [19]81, somewhere. And, uh, they've been sitting vacant, the warehouses had and some of the roofs were off and windows were out. So, uh, had a lot of pigeons in their warehouse had been roosting for a great number of years. And there was a lot of pigeon droppings in the warehouse. And, uh, so my job was, and Dad asked me if I had wanted to work down there one summer, and, and I had a few other guys I came up with, and they helped. In fact, some of them are still working at Heaven Hill today. And, uh, so we start, we started at the top and got rid of all the pigeons and, uh, you know, started sweeping from the top, scraping the pigeon droppings out, and started at the top, and swept all the way down. So, uh, that was a pretty nasty job, because at the end of the day, you were just black and dirty and dusty. So 00:06:00it was, uh, it was a heck of a job. It was hot, just like days like this--

HIBBS: --yes --

CRAIG BEAM: --too. So we, because that's when we did it was in the summertime--

HIBBS: --yeah, summer--

CRAIG BEAM: --so, yeah, it was five of them that, that we did, so.

HIBBS: Alright. Well, you, uh, I know your, your father followed his father into the industry, who had followed his father into the industry. And so, that, uh, uh, the tradition is continuing here. And, uh, at this point, uh, what position do you hold here in, in the, op-, op-, I know, you're a distiller, but I mean, in terms of, uh, you are the major distiller here?

CRAIG BEAM: Right, yes. Um-hm, yes.

HIBBS: And your duties are?

CRAIG BEAM: Well, my duties are make sure the grain's right coming in. Of course, I buy all the grain and get the grain trucked in, so I make sure the grain's right. Uh, uh, of course, we get all the corn from the farmers. And then, uh, we haul in the malt and the rye. Uh, then just overseeing the distillery on a day-to-day basis. Make sure it's clean and the yeast is doing right, and just from, from start to finish. And followed(??) sometime in the 00:07:00warehouse and sampling barrels and, uh, then to get in on the marketing end of it and help go out and promote and travel, and, and, uh, just overseeing the whole operation from start to finish.

HIBBS: What's your favorite part of it?

CRAIG BEAM: Oh, I guess, probably, some of it's traveling. I mean, you know, it's, it's getting out there and meeting the consumer and, and hearing what they like and talking to them. And it's always makes you really feel good to get a few people to change over from another product to, to your product. So, uh, it kind get, getting out, seeing, seeing what's going on out there. And then I go back and tell the employees, you know, uh, what I see out there in the marketplace and kind of fill them in a little bit. It kind of makes them feel good about what they're doing as well.

HIBBS: There areseveral, uh--

UNKNOWN MALE: --should we focus more on questions that--

HIBBS: --um-hm, on them(??)?

HAY: Yeah, the father-son.

HIBBS: Okay. Sorry. Uh--(laughs)--you know, I know that you probably each have your own, um, techniques. Uh, I assume you have a recipe or something you're following here in making bourbon. But have you been able to, uh, add to your father's, um, legacy here with, with either something new or just enhancing it or, uh, just supporting it, you know--

CRAIG BEAM: --right--

HIBBS: --and working with it?

CRAIG BEAM: Right, well, first, you know, naturally I started supporting it, of course--

HIBBS: --um-hm--

CRAIG BEAM: --and, uh, as he turned it over to me and, uh, and taking care of the yeast and taking care of the, the formula that we have. And then, uh, and yeah, we've, uh, I've branched off, you know, and as we've come up with new ideas and new, new products out there. Uh, one, for instance is our wheat whiskey--

HIBBS: --um-hm--

CRAIG BEAM: --or wheat, uh, Bernheim, uh, so that was totally new. And, and of course, when we acquire, require-, when we, uh, bought, uh, Old Fitzgerald years 00:09:00ago, so that was the first wheated bourbon for us. So that was a little different by using wheat and not rye. So then we kind of spun that off into, uh, the, the wheat Bernheim, uh, wheat whiskeys what we have. And so, now we've got Larceny that's, that's been out on the market for the past year. And, uh, and so, uh, then we're, we're experimenting around with some other products that we haven't got out there on the market right now, too. So yeah, we've, uh, I've, you know, I've grown and branched out in other areas as well, but yet, keep the same type of tradition still in the background. You know, keeping the, using our yeast and, uh, keeping everything clean, and.

HIBBS: Have, do you ever have you take your problems to your father that you might run into in this, or?

CRAIG BEAM: Oh, yeah.

HIBBS: Uh-hm.

CRAIG BEAM: Yeah, we talk, talk several times a day or, or, you know, throughout the week. Used to be, uh, when, uh, of course, when I was first hired at the distillery in 1983, uh, I was a swing-shift supervisor. So, uh, 00:10:00what, whatever shift I worked, uh, why, we'd always call each other at 6:30 every morning. And, uh, and then, he would, uh, you know, we would talk about what's, what was going on at the distillery and any problems that I saw that I was having or, or we might have, you know, might come up. So any ideas, we'd run across, you know, new equipment or when we ought to buy a new mash pump or what we need to do to the still and, you know, put in a doubler. You know, we just, we kind of had, uh, really, a distillery meeting just about every morning at 6:30. Now, of course, sometime, when I get, uh, when I would, uh, get off at midnight, 12:00 or 1:00, he would still call me at 6:30--

HIBBS: --six-thirty--(laughs).

PARKER BEAM: Yeah.

CRAIG BEAM: So I'd have to make sure I was awake. (all laugh)

PARKER BEAM: Jay Crimm(??), he was the night shift supervisor. He'd always call me at 6:00.

HIBBS: Oh.

PARKER BEAM: So I got to sleep in when Craig was on night shift.

HIBBS: Night shift. Oh.

CRAIG BEAM: (laughs) Yeah.

HIBBS: Okay.

PARKER BEAM: So he'd always call me at 6:00. You'd reach over and get the phone in your hand. You knew it was going to ring, you know. (Hibbs laughs)

CRAIG BEAM: Sometime we'd be out in the hayfield putting up hay, and we'd stop and talk about, we'd come up with an idea concerning the distillery, we'd talk about that. And then I'd say, "Well, we better keep going. Get this hay up before, before it starts"--

PARKER BEAM: --yeah--

CRAIG BEAM: --"raining on us."

HIBBS: Yeah.

CRAIG BEAM: (laughs) But yeah, we talked distillery talk quite a bit, you know, no matter if we was working cattle or, or out there in the hayfield--

PARKER BEAM: --it was always on your mind, see.

CRAIG BEAM: Yeah, yeah.

PARKER BEAM: You never got it, completely away from it.

CRAIG BEAM: Well, you really--

PARKER BEAM: --no matter--

HIBBS: --yeah--

PARKER BEAM: --where you are--

CRAIG BEAM: --right--

PARKER BEAM: --you know.

CRAIG BEAM: Right.

PARKER BEAM: If you're in St. Croix on vacation, you're--

CRAIG BEAM: --yeah--

PARKER BEAM: --still thinking about it, see.

CRAIG BEAM: Well, you're on duty all the time--

PARKER BEAM: --yeah, right--(laughs)--

CRAIG BEAM: --twenty-four/seven--

PARKER BEAM: --yeah--

CRAIG BEAM: --you know, really, fifty-two weeks a year, even if the distillery's not running but fifty weeks a year.

HIBBS: Gotcha.

CRAIG BEAM: Because you've got all this maintenance going on, so that was really a crucial time to really be around. You had all that going on.

HAY: Do you--can I ask a question, Dixie?

HIBBS: Well, sure. Please.

HAY: Do you have any stories of something that happened here, a drama or a problem that you had to, you were thrown in together and had to deal with? Is there, or anything that comes to mind, um, any disasters that you had to deal with and had to--

PARKER BEAM: --oh, yeah. The big disaster was the fire.

HIBBS: Fire.

CRAIG BEAM: Yeah.

PARKER BEAM: That--

HAY: --is that something you worked on together?

PARKER BEAM: Yeah--

CRAIG BEAM: --yeah--

PARKER BEAM: --oh, yeah--

CRAIG BEAM: --yeah--

PARKER BEAM: --we, uh, we planned this and how we do that. Then it was really a, a challenge to see how you could you still put some barrels--(laughs)--in the warehouses, even though you had to overcome that. Then you had to meet with other suppliers that stepped up and said they would help you to produce. And so, you wanted to be able--you know, Craig and myself had to meet with them and 00:13:00make sure they followed our formula standards while they were producing. And then you had to monitor all of that. So, it was quite a challenge. That's probably the biggest challenge that we've ever had together that we had to face. Now, we had everyday small items that, you know, did the mash cooker do this or that, or was this guy, did he get it clean enough, or what, where the hot water needed to be, or had the scald this pipe, and that. You know, you always face those every day.

CRAIG BEAM: Yeah.

PARKER BEAM: Then you talked about them. Did you, uh, make sure that water went down the headline, or that, you know, so.

HIBBS: Well, the fire that he's talking about, would you explain a little more, uh, Craig, about the, uh, the date of it and, and what it actually, uh, consumed?

CRAIG BEAM: Well, I was here, uh, on that day and that was, uh, November seventh. It was about eight degrees, you know, which is kind of unusual for that time of year. Uh, the wind had been blowing all day long. And, uh, there were some storms. They were talking about some severe weather coming in that late that afternoon. Um, I was down at the old distillery in, in the office, and then I heard somebody say, "The warehouse is on fire up here on the hill." So, I stepped out of the office, ran out of the office, and looked up, and I could see flames shooting out of the window. And so, me and, me and several guys went up to the top of the, of the hill where the warehouse was. And, uh, of course, we all had radios on at, on us at the time, so radioed back down to the distillery and told everybody to--because we knew we was going to lose power, probably, anyways, so. Of course, everybody needed, you know, to be 00:15:00shutting everything down, be, be thinking about getting out. And, uh, so that's what we did. And, and the power on the warehouses up here, there's a big switch, uh, gear out here in, out here in the yard, out here around the warehouse, we cut all that off to main power going to the other warehouses. And, uh, just sit back and watch it unfold. And, uh, just kind of felt helpless, you know. Of course, it was really windy. Then next thing you know, the debris off the burning warehouse fell, uh, and, uh, started flying across on, and hit another warehouses, just kind of like a domino effect. And, uh, then when the first one collapsed and then, of course, all the wood, burning alcohol went down the hill and surrounded the other warehouses. And, and of course, the distillery was all at the bottom. And of course, they caught the brunt of seven warehouses burning all the alcohol surrounding it. So, uh, I guess there was something you always kind of never thought a lot about but you knew that, that was always a possibility that something happened to the one of 00:16:00the warehouses above, up here on the hill, because you were below the hill, that that was always a possibility. Of course, you never thought you'd ever see it.

HIBBS: Um-hm.

CRAIG BEAM: So we were really fortunate that no lives or anybody got hurt. No lives were lost and everybody evacuated out safely, so.

HIBBS: I would say(??), I think, uh, I don't know if you remember when, uh, I ran into you, I think, that next morning after the fire, and the first question I had for you, "Did you get the yeast out?"

CRAIG BEAM: Yeah.

HIBBS: Yeah.

CRAIG BEAM: Yeah, well, the yeast was saved.

HIBBS: Yes.

CRAIG BEAM: In fact, I just had got through making it--

HIBBS: --yeah--

CRAIG BEAM: --uh, about an hour before that happened. And we just put it in our cooler box that sits on the top floor. And, uh, so it was safe. And so, yeah, so several days after that, we were able to go down in a high lift and go up in the window--I think it was up on the fifth floor--and went through the window and got the, got the jug yeast out and brought it, brought it out and put it in a local liquor store here in a cooler box until we found something else to 00:17:00do with it.

HIBBS: Yeah, yeah. Oh, man. Well, like you say, you, uh, something that you never thought would happen did happen. But, uh, it was a terrible tragedy. And yet, I think it made you all stronger.

CRAIG BEAM: Right.

HIBBS: And it showed where, uh, how much support you had all over the United States and, uh, across. Anyway, but.

PARKER BEAM: Everybody stepped up to help us out, from Beam to Early Times, Brown-Forman, uh, the--

CRAIG BEAM: --um-hm--

PARKER BEAM: --everybody, you know--

HIBBS: --yeah, yeah--

PARKER BEAM: --said they would produce for us, so.

HIBBS: Yeah.

PARKER BEAM: They did. And that got us out of that, that we were able to acquire the Bernheim operation in Louisville, so the, that really helped us, you know, not lose a step as far as production goes. Even though it wasn't produced 00:18:00at our plant, it was produced to our quality standards and used our formulization for what we think made, has made our bourbon over the years.

CRAIG BEAM: Yeah, I guess, some other challenges we had, I guess when we had some pretty good snowfalls--

HIBBS: --oh--

CRAIG BEAM: --in the nineties there, too, and so, especially that year when they shut the whole state down on the highway. And, and, uh, trying to keep the distillery running and, uh, at the old distillery and trying to fight this hill out here and trying to get the grain in and out. But of course, we didn't bring grain in, but we were able to kind of scale back a little at a time so we wouldn't run out of grain. We had quite a bit on hand when it happens, happened to hit. And, uh, and then, uh, of course, we was concerned about getting the byproduct out of slop, and out, because we knew that was going to be thing. 00:19:00Couldn't get the farmers down here. So we did, uh, take my pickup truck, got some salt out of the boiler room, and went up and down the hill here, and salted it, and had guys on the back of it put salt on the road by hand. And, uh, then we had a local guy that had a backhoe and a grader, so we graded the road off. And this hill was probably the best, the best stretch of road in the state at that time. So, that way we could get the farmers down here to get the, to haul the--

HIBBS: --right--

CRAIG BEAM: --byproduct away, so.

PARKER BEAM: Yeah, you, you usually had--

CRAIG BEAM: --that was a challenge--

PARKER BEAM: --to do those kind of things that--

CRAIG BEAM: --(laughs)--yeah--

HIBBS: --yeah--

PARKER BEAM: --you couldn't always depend on the state to get here, see.

CRAIG BEAM: Yeah, yeah.

HIBBS: Yeah.

PARKER BEAM: So you do ever what it took to keep the operation going.

HIBBS: Um-hm, yeah.

PARKER BEAM: I've even wheeled the salt out of the boiler room in the wheelbarrow and scattered it with the shovel up--

HIBBS: --yeah--

PARKER BEAM: --and down the hill--

HIBBS: --yeah--

PARKER BEAM: --in order to keep the--(laughs)--operation, you know, intact and keep it producing. So, those are some of the things that you experience, you 00:20:00know, being a master--(laughs)--distiller also. That--

CRAIG BEAM: --yeah--

HIBBS: --even before you had the title.

PARKER BEAM: That's right. Yeah.

HIBBS: Yeah.

CRAIG BEAM: Yeah.

PARKER BEAM: So.

CRAIG BEAM: And then another, another, it was about, probably, around that same time, I think one night, there, it got down, like, twenty below zero, twenty-two below zero. Of course, they, they took us off of gas and we had to burn oil.

PARKER BEAM: Yeah.

CRAIG BEAM: Well, the oil tank was all sludge and thick, that oil, it all was, at the bottom, because it had been sitting there for a while. We hadn't burned oil. So Charlie Downs and I rigged up an air hose and we'd take turns going, standing on top of that oil tank, and stir that oil around with that air hose, because the boiler would, I mean, it wouldn't run, because--

HIBBS: --right--

CRAIG BEAM: --that, running so long, and that would get that sludge around the suction end of it. And I mean that wind was blowing. So we, we took turns during that. So, but we kept it all going, so. (laughs)

HIBBS: That's one of your frozen memories--(Craig laughs)--I'll bet. Yeah.

CRAIG BEAM: (laughs) Yeah. Yeah.

PARKER BEAM: I remember, we had one little pipe heater in the old fermenting 00:21:00room we had. And it was, like, twenty below. And the guys, they took the tarps that we used to steam the tubs with, the old fermenters, made a tent set-up. And they, they would run out and stir the fermenters out from under that. We tied it to the rafters to made a, so we could stay warm in there and keep going, you know. All those kind of experiences I can, you know, relate. (laughs)

CRAIG BEAM: And we were about the only distillery doing that bad time that kept on running, and--

PARKER BEAM: --yeah, we never missed a lick, right--

CRAIG BEAM: --trying to, some of them, you know, we relied on coal--

PARKER BEAM: --yeah--

CRAIG BEAM: --course(??) we couldn't get the coal trucks in the state, so they had to end up shutting, end up shutting down, but--

HIBBS: --shutting down, yeah.

PARKER BEAM: I remember that was something I always pride myself in, we didn't miss a lick, you know. No matter what the weather was or what was going on, 00:22:00we'd find some way to keep it all in running and intact.

CRAIG BEAM: Yeah, during that same time, we thought we was going to have to throw the towel in because the power went out.

PARKER BEAM: Yeah.

CRAIG BEAM: And then that froze up the lake, uh, our lake line or water line coming, coming up over to the plant. So, it ran down here below the hill and through the woods. And, uh, so then we wondered what we was going to do for water. So then we got ahold of--of course, school was out and somebody had a bunch of cedar laps. So, uh, we loaded, got some schoolboys, and they loaded all that cedar lap and pulled it on the wagon and laid it all across that, that pipeline, and set all that on fire. And we got it unthawed. And so, it was back in business again.

HIBBS: Business again.

PARKER BEAM: At the same time--(Craig Beam and Dixie Hibbs laughs)--time that you couldn't do even that, uh, we'd burn tires on it--

HIBBS: --tires on it, yeah--

CRAIG BEAM: --yeah--

PARKER BEAM: --we'd take tires and lay on, on the pipeline and unthaw it.

CRAIG BEAM: Yeah. You had to do what you had to do to keep it going--

PARKER BEAM: --oh, yeah, yeah. It's--

HIBBS: --well, the basic distilling has all those stages you have to meet. And today's technology, I'm wondering how, uh, if there's been so much new technology added to distilling, if, uh, uh, have we lost somewhat the ability to, to rescue the distillery from things like you just did. In other words, you've got equipment that, uh, computers and electronics that, uh, you can't, you know, they're not, if they freeze up, you've got to call somebody to fix them. You can't, uh--

PARKER BEAM: --yeah--

HIBBS: --put the cedar laps--

CRAIG BEAM: --right--

HIBBS: --on them and things. I don't know whether it, we're depending too much. But, uh, I'm back, again, on Kentuckians. I'm really proud that, uh, we show our ingenuity that way, kind of thing. Responsibility, that's what coming through. And listening to both of you is, is, it's your distillery and it's your job to make it run.

CRAIG BEAM: Right, right.

PARKER BEAM: Well, that's the way I always looked at it--

CRAIG BEAM: --yeah--

PARKER BEAM: --that, you know, it was my job. And, of course, Craig took over 00:24:00it somewhat, uh, that responsibility. But it was always our job to make sure that you didn't miss a heartbeat, you know.

HIBBS: Yeah.

CRAIG BEAM: Right.

PARKER BEAM: It was always going to run in spite of everything else, you know. Uh, if it took seven days a week of hard work repairing something, you was out here all day on Sunday. I remember for the, the equipment, it was upgraded as we produced more. We had to work far as every Sunday, maintenance-wise, keeping it ready to go, because we were running at least six days a week, uh, ever since I've been here almost. And we had to work somewhere on the maintenance side of 00:25:00the operation every Sunday. So, it takes a lot to produce that six million barrels, over six million we produce. Over the years, there's a lot that goes into that, that most people can't imagine what's gone into producing all of that bourbon.

HIBBS: I think that's one of the, the, um, byproduct's, a good thing, but the benefits of the Bourbon Trail is that when they come to the site and they see all the warehouses and they see whatever distillery has their, their welcome center set up. They see pictures of how you used to do it and how they can look out here and imagine, you know. One of the first questions I ever got asked is, "Why don't they build these closer together?" Well, you know why they don't build the warehouses closer together.

CRAIG BEAM: Right.

HIBBS: But I think that when they can use their imagination with a little help from layouts(??) and things to put, um, a story behind the bottle. Because they 00:26:00can look at the bottle and taste it and think about it, but then they meet you all and meet the other people, the barrel-rollers, and the welcome center people, oh, it, it, it takes a village, that's what I like to say, that it takes--

CRAIG BEAM: --right--

HIBBS: --takes a lot of, uh, uh, people that are dep-, um, determined to do everything they can to produce and sell and, uh, represent Heaven Hill Distillery like they do. Yeah.

HAY: I have a question. What's the most important advice your father has given you, Craig, regarding being a master distiller at this, Heaven Hill?

CRAIG BEAM: Oh, I, I guess, uh, just keeping everything clean. That's, uh, you can't, you can't harp enough on that, is, uh, just keep everything washed out and keep it, keep your bacteria out of your distillery. You know, once you get that in, in your distillery, that's, uh, you, it's impossible to get rid of. You have to shut down and stop production. Run everything out and start over. 00:27:00So, of course, that's, that costs a lot of time and money, too, as well. So just keeping everything clean, make sure the employees, you know, keep their areas washed up. And, and, of course, not just the floors, I'm talking about all your pipes. And at the end of the day when you get through your, your mashing and your distillation, uh, process, just make sure you wash everything out and keep it clean. Keep the bacteria out. And so far, knock on wood--[knocks]--we've, we've never had to shut down because of bacteria problems.

PARKER BEAM: One thing that I always like to look back at along those lines is what my father always said and my grandfather said--which I'm named after, uh, on my dad, on that end--so, it's, my grandfather always said, "Let your nose be your chemist." He said, "You can tell if, uh, the distillery is run right when 00:28:00you walk in, in the door, it, by the smell, the aroma you get coming out of that plant." That's where he said, "Let your nose be your chemist." And I've, I've thought about that over the years. I've walked in some of the operations of some of our competitors and they didn't smell anything like ours did. You didn't get the right aromas coming out of that plant.

CRAIG BEAM: Yeah.

PARKER BEAM: So there's a lot of truth in that, I've learned. (laughs)

CRAIG BEAM: Yeah.

HIBBS: I was going to ask about that kind of thing. You've got your nose at work but you have your palates. Now, is your choice of the best, um, bourbon the same as your father's? Do you taste it the same way or do you have another, uh, one that you, you prefer?

CRAIG BEAM: I guess we probably taste it about the same way, I would--

PARKER BEAM: --yeah, I would think so--

CRAIG BEAM: --I would guess, so. Yeah.

PARKER BEAM: We agree a lot on what we taste. Uh, we don't vary very much. If I say it's good, Craig agrees with me that it's good when we select barrels and vice versa.

CRAIG BEAM: Right.

PARKER BEAM: And I usually agree with his taste, something that, I guess, we, you know, didn't intent to pass down but that's sort of in the genes of--

CRAIG BEAM: --yeah--

PARKER BEAM: --what we, our taste buds are very, very similar.

HIBBS: Similar.

CRAIG BEAM: Yeah, I could have been messed up and tried mine with Coke or something. (all laugh)

HIBBS: I was going to ask that very thing. That was one of those questions. Because I think I forgot to ask--

PARKER BEAM: --yeah.

HIBBS: --your father that, if, if he ever, uh, should bourbon be mixed with other, uh, other types of, um, you know, Cokes and, and, um, ginger ale and things like that, or is it--

PARKER BEAM: --well, I don't think you can get the real taste of bourbon, but 00:30:00if that's the way, you know, you enjoy your bourbon, that's so be it. You know, as long as it's ours, uh, I think, you know.

CRAIG BEAM: Yeah.

PARKER BEAM: Uh, you can make it taste any way you want to, but to get the real taste of bourbon and acquire the taste for it that you, you know that I like to have, you can't do it in any other way, but, you know, tasting the bourbon in the raw form.

CRAIG BEAM: Now, I've been, uh, you know, I've gone and gave talks and tastings with mixologists before. Of course, they're, you know, they're big in fixing cocktails and fixing this and that, and adding a little bit of everything thing in this and that. And, uh, of course, the way I fix my cocktail is just, uh, over ice, but, uh, or neat. But anyway that's some of the things I get asked. Well, "How do you feel about us using your bourbon in cocktails?" I say, "Well, 00:31:00that's fine. It's, at least it's getting our product out there."

HIBBS: Yeah.

CRAIG BEAM: "Just as long as I don't have to drink it that way."

HIBBS: There you go. (all laugh) That's above and beyond the call, right?

CRAIG BEAM: Right.

HIBBS: Yes, that way. Are we going to, uh, interview Craig separately, too? I'm just asking--

HAY: --yes--

HIBBS: --okay.

HAY: So--

HIBBS: --I'll save some of those question on that.

HAY: So this might be a good time--

HIBBS: --um-hm--

HAY: --is there anything else that the two of you wanted to interact about?

PARKER BEAM: Any other question--

HIBBS: --well--

PARKER BEAM: --that Dixie might have, there?

HAY: Uh.

PARKER BEAM: In this dual interview? (Craig Beam laughs) Well, uh, I'm trying to think how I want to put this. Um, I think the fact that you have the desirability to follow in your father's footsteps, uh, certainly is, uh, is going to be a lost art, because so few times can, can sons follow on in something like that.

CRAIG BEAM: Right.

HIBBS: But did you ever, ever think about not doing it?

CRAIG BEAM: Well, uh, you know, I went to, uh, I was always interested in, in meteo-, uh, the weather. So I thought about being a meteorologist. Uh, then, of course, growing up on the farm, working with the cattle, and giving cattle vaccines and shots when they were sick, or doctoring on a sore foot or something, I thought about being a veterinarian. Uh, so, of course, growing up, being around the distillery all my life with Dad and my grandfather and, and listening to them when I was young, we'd be, they'd be feeding cattle. And, of course, I was trying to help and listen to them talk distillery-talk like Dad and I would do. Uh, Dad and my grandfather would talk distillery-talk while we was doing something on the farm, fencing and feeding cattle or, or hay. So, I guess, you know, I got thinking, I thought, Well, I didn't like to go to school a whole lot, so I thought, Meteorologist, uh, going, going to school, I'd be, 00:33:00I'd be a long time probably. And so, the same way with being a veterinarian, I thought, Well, that'd be a long time, too. And then, I guess with the last name of Beam, I thought, Well, uh, that makes more sense for me to just follow Dad's footsteps. (laughs) And so, that's what I did.

HIBBS: Anything else you'd like to say?

PARKER BEAM: No--

HIBBS: --no--

PARKER BEAM: --not right offhand.

HIBBS: (all laugh) Well, I, uh, I really appreciate the opportunity to sit here--

PARKER BEAM: --well--

HIBBS: --and listen to you reminisce, and--

PARKER BEAM: --you've done a great job--

CRAIG BEAM: --thank you--

PARKER BEAM: --Dixie, being our moderator here, you know.

CRAIG BEAM: Yeah. (laughs)

HIBBS: I have to try to cut myself off every so often. I'm so used to doing what you do--

PARKER BEAM: --yeah--

HIBBS: --and just keep talking--

PARKER BEAM: --yeah--

HIBBS: --yeah, like that. But, uh, it's nice to be able to look back on the good times and the bad.

PARKER BEAM: Right.

CRAIG BEAM: Yeah.

HIBBS: And, uh, and if you're really fortunate in your life, you'll have a lot more good times than you'll have bad.

CRAIG BEAM: Oh, yeah.

PARKER BEAM: Well, yeah.

HIBBS: ----------(??) on that part.

PARKER BEAM: Yeah, I've been blessed, you know.

HIBBS: Yeah, that way. Well, I am, I don't know if they, I think, probably Craig or someone might be able to use the whiskey thief and the bung hammer or whatever, but, uh--

PARKER BEAM: --alright--

HIBBS: --I know it's sitting there in, uh, that old whiskey thief is pretty, pretty typical of the whiskey industry.

CRAIG BEAM: Oh, yes.

PARKER BEAM: Yeah.

HIBBS: Something worked, you didn't change it.

CRAIG BEAM: Right, yeah.

HIBBS: You know, when you go with that, and, and this way, too, you can tweak things and, and you can try new things, but if you got something that works, let's don't change it.

CRAIG BEAM: Right, right.

HAY: Want to describe that?

HIBBS: She wants you to describe it.

CRAIG BEAM: Oh, okay. Well, well, this is a whiskey thief. And, uh, in the top has a vent hole. And so, if, when you get ready to draw the samples out of the barrel, you stick down in the bung and kind of do like that with your finger off the hole. And then once you think you've got it pretty full, then you hold your finger over the hole, and then you pull, that's filling it all the way up 00:35:00the tube here. So you pull it, you hold your thumb on there until you get ready to put some in a glass. And let your thumb off a little at a time until it's empty. Yeah, it's--

PARKER BEAM: --now, some older ages--

HIBBS: --yeah--

PARKER BEAM: --that's sometimes a little bit hard to do, to get much volume in there--

HIBBS: --out of it, yeah--

CRAIG BEAM: --right--

PARKER BEAM: --because you --

HIBBS: --stick(??)--

PARKER BEAM: --got a lot of ----------(??) there that you've lost over the years.

HIBBS: Um-hm.

PARKER BEAM: Uh, so you started out with approximately fifty-three gallons in the barrel and so you wind up with about a third of that, so. And sometimes you have to do that a number of times to get a much volume in that thief.

CRAIG BEAM: Yeah, I've seen, you know, you take your eighteen-year-old, twenty-year-old products that you can't get anything out of, especially if it came off the six/seventh floor. Uh, can't get it sometime with a whiskey thief. 00:36:00So, we'll have to roll it out on the porch and pour it out to get a sample. (laughs)

PARKER BEAM: Yeah.

HIBBS: Is it, uh, I've seen barrels where the rolling it around broke the char loose on the inside,too. But so, if you're laying there, you're going to have char laying in the bottom, too--

PARKER BEAM: --yeah--

CRAIG BEAM: --right, right--

HIBBS: --and the longer it's there, the less volume of liquid, yeah.

PARKER BEAM: Right.

CRAIG BEAM: Right.

HIBBS: Gotcha.

PARKER BEAM: And, you know, the char doesn't hurt it.

HIBBS: No.

CRAIG BEAM: No.

PARKER BEAM: But you know, it--

HIBBS: --kind of hard to--

PARKER BEAM: --it's going to be in there, you know--

HIBBS: --soak it up, yeah, that way.

PARKER BEAM: So.

HIBBS: Well, I, uh, I like to think about, you know, people pass, pass on things--and, you know, today, we're probably passing on hard drives or something--but passing on a whiskey thief from father to son, from a grandfather to son, and all--

PARKER BEAM: --yeah--

CRAIG BEAM: --yeah--

HIBBS: --is pretty indicative of, of acknowledgement of your talent and your commitment and your sense of responsibility.

CRAIG BEAM: Right.

HIBBS: And, uh, that's what I see when I sit here; two people who've displayed that many, many years.

CRAIG BEAM: Yeah.

HIBBS: And in the future.

[End of interview.]