Interview with Jimmy Russell, Bill Samuels, Chris Morris, Craig Beam, Jim Rutledge, Mark Coffman, December 5, 2013

 KATHERINE TANDY BROWN: This is Katherine Tandy Brown, interviewing five of Kentucky's master distillers and one chairman emeritus in the bourbon industry for Kentucky Living Magazine's April issue. Um, we appreciate your being here today so very much. If you would--we'll start with Mark--introduce yourself and your, um, position and your distillery, please.

MARK COFFMAN: Okay, Mark Coffman with Town Branch Distillery, Master Distiller.

JIM RUTLEDGE: Jim Rutledge, Master Distiller, Four Roses Bourbon.

JIMMY RUSSELL: Jimmy Russell, Master Distiller at the Wild Turkey Distillery.

BILL SAMUELS: Bill Samuels, uh, thirty-six years as president, Maker's Mark. Recently kicked off the reservation by my son. (laughter) Retired.

CHRIS MORRIS: Chris Morris, Master Distiller for Brown-Forman in the Woodford Reserve Distillery.

CRAIG BEAM: Craig Beam, Master Distiller out of Heaven Hill Distillery.

BROWN: Great, again, thank you all for being here. Um, for many, and probably most of you, the bourbon business is generational. Who introduced you into the business? And what's a favorite memory of that relative? We'll start with you, Craig.

BEAM: Uh, well, I just kind of grew up with it, uh, with my grandfather and, uh, and my father all my life, just going around to the distillery when I was, was a young, just barely old enough to walk, I guess, going out with them, checking, uh, the yeast on the weekends, and the temperatures of the yeast, and, and of a jug yeast, and make sure the cooler box were working on the jug yeast. Just checking overall, just running around with a, with him as I, uh, was growing up. And, uh, and just listened to my grandfather and my father talk 00:02:00distillery talk all the time. It was just about twenty-four/seven. So I just listened to all that. And then I guess with the last name of Beam, I mean, I didn't know what else I could do, too, to--(laughter)--figured I had a pretty good foothold to get my name in the pot, so.

BROWN: Chris?

MORRIS: Very similar story--not with a grandfather--to Craig's. Uh, my mother and father were both Brown-Forman employees. Actually met and fell in love and got married at Brown-Forman. And, uh, I like to say I was a Brown-Forman baby because I've got the, the Brown Forum, which was our, our corporate, uh, news, uh, newsletter, with a picture of my birth announcement in it, so there I am.

BROWN: Bill?

SAMUELS: Well, I actually ran from what my father was up to back in the sixties, and ended up in law school at Vanderbilt. And next thing I know I was being mentored by Dad's best friend, who was a fellow named Hap Motlow, who was the chairman of Jack Daniels, who also was Mr. Jack's great-nephew. And, uh, 00:03:00subliminally, he was, uh, three years of mentoring, and then on graduation day he announced that I would go back and spend one year with my father. And, and that turned into fifty years.

BROWN: Jimmy?

RUSSELL: Well, my grandfather was in the business; my father was in the business; my wife worked at the Wild Turkey Distillery at one time. I'm not going any further back than my grandfather, cause as old as I am, it might not have been legal. (laughter) My son's been with me now for thirty-three years at Wild Turkey Distillery, so it's been a family affair with us. I grew up around the bourbon distilleries. Uh, in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, when I was growing up, there was four bourbon distilleries in Lawrenceburg. We're down to two now: Four Roses and us. But there was four bourbon distilleries. And we had families working at all distilleries. And even today it's a family affair at all the distilleries. I got, Jim's got one of my friends' niece working for him. (laughter) I got a cousin working at Buffalo Trace. And, uh, her husband 00:04:00works for us at the Wild Turkey Distillery. So it's just grew up around the bourbon business all the time.

BROWN: Great. Jim?

RUTLEDGE: Well, I'm the first, uh, one of our family in the distilling business. So, uh, I don't have a history. After graduating from the University of Louisville, I took a while, was looking for a career rather than a job, and was actually offered two jobs on, uh, the same day, one with Philip Morris and one with Seagram, uh, to start in their research and development. Uh, began my career in, uh, November of 1966, and, uh, haven't regretted a minute of the entire forty-seven years.

BROWN: Mark?

COFFMAN: Well, me too; I'm, I'm also a first generation. Um, I was fascinated when I first moved to Kentucky in 1980 of the bourbon industry. And, uh, at that time it was pretty difficult to get in and see them, and gather much of the history or see what really goes on in the background, but when I started with 00:05:00Alltech in [19]86, their background was in the alcohol business, mostly fuel, but they also supplied a lot of yeast and service and enzymes into the alcohol, or the beverage business also, so that gave me a little bit of background coming into the business. So actually we're fairly new to it. Uh, we really started distilling in 2008. So, um, we're, we're the newbies compared to hundreds of years of experience to my colleagues right here, so.

BROWN: Thank you. Craig, when did you have your first drink of bourbon? Do you remember? And what was the experience?

BEAM: Hmm. Well, um, I remember as a child growing up and the, uh, I'd be coughing, which I might end up doing that now. But--(laughter)--anyway, uh, I remember, I remember Mom and Dad fixed me a hot toddy with the honey, I guess some sugar, and I guess lemon. I don't know, I guess that's what all went into it. Kind of heating it up, spoon feeding it to me, wake me up at night, and 00:06:00sitting on the edge of the bed, and, and spoon that down me. And I was thinking, Gosh, that sure is nasty. (laughter) So I guess that might've been some of the start, I guess. And then I remember probably thirteen-years-old, I was, uh, probably sipping a little bit around, uh, during that time.

BROWN: Really?

BEAM: Yes. (laughter)

BROWN: Chris, how about you?

MORRIS: I just remember I had to be quite young, because I'd go into the kitchen in the evening, and Mom would be cooking supper, and she'd have a glass of Old Forester in, on the rocks, sitting on the counter. And I'd look up, cause I was quite short, and I'd ask, "Could I have a sip?" every evening. And she'd say yes, and I'd sip. And like Craig, I'd go, "Oof," and we'd have a laugh. And then I'd go on. So I don't know how young it was, but it's pretty young.

BROWN: Jimmy, how about you?

RUSSELL: Well, they tell me I was around six or seven months old. Raised around the bourbon family, when you started cutting teeth, stick the finger in 00:07:00bourbon, rub it. You know what happened? You knocked out the baby long enough so the parents could get some sleep. (laughter) And, uh, like Craig, if you started coughing in the wintertime, they'd take a little bourbon, little honey, little honey, little lime juice, sugar, give it to you. I told them I got pretty smart when I was five- or six-years-old; I just coughed all winter. (laughter) I got my bourbon that-a-way. (laughter)

BROWN: Jimmy, does that sound familiar to you at all?

RUTLEDGE: Well, I probably didn't have my first drink until later, uh, fifteen or sixteen. And, uh, I can remember the, a few of my friends, and I, I can't remember how we came across the bottle, but taking a first drink, and I, uh, I swore I'd never take another drink again in my life. It was the worst--(laughs)--experience of my laugh up to that time. But, uh, of course, everything, uh, changes. And no one's born with a, a taste; it's an acquired taste. And, uh, uh, then in our business we have an opportunity to, uh, just make an art of the business and, uh, make it the best we can, uh, in our own 00:08:00unique ways. And, uh, it wasn't really until I got into the business that I really learned to, uh, enjoy and acq-, acquire a taste.

BROWN: Really? Okay. Mark?

RUSSELL: You wasn't supposed to drink it all the first time they say, Jim. You tried to drink it all up one time.

RUSSELL: No, I think it was one drink. (laughter) That was enough. (laughter)

BROWN: How about you, Mark?

COFFMAN: Well, I was also a teenager, and I'd, uh, see what my dad had in his, uh, little cabinet. And, uh, usually it'd be a nice bourbon from Kentucky. And, um, I would, uh, when no one was around I'd take a sip of it to see really what this was about, and just like everyone else I turned up my nose and said, "Oh my gosh, this, how could you enjoy this?" But like Jim, Jim said, uh, you do acquire the taste over time, and you get to enjoy it a little bit more.

BROWN: And how do you acquire that taste? How do you develop it?

COFFMAN: Start out a little bit slower, and let it, let it wash around your 00:09:00mouth a little bit, and try to pick up some of the notes and the, the fragrances that it has. Uh, take your time and enjoy it. Uh, make it an intimate experience, unlike just throwing it back like a shot you would. (laughs) So you really need to enjoy it a bit more.

BROWN: Uh, Chris, did you feel a pressure to go into the business, early on, because of your family?

MORRIS: It wasn't, uh, pressure so much as, uh, I remember I hadn't graduated from high school. It was a week or two before graduation. And I was sitting in the living room, and Dad came home and said, "Are you going to work this summer?" And I'd always worked. Had a friend whose family owned a nursery business, so we're out, I remember taking care of, uh, Burger Kings and a, and a local bank, you know, their landscaping. I said, "Of course, I'm working." He said, "Good. You start tomorrow." "What do you mean, I start tomorrow? I haven't even graduated from high school yet." He said, "Do you want to work or not?" So I said, "Sure." And the very next day I was at Brown-Forman Central 00:10:00Laboratory beginning my internship, and I just fell in love with it and, and never wanted to leave.

BROWN: What'd you do when you first started?

MORRIS: First day, I was stuck in a lab with a crazy young guy named Doug Knop. (laughter) Who works for him. Um, his father was head of Brown-Forman Central Laboratory, and Doug was teaching me all the ends and outs of how to test grain for approval and, and receive it into the distillery. And I just thought it was pretty cool.

BROWN: How'd you start, Jimmy?

RUSSELL: Well, they said I was in quality control. It don't mean the same things it does today. You went and got the samples, and you run the tests and all on them, and the grains and all. You might be in there with a scoop shovel, scooping it out before it was over there before the day's over. Now quality control, they take the samples to the lab, and everybody does it right in there. But my day and time you done just a little bit of everything. You swept floors. You done the quality control work. You got to taste, and just a little bit of everything when I started.

BROWN: Craig, did you feel that pressure to go into the business, and how'd you 00:11:00handle that?

BEAM: Well, I, I didn't really feel pressure, I don't guess. I just, uh, again, growing up with it, and then I did some work, summer work, too, at the distilleries for several years before I actually went in and, uh, and got, decided that this is what I wanted to do. So I'm, I'm sure there would've been some disappointments if I'd decided to do something else different, but anyway, I, I think it all worked out fine.

BROWN: What did you do when you first started?

BEAM: Well, one of my first jobs I did was right outside of town, about five miles out of town. Heaven Hill bought some warehouses about, I think, 1980. And they'd been sitting vacant for years and the windows were out. Some of the roofing was gone, uh, was off of it. So they, they were going to fix them up. But, uh, since all the roof and windows had been out, there was a lot of pigeons been roosting in there for a great many years. And so, Dad said, "I got a good 00:12:00job for you there to start off with." So asked me if knew some boys I went to high school with, and that needed jobs. So I rounded up about five guys, and some of those guys today are still working at Heaven Hill. And, um, and we went in there, and we got rid of the pigeons, and the roofers came in, and constructor, uh, contractors came in, putting the windows in. We started at the top of the warehouses and scraped all the pigeon droppings. I mean, it was quite a bit that deep on each rig. Worked our way down the floors, all the way down through, and, uh, I mean, you were, it looked like you been in the coal mines at the end of the day. So did that biggest part of all of one summer. That was one of the jobs that was, uh, that's, uh, was probably the worst job, I guess, I had.

BROWN: Um, Jim, who, who are your mentors, or who had been your mentors in the business, since you didn't really grow up in it?

RUTLEDGE: Well, it was probably a, a few guys. I remember when I worked, first 00:13:00worked in the distillery, Jules Kahn, uh, uh, was the distiller. And, uh, you had to be on your toes with him because, uh, he would test every new shift supervisor. He'd run around. Uh, uh, there was no computer controls back then, uh, just everything with manually controlled valves. And, uh, but he'd change something and come up and ask, uh, if you knew what was going on, and you better find out in a hurry. And, uh, so, you know, he demanded, uh, perfection and, uh, to learn the business. And, uh, went something went wrong, from what he would create oftentimes. Uh, so, you know, that, that helped. And, uh, I worked in just about every area of the production division, uh, at the then the Seagram plant in Louisville. I started in, uh, Seagram's headquarters. The 00:14:00research and development was in Louisville at the time.

BROWN: Um-hm, um-hm.

RUTLEDGE: But I didn't stay in, uh, that area very long. Went out in the production area. And then I was transferred to New York, uh, in [19]77, to corporate offices. It was at a time when, uh, you either took a transfer or you took a hike. And, uh, there was no choice. And that was in November of [19]77. They changed that, uh, requirement in January [19]78 and gave people an opportunity to say yes or no. But anyway it turned out to be really good. I spent quite a few years in New York corporate. Uh, and I've always said it might not sound, uh, right, uh, but one of my real mentors was, uh, a guy I worked with most of those years up there, Stanley Bershaw. And he was, uh, he was a perfectionist. And I worked in, uh, I was doing all the distillery planning for all Seagram distilleries in, uh, the U.S. I was, uh, managing the budget department. Uh, and he would, he would find a mistake in the fourth or 00:15:00fifth decimal place. Uh, but he just demanded, he was so sharp and good, and he taught me a lot, no matter what area I was working in, that, uh, if I was cleaning restrooms, do it the best you can and be the best of anybody that ever did it. And, uh, I learned that a lot from him. So it didn't have to be a mentor in the distillery itself. It was, uh, his personality, and, uh, uh, perfectionism, and professionalism. I learned a lot from him. And he was the one that was responsible for getting me back to Kentucky. All, all my years up there, every year in annual reviews I'd ask, "If there's ever an opportunity to get back to Kentucky and distillery, I'd really appreciate it." And nobody in corporate New York could ever understand why in the world would somebody working in New York ever want to go back to Kentucky and work in a distillery. And he asked me before he was getting ready to retire, uh, "Have you been serious all these years?" And I said, "No, of course, not. I've just been kidding you." And he, he knew I was serious, and he said, "I tell you what, things worked out so well up here, I'll get you back if at all possible before I retire." And he 00:16:00did, and that's how I ended up here.

BROWN: Quite a story. Craig, mentors in the business? Because you, you are generational. Um, who would you consider your mentor or mentors in the business? Who had really helped you come, come along as you have?

BEAM: Well, of course, you know, again, growing up with my, with my grandfather, he would be, be one of them. And, uh, and then I would go around and visit Jimmy. Go to, go to his place and, and hung around with Jimmy. And, you know, though a lot of Jimmy. He taught me a lot, just listening and being around him. And we been on some seminars together. And, uh, he would, uh, you know, sit back, listen to how he talked, and didn't know if I could ever do that, or not that well. But, uh, just being around Jimmy. And, uh, I'm trying to think. Oh, and, um, down Jim Beam, Baker Beam, which was, uh, which is Dad's 00:17:00first cousin. Uh, so going down with him and hanging around down there at the distillery with, uh, with Baker. And another one would be Booker Noe. He was another one. Hung around him a lot. So, uh, those guys all, you know, listened to them, and, and what they recommended, and what they said to look out for, and it was a combination of all those guys, you know, really meant a lot to me.

BROWN: Okay. Jimmy, your, Fred Noe has said that you are "his road dad," "on-the-road dad." So you are a mentor to many in the industry, but who have been your mentors, or mentor?

RUSSELL: Well, when I started at the Wild Turkey distillery, Mr. Bill Hughes was the master distiller there. He was a young distiller before Prohibition. And he put the distillery back in operation after Prohibition. More or less took me under his wing and started teaching me and everything, and then I've been fortunate to be around with Booker Noe. (laughs) Craig will tell you 00:18:00we've had a lot of times together. We can't talk about it here.

UNKNOWN: ------------(??)------------

BEAM: --yeah, I've been thinking about that story. (laughter)

RUSSELL: With Booker and all of us, we've had a great time together, you know, and just listening to all them, knowing, being with them all. This is one thing I know as much about the bourbon business. You know, you said we're in competition. Well, really we are, but in other ways we're not. We'll do anything we can to help each other. If anybody's in trouble, we do anything, uh, that we can. But, uh, Mr. Bill Hughes was the one that really taught me everything about the distillery business. And he's one of those fellows that, like Jim said, he was a perfectionist. He wouldn't let anybody else weigh up his yeast strain. He weighed it up himself in sacks then dumped it out, made the yeast and everything. He wouldn't let nobody else touch it. He was strict on that. He was, and he taught me a lot in that way of doing things, make sure that everything was perfect all the time, and that's what we strive for, to be perfect all the time with the way we do everything.

BROWN: Well, speaking of the camaraderie in the business, uh, the Heaven Hill 00:19:00fire comes to mind. And, and would you all speak to that for just a minute as to, as to, um, what happened, very briefly, and then how everyone else rallied, responded?

BEAM: Well, of course, we had the fire in November 7, uh, [19]96. And, uh, very warm that day, 80 degrees. The wind was sixty, seventy miles an hour that day. Lot of big storms were coming in the area. Uh, happened, I think, exact time, I believe, was probably around, oh, 1:40 in the afternoon. So, uh, something like that. See, like, I remember seeing the clock stop when the power went off at the distillery. So, uh, anyway, uh, that was quite a day. Uh, of course, we lost, end up losing seven warehouses. And, and, uh, and, of course, the distillery, too. And, uh, many company vehicles, and a few personal vehicles, as well. Luckily nobody was hurt. And nobody, you know, no life, 00:20:00loss of life, so that was the main thing. But yes, uh, everybody chipped in the next day. We, you know, got phone calls from all of the distilleries, all of our colleagues. Everybody was, you know, lending a hand and help, you know, be willing to help us out, and do anything possible, uh, that they could. And, and, uh, some of our, uh, competitors, the Brown-Forman distillery there at Early Times, they picked up some production for us, and, and Jim Beam, they, they picked up some production for us, as well.

BROWN: I was going to ask specifically, you know--

BEAM: --um-hm--

BROWN: --what, what did some of the other, what did you all do? What did some of the distilleries do?

MORRIS: For example, we, we didn't sell whiskey to Craig. We made his whiskey for him and his father, cause the distillery was down. So what's your grain recipe? Uh, bring the, your yeast into the facility. And so, it was just our time and talent and facilities working for Heaven Hill because they needed help.

SAMUELS: Well, I remember where I was, just like when John Kennedy was, was shot. I was in Budapest.

MORRIS: I was in London, England.

SAMUELS: And, and the Heaven Hill story was big news.

MORRIS: Yeah.

SAMUELS: And it was like eleven o'clock at night. I remember getting on the phone and calling Max and asking what, what he needed. And he said the first thing that came to his mind was, "We will have insurance problems." And so, we sent our, our, he was the master distiller, but really what he was was an engineer consultant. And he came over and helped Max wander through the insurance issues.

MORRIS: I got a fax. I was in a hotel room. The fax slid under the door. "Heaven Hill is burning down." Like, what? And I turned on the television, early years of CNN International, and there, right as soon as I turned it on, 00:22:00there was the story. It was amazing.

COFFMAN: I was coming back from Ireland. Um, got into Atlanta, Hartsfield Airport, and CNN had it live, showing live pictures from helicopters of the fire and everything, you know, a lot of--

SAMUELS: --it looked like it might burn Bardstown down. (laughter)

MORRIS: It did. It really did.

BEAM: Yeah, I didn't know where it was going to stop at the time. And if it wasn't for the rain and the wind started dying down when it came at the time, I, I thought maybe it could get our bottling house. I, that's what I was afraid of, was we had, uh, workers with fire extinguishers and water hoses up on top of the, of the, uh, bottling house. And, uh, and there were some roof damages where hunks of burning, uh, tire off the roofs of the warehouse with the wind was on fire, carrying it across. So, yeah, it, I didn't know where it was going to stop.

BROWN: Any other comments on that?

RUTLEDGE: I remember, I wasn't traveling; I was in Kentucky. Of course, heard about it right away. And, uh, uh, it didn't take too long for, uh, people from, 00:23:00uh, London, England to call me and ask what was going on. They'd just seen it on the news. And this, uh, of course, there it was, uh, two o'clock in the afternoon, uh, perhaps, our time, or 2:30, I'm not sure. But, uh, uh, at six hours, five hours, uh, to that time, they were seeing it on the evening news over there. And I remember, uh, the next day or two days subsequent to the fire that, uh, I know I, I think other distilleries did the same thing, we knew that Heaven Hill had a tremendous gap in their inventory. And it was going to be a problem. And we were offering to, uh, to fill in and help out fill--replace some of those barrels lost. And, you know, I'm, I'm not sure what happened to that, but I know, I think several distilleries had offered, uh, to help share our inventories with them to keep them running and not have that hole in their inventory.

BEAM: Right.

BROWN: Yeah.

RUSSELL: Hole in their inventory. You know, we're aging things six-, seven-, 00:24:00eight years, or whatever, if you take a, a chunk out of it, that makes, that's a, a big issue. And, uh, that's what I mean by filling the hole in their inventory.

BROWN: Hmm. Thank you.

RUSSELL: That's what we all done. Uh, called them, well, we called them right that afternoon, if you remember, Craig, called Parker and them, "Anything we can do help you, let us know. We'll be there. And, uh, storage space or whatever you need, uh, we'd be glad to help in any way we could."

BROWN: Okay, for the master distillers, when you all spend a lot of time on the road, it seems. What do you do when you're on the road when you're traveling? As a master distiller, why, exactly, do you travel so much these days? Mark?

COFFMAN: Well, well, for me, for instance, uh, uh, we've got a distillation system that we started in Ireland, uh, just in the last couple years. Uh, so spent a lot of time going back and forth with that. But it's more than that. It's more of, uh, being the ambassador for your products. Uh, talk to people 00:25:00about what your brand is, what, what the characteristics of it are. Um, it, Europe's, uh, a growing market. It's a good emerging market for bourbon. I think there's a lot of growth potential there. So there, there's a lot of time spent, uh, going in, having a drink. Just, just go to a pub, talk to people. Uh, buy them a drink. Just let them see what it's like. Cause most people will refer to bourbon, "You know, it's just another whiskey." It's not. It's a very unique characteristic. And it's a, it's a unique product to Kentucky, and that's what we really want to get the word out on.

BROWN: So you actually do one-on-one?

COFFMAN: Oh yeah, most certainly, yeah. Sometimes we'll have a group of people, but I like to just go into a, a location, just, just stir up a conversation, chat with them. And, uh, talk with them just about bourbon. Talk about our product that we'd be selling there.

BROWN: Jimmy, you're still traveling, aren't you?

RUSSELL: Yes, I, I travel some. I don't, everybody thinks I travel a lot, but I'm at the distillery probably 75 percent of my time. But it's like Mark says, 00:26:00it's an ambassador, we're out meeting with the public, uh, having bourbon dinners and, and pub crawls and tastings. And it's an enjoyable event. You know, we make a product and wait seven-, eight-, ten years before it gets to the market. And if you don't have complaints that's all you know about it, but this way when you're out in the marketplace you get to talk to people that's actually drinking and what they enjoy about it, why they drink it. And that's one of the most important things to me, just the connection you have with the general public. And, uh, one of the great events, I think, for--I mean, all of you probably say this--the Bourbon Festival we have in Kentucky every year, that's huge. And we have a lot of hard work for a week. (laughs) But we have a lot of fun there. And then the WhiskeyFest in New York, Chicago, and California, uh, they're huge. And it's always amazed me, maybe you all say the same thing, you'll have the same people at the WhiskeyFest in San Francisco--

BEAM: --right--

RUSSELL: --you'll see the same ones in Chicago, and you'll see the same ones in 00:27:00New--I don't know when they work. (laughter)

BEAM: Yeah, yeah, I know it.

RUSSELL: Right?

BEAM: I've heard a lot of them say, "We save our vacation up for that," you know.

RUSSELL: For that.

BEAM: Yeah.

RUSSELL: Same with at Bourbon Festival. The, uh--

BEAM: --yeah--

RUSSELL: --you'd be surprised how many people save their vacation to come to the Bourbon Festival here in Bardstown every year. It's a huge event. And I can remember when it started. Uh, we had it right here. And probably two hundred people, one-day event was all it was. What was it this year?

SAMUELS: It was one evening.

RUSSELL: Yeah, that afternoon--

RUTLEDGE: --yeah, it was, uh--

RUSSELL: --afternoon and night--

SAMUELS: --for three hours(??)--

RUSSELL: --out there--

RUTLEDGE: --it was really a distillery party--

MORRIS: --yeah, right here, um-hm--

RUTLEDGE: --and, uh, there were probably 90 percent of the people attending, and we were tasting each other's bourbons. And that's the way the Bourbon Festival got started. That was in September of 1992. And, uh, this year, uh, and it's amazing the growth. Uh, it's gone from that one-night event on a Saturday, now we begin on a Tuesday and go through Sunday. Uh, we still have that, uh, the signature event, as it's the, uh, the great, uh, bourbon tasting 00:28:00and gala on the Saturday night. And that's turned in, we had about two hundred, uh, fifty people probably the first year. Now we sell out about twelve hundred people to that evening's event. And then all of the other events, uh, it's amazing. We probably, there was probably, it was more than fifty thousand people attending the, this year and the past several years. And we'll get people from, uh, uh, thirteen-, fifteen-, seventeen, uh, countries around the world. So it's become an international event. And it's an education. And, uh, when we travel a lot, and, uh, Bourbon Festival is, uh, is an avenue. But, uh, power is knowledge. And we, it's, we go out, it's, we're representing our brands, of course, but we're also representing the industry and growing our industry. And it's, uh, through efforts like these, uh, educating the world, I think that there's more than one whiskey in the world, and it's Kentucky bourbon.

SAMUELS: Remember those early whiskey shows in New York and Chicago when they 00:29:00had us over in the corner--

RUTLEDGE: --oh, yeah--

SAMUELS: --and there were, like, three of us. And to me, just to watch the evolution and respect for bourbon is, but you can see in those major influence centers.

RUTLEDGE: You know, talk about WhiskeyFest. And that's, uh, WhiskeyFest or some of the others. And they'd open the doors and let all the people in, and the people in the bourbon industry just sit there and watch the people run by to their favorite Scotches all night long, and--

SAMUELS: --that's--(laughter)--

RUTLEDGE: --at the end of the night they'd come back and try some bourbon. And now--

SAMUELS: --maybe--

RUTLEDGE: --we're a destination. Uh, they come to us. And it's, it's been an amazing evolution just, uh, to watching what's happened to bourbon over the last fifteen, ten, fifteen years.

RUSSELL: Not only in Kentucky, but we have them in, uh, Germany, England, and Japan. They have a big WhiskeyFest every year, WhiskeyLive they call it. And it's huge crowds, tens of--Jim was talking about New York; that's where it first started. It was a one-night event. Wasn't a whole lot of people there. And 00:30:00it's got so big now in New York they have to have it two nights. They can't handle the, uh, group of people in one night. They have them two nights now. So, and each one of them's growing. And I, I guess I was one of the first ones in production was out in the field. You started out, it's all whiskey, don't make any difference what it is, it's all whiskey. Now they're really educated. And you better be sure what you tell them, cause--(laughs)--on the internet, and all the ladies, The Bourbon Society, the ladies' Bourbon Society and things like that, that's what's really growing the market. You know, for many years, us old men, we knew where our bourbon sat on the shelf. We went and got it. Walked, paid for it, and got home with it. If they'd moved the position on the shelf, we got home with the wrong bottle. (laughter) Nowadays, the ladies buy it as much--do you all agree with me--

SAMUELS: --um-hm, yes--

RUSSELL: --that they buy them in liquor stores more? The labels looks a lot better now, too. Cause, you know, we didn't care what the label looked like. We wanted to know what it tasted like inside. And now labels look a lot better. If you're like my wife, you got to pick it up and look, oh, look at that, read 00:31:00everything on. Am I right on that? (laughter) It's, uh, the ladies is really, the women, the bourbon society and all is really growing the business.

BROWN: Well, and in addition to the business is just, as you know, booming, absolutely. And, and would you all talk a little bit about the factors involved? Obviously, yes, ladies are getting in on the scene, that's for sure. But what other factors are influencing this terrific, uh, boom in the bourbon industry?

MORRIS: I think one thing that's very important is the fact that bourbon, our product, is very versatile. And we were just talking last night at an event that how many heavy, smoky Scotch Old Fashioneds do you see, or heavy Scotch smoky whiskey sours do you see? You don't. Uh, and, and those, those whiskey cultures also really drive the image of consumption neat on the rocks, splash of 00:32:00soda. And our product, obviously bourbon and Coke is very popular, bourbon and ginger ale, highballs, all the way through the sophisticated cocktails, because our product is so versatile. It's so complex. And interestingly, I remember a German author defining bourbon as "girlie whiskey." And at first I took a, and that's an insult. "Girlie whiskey," what's that mean? He meant it was sweeter than Scotch. The translation was what I was, was incorrect. He didn't call it "girlie whiskey." That's what the translation said. So we're sweeter, we're softer, we don't have smoke, and we can go more places on the palate. And I think when people find that out, they turn to us.

SAMUELS: From our perspective, as being the early bird in this exercise of watching bourbon move from the bottom shelf to the top shelf, uh, I really think 00:33:00my mother had an awful lot to do with it by bringing sophistication to the packaging. Uh, it was the first time anybody paid a lot of attention to that. She didn't have any experience. And, of course, while she was worried about, uh, good taste or slightly feminizing this good old boy beverage, uh, Dad was working on softening down the taste, moving some of the flavors forward. And we started to seeing women migrating to Maker's in the sixties. It was slow, cause we didn't have a marketing budget, and nobody was much interested in bourbon in the places that you normally think of as being the epicenters of, of, uh, style and craft. But by the, by the late eighties, it, it, it's like somebody took the lid off of it. And at that point, I would give the credit for it going to 00:34:00the next level to all the people here, because we couldn't have done it all by ourselves. And everybody really got serious about putting wonderful bourbons on the market, well-packaged, well-marketed, authentic, that actually tasted good, which gives us a tremendous advantage over Scotch whisky.

RUSSELL: I can say travel, the export market in the last twenty years or so has really grown. Uh, uh, when I first started going to Japan, it was all Scotches. Now you go over there, it's mostly bourbons. Scotches is, like I said, they're, they're down on the bottom shelf. Before you might find one or two bottles of bourbon in the stores over there and all, but now it's, bourbon is everywhere, all over the world. Anywhere you go, it's all over the world. And I think that's a big growth that we've had in the, in the business in the last 00:35:00twenty-five years or so. It's, uh, it's huge. And the export market, I know we do, I know Jim does a huge business export market. All of us do a huge business export market, and it's really growing.

RUTLEDGE: I think some of the things that turned our industry around, uh, perhaps, was the introduction of premium whiskeys, single-barrel, small-batch bourbons. And, uh, we weren't really doing anything different as an industry, but we began to focus on just how good we were. And, uh, and today's social media, and people begin to catch on. They like the premium, they'd rather go out and, uh, pay a few extra dollars to get something that was really good. And today, uh, or the, you know, twenty, twenty-five years or so ago, introducing a new brand, you might have to advertise it through traditional billboards, newspapers, magazines for a year or so for it--or more--for it to catch on. 00:36:00Today, somebody goes out and, uh, finds a bourbon, they could be at a bar, at somebody's home, try it and really like it tonight, and the next day it's around the world. You just go home and get on the, uh, whatever, a blogger, uh, talking about bourbons. And, uh, there's so many bourbon connoisseurs, groups now that it's, it's found out around, uh, overnight. And it's a big, big plus. And, uh, we have so many advantages, like, uh, uh, Chris, Jimmy, and Bill were talking, about relative to Scotch, we're so much more versatile. It's, uh, so easier to drink and mix. Uh, even, I've seen, uh, uh, Bloody Mary, which always used to be vodka, or, uh, gin--

BROWN: --really--

RUSSELL: -- ----------(??)--(laughter)--

RUTLEDGE: --now made with some, uh, made with bourbon. A, uh, margarita, take the tequila out and put bourbon in. It's such a versatile drink. It goes so, with so many, uh, different mixers. And, uh, and bartenders, mixologists love 00:37:00bourbon because of the versatility.

BROWN: Um-hm.

BEAM: I think that's what's kind of helping, too, the, now you don't have really bartenders; you got mixologists, they call. And so, you know, we get out and we do, uh, classes. And we go to mixologists and talk about our bourbons and what you can do with them, and they'll tell you what they can do and like to do with them, and what brands they prefer over, this brand or, or this proof, uh, versus a, you know, a, say a lower proof, so. And then, of course, there's some, uh, what we call white dogs out there. Uh, they, the mixologists play around a little bit with that. So, uh, that, that kind of helps fuel the, the interest in bourbon, as well, is the mixologists do a whole lot.

COFFMAN: And a lot, I think a lot also has to do with, uh, the fact that it used to be the myth it's the old man's drink. It's not so much the case anymore. Now the younger generation has turned into this, and a lot like what 00:38:00you're saying, Craig, with this mixing, and what Chris was saying, uh, trying, it's so versatile. Uh, it's opened up the newer generation to, to the bourbon industry, and I think that's really helped kick it in, into gear a lot, too.

BROWN: Um-hm.

RUSSELL: Well, you know, in my younger days it was a Southern gentlemen's drink. They got off work in the afternoon, they went to their favorite bars, they got their cigars, they got their bourbon, they went to the back room and played cards. And that's the way it was back in the young, my younger days. Now it's become a worldwide drink anywhere in the world. It's not that Southern gentlemen's drink. And basically, that's what a lot of the advertisement was back then.

SAMUELS: I thought you were going to say it was a Southern Baptist drink. And they didn't go to the bar; they went to the bathroom to have a drink. (laughter)

RUSSELL: That's right. (laughter) That's right. Yeah, that's the reason they have drive-up windows in Kentucky, you know. Us, us, us Southern, I don't tease about religion; I'm a Southern Baptist. But that's the reason you have drive-up windows is the Baptists don't want to be seen in the liquor store. (laughter) You know who invented bourbon, don't you? Elijah Craig. You know what his 00:39:00profession was? A Baptist minister. For medicinal purposes only. We keep a cough all the time. (laughter)

BROWN: Yes, you would know that, wouldn't you?

BEAM: Oh, yeah, oh, yeah.

BROWN: Um, well, the bourbon industry is certainly helping tourism, just absolutely exploding. Um, and what, what part in the, what is it about the industry that you think is really drawing people to it so that there--we've covered this just a little bit--but why is the Bourbon Festival growing? Um, why are there, the craft distillers are now, there's a, there's a, in addition to the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, there's also the craft distillery trail. And what is it that's bringing all of these people in, do you think?

RUSSELL: The KDA, the Kentucky Bourbon Trail is being advertised all over the 00:40:00world. Anywhere you go in the world you just about, you hear about the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. "Well, we got to go there." And all of you, I think, will speak the same as I do. We have a lot of foreign visitors that from come all over the world. They, they set and come. Then you got some, they set their vacations. Every year you see the same people coming in from all over the United States, all over the world, come and visit with you, doing the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. They'll, every year they come--

MORRIS: --and it's certainly a factor, cause we, because of our organization, and the camaraderie, as you've noted, we work together. You, the Woodford Reserve website will lead you to the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, and that will take you to Four Roses, and it will take you Wild Turkey and Maker's. So we're all promoting this bourbon theme of tourism, high quality, great taste, how it all works together. And then, of course, people love to visit Kentucky or discover Kentucky. I can't tell you how many people say, "Oh, it's so beautiful. It's so beautiful."

BROWN: Um-hm.

MORRIS: So our distilleries, our wonderful locations, hospitality. Southern hospitality is certainly a key. They love our tour guides. They love our distillery hosts. It's a, it's a complete package. It's, uh, it's a great experience. And thank goodness the state's finally caught on.

RUSSELL: Yeah. Well, one of the things--

SAMUELS: --they're catching on--

MORRIS: --catching on.

RUSSELL: One of the things, each one of us has built a new visitor center. Every one of us just about has built new visitor centers. That's how many, we had an old home on the property that we've been using for years. And when you're having sixty and seventy thousand people visit your distillery, a four-room home--(laughs)--you can't get that many in it. All of us, Jim has just done a new visitor, we've done the new visitor center. You redone yours. You, y'all, everybody's doing new visitor center. And, uh, they're coming from everywhere. And the Kentucky Distillers Association, I guess that how much that t-shirt worth? A thousand dollars? You got a passport if you go to all the, the, they give you stamps, you turn it in, you get a t-shirt. You'd think that t-shirt was worth a thousand dollars. (laughter) The way people, "Oh, you got 00:42:00to stamp a passport. You got to stamp a passport."

MORRIS: And we know they're spending a thousand dollars to get it--

RUSSELL: --that's right--(laughs)--

MORRIS: --through tours and restaurants and hotels.

RUSSELL: That's why they spend more than a thousand dollars. (laughter) To Kentucky, it brings in a lot of tourists.

MORRIS: Yeah.

SAMUELS: Another thing that's, uh, as I've watched the thoroughbred industry decline, and I don't like that at all, because it's such an integral part of our culture here in Kentucky. It's, they take the celebrities off the track at a very early age. Uh, I think what's drawing the people here, the brands have become celebrities. And another fact is that the distilleries are all close, so it can function like Napa Valley. Uh, and then Louisville and Lexington can function like the gateways into the Bourbon Trail. And so, geographically we're fortunate. And as they said, uh, we get along well. But there is a problem, at, at least with us being one of the more isolated places, and that's cell 00:43:00phones. It's hard for visitors to communicate once they hit these, uh, these isolated locations, or even for us to communicate with each other at times.

BROWN: So --------(??)--

SAMUELS: --that's the message for AT&T. (laughter)

BROWN: They just have to enjoy the bourbon while they're there. Forget the cellphone.

SAMUELS: Right.

MORRIS: But we have--

BROWN: --and then tweet their friends.

MORRIS: We have our maps, of course, and maybe the app, if it works for you, but certainly I know we have a printed list. "How do we get to Four Roses?" "Here's how you go." "How do we get to Bardstown?" "Here's how you go." Again, we're not saying, "Don't go." It's "Enjoy." We're, we're supporting the entire industry.

RUSSELL: Industry.

BROWN: Sure, sure.

RUSSELL: The only thing about it, if you go to Four Roses and put in apps to come to Wild Turkey, don't go the way it says. (laughter)

SAMUELS: You've tried?

RUSSELL: Oh, it comes around Wildcat. They put the shortest distance in, and Wildcat Road is a single road, gravel road. Some places, what? It's fifty feet straight down--(laughs)--and I don't know how some of them motor homes gets 00:44:00through there. But if they put the shortest distance coming from Four Roses to Wild Turkey, that's the way they bring them. Now, our instructions will tell you to come back on 127. (laughter) But we'll have some people come in there, "Shew, how do you get to this place? We'll never go around that road again." (laughter) And I don't blame them! I wouldn't go around that way.

RUTLEDGE: That's what we, we do like Chris was saying, uh, and they'll say, "How do you get to Four--uh, Wild Turkey?" We hand them directions, rather than--

SAMUELS: --yeah, that's what we do--

RUTLEDGE: --and advise them not to plug that in your GPS, cause you're gonna get in trouble--

RUSSELL: --right--(laughter)--you're going ----------(??)--

BEAM: --yes, there's more signs on the interstates, too, more that helps out, and, and city streets that kinda helps direct you to that, that areas, as well.

BROWN: Well, changing course just a little bit here. Of course, bourbon is now being made all over the country. And what is it about Kentucky that will keep its bourbon on top, do you think? Or what is it about it about Kentucky bourbon that's going to keep this bourbon on top?

MORRIS: Uh, it's one interesting, cause we've discussed this quite often, uh, 00:45:00that these micro craft whatever term, uh, for these small, new distilleries, uh, you care to use, their benchmark is to make bourbon whiskey, and they want to make it like we make it, and then they want to say they make it better than we do. So number one, I think we're proud that we are the distilling benchmark in this, in this country. They're not worried about making the best rum or the best brandy; they want to make bourbon and then compare it to us. So, uh, I think that's a great compliment to us. Um, I don't think anyone are going to make bourbon as well as we do. Uh, and there's a reason for it, and if anyone wants to chime in what some of these reasons are--

RUTLEDGE: --yeah, we've been around a few hundred years, and we've had a lot of experience, and, uh, we know what we're doing, and, you know, a lot of people are getting in the industry. I think, uh, of course, the economics that bourbon is a boom, booming business and they want to take advantage of it. Uh, a lot of others, like we talk about the, uh, the connoisseur groups, the people, the 00:46:00bourbon enthusiasts say, "Wow, would I love to be doing that." Start their distillery. And, uh, then they have to figure out how to make it. (laughter)

SAMUELS: And there are a lot of wannabes out there, yeah, yeah.

RUSSELL: You know, the water and the climate's the most two important things.

MORRIS: That's right.

RUSSELL: You got to have good water. You got to have that change in climate. You just can't--

MORRIS: --and, uh--

RUSSELL: --have all hot weather, all cold weather. And the water, to me, is very important. And a lot of the flavors, it has a big effect on it. Even when I'm out traveling--

MORRIS: --and, uh--

RUSSELL: --I like a little ice in my bourbon. The first thing that I do when I'm out traveling, I taste the water. And if the water's not good, I don't put any ice in my bourbon in those places, cause it really affect the taste of it--

MORRIS: --um-hm--

RUSSELL: --yeah--

MORRIS: -- --------(??)--

RUSSELL: --and you found that out, didn't you?

MORRIS: Oh, yeah, yeah. And, and batching barrels, a lot of these small distilleries just have a handful of barrels, all from a certain time period. And as Jim mentioned earlier, we're batching barrels that have many years between the youngest and oldest to build consistent flavor profiles and complex 00:47:00flavor profiles. And they're just not going to be able to do that in the short term and probably not in the long term. They need to be bigger to have the ability to make the flavor that we can do.

SAMUELS: Well, one of the things that I, I would, I would look at it little bit differently, as an entrepreneur, and, uh, capitalism is at work. Uh, and we need to feel really good about that. We need to also feel really good about the fact that essentially we got a monopoly. And for the state of Kentucky, it is a big monopoly. It's a big deal. Is it guaranteed? I think absolutely not. Uh, with, uh, I talk to at least four or five of these startups a week. And what I get back is Kentucky is not business-friendly. Uh, mainly reference the ad valorem tax, which taxes the inventory in the barrel as if it's a finished 00:48:00product. And, and the regulations. And, uh, I look back to when Mom and Dad started Maker's Mark. It looked exactly like what these people are doing. I looked at what you guys did, what, twenty-something years ago.

MORRIS: Um-hm.

SAMUELS: Somewhere out there, there's the next Maker's and the next Woodford Reserve, and it would be a damn shame if they aren't in Kentucky. And if we don't change the business climate they're not gonna be in Kentucky.

RUSSELL: I think we're the second-highest taxed--correct me if I'm wrong--

MORRIS: --yes--

RUSSELL: --I think it's a signature industry for the state of Kentucky, and we're the second-highest taxed in any state in the United States, if I'm not mistaken.

SAMUELS: If you pile all the taxes, that'd be right.

RUSSELL: Well, the tax that we have to put on these barrels that sits here in the storage each year. And then everybody don't realize this, what, it's 17 percent sales tax on it in Kentucky? Most people don't realize that.

SAMUELS: Yeah, it's 11 and 6.

RUSSELL: Yeah, the distributor has to pay 11 percent when he comes in to them, and then you pay 6 percent when you buy it. Jim and several of us several years 00:49:00ago, we were down at the capitol when they, they kept saying, "No sales taxes has been on spirits. No sales." And they didn't tell them it was already taxed by the distributor. And we was down there pouring bourbon out on the capitol steps. (laughter) And it happened to be snow on that day, and several of the people standing around said, "You all hurry up and get away from here. We're going to eat that snow." (laughter) We poured bourbon on that snow. (laughter)

BROWN: Well, that certainly speaks to the popularity of the product, very definitely.

MORRIS: Yeah.

BROWN: Um, now tell me a little bit, for the master distillers, about your job as a master distiller. First of all, how has the position of master distiller changed over the years? Because it's, it's, I know master distiller used to be plant manager, and it still is. But how is it different now than it was? Can you kind of take, take us through that?

MORRIS: Well, at Brown-Forman it's never been the plant manager. We have plant managers who manage the plant.

BROWN: Okay.

MORRIS: The master distiller has been in charge of the product quality, batching barrels, creating the final product to go into bottle, creating new products, new concepts. So, uh, not running the plant, but making sure the quality is, is what it's supposed to be.

RUTLEDGE: I agree with that. Uh, uh, most plants had their plant manager, uh, management levels. But the distiller looked after the distillery. Uh, from the beginning, the receipt of the grains, the approval of the grains through the, uh, the milling, mashing, uh, which is cooking, fermentation, distillation, filling the barrels, uh, all the way through. And how it's changed, uh, I think of it often. I, I used to love, I could spend twelve hours a day or more in a distillery, and love every minute of it, and, uh, look forward to just go home and hurry up and get to sleep so I can get back the next day. And we're doing 00:51:00so much traveling now. And education, which is important to the industry. But, uh, that's probably began to evolve, I'm thinking probably early-mid-nineties. And, uh, you know, things happen by accident, or whatever, they probably had, uh, somebody in some of these marketing, with some of the companies come in and, uh, to interview a distiller. And, and the distiller started talking, and said, "How do we shut this guy up?" (laughter) You know, and, uh, you know, we're so passionate. We love what we do. That's why you see guys at, uh, you know, I'm forty-seven years in the industry, and, uh, Craig's dad, Parker's, uh, fifty-two--

BEAM: --four--

RUTLEDGE: --and Jimmy, fifty-nine. (laughter) Uh, and I'm forty-seven; I'm a kid on the block at forty-seven years working in the industry, because we love what we do. But we've changed. And, uh, uh, the marketing, uh, the parts of the companies realize that, uh, this is, these guys are a real asset, just going 00:52:00out, because they're so passionate, and they love the industry, and it's not just our brands. It's the industry; it's the art; it's the process. And, uh, to me, that's the biggest change, to me, in the last fifteen, twenty years.

RUSSELL: You're talking about us all getting along good together. We all promote bourbon. Now, we're gonna promote our own brands when we're out, but the first thing we talk about is Kentucky bourbon, Kentucky bourbon, all about it. And, and then they know who we're from, but all of us promotes bourbon, the Kentucky bourbon is what we do. Get back to the micro-distilleries, what I'm telling a lot of people about these micro-distilleries, how did all bourbon distilleries get started? They wasn't micro-distilleries. They was little family-owned distilleries.

MORRIS: Um-hm.

RUSSELL: Little family-owned distilleries. They call them micros now, but the reason that bourbon probably was all little family-owned distilleries starting up all everywhere. It was little family-owned distilleries everywhere.

SAMUELS: Everywhere you had any excess grain and a Scotch Irishman.

COFFMAN: And a good water.

SAMUELS: And some good water, yeah. (Russell laughs) Good, iron-free water.

RUSSELL: Mm-hmm.

BROWN: Jim, you just spoke to the passion that master distillers feel. Where does that come from? I mean, you said you'd spend hours at the distillery if you could. Um, but, but what is it about that. Uh, nobody, nobody knows what you feel. But what is it about that distillery that, that makes you just love it, that, that makes you excited about going to work every day?

RUTLEDGE: You know, I mentioned earlier when, when I started we did everything by manually-controlled valves. If we wanted to change the beer feed, that's a finished fermenter to the still, uh, say we're going to thirty-eight hundred gallons an hour to forty-two hundred gallons an hour, and we had little pencil marks on the valves, on the stills--(laughter)--and, and we'd, it'd take us two or three, four hours to get it maybe adjusted just right. Today you punch it in the, uh, the computer systems and it's done in a heartbeat.

MORRIS: Um-hm.

RUTLEDGE: Uh, and technologies have come light years just in our times. But 00:54:00there will always be that art involved of the handling of the yeast. The flavors are made, you can do all the same things, but the flavors are generated with the yeast, and in fermentation, and doing it right, and that's an art. That's the part I love about it. Yeah, the percentage of grains, the cooking temperatures at the distillation, all of that plays, each one, all of us makes a good bourbon, but we all do it a little different. Uh, you know, we can all cook the same dish and call it the same thing, but none of them will taste the same. If they all tasted the same there'd just, just be one brand out there, but we all--

BEAM: --right, right--

RUSSELL: --do it a little, percentage of grains, cooking temperatures and everything.

MORRIS: Craig's family and Bill's family just exhibit, another part that makes me so proud and passionate is bourbon is part of Kentucky's history and culture. And we're working in a living history factory. We're, we're working in something that you already heard, people around the world think that's the coolest thing there can be. They'd love to be us. They'd love to be here. And 00:55:00to teach that point, because, you know, through Prohibition, and through current, uh, temperance movements up to this point. Uh, there are people who'd like to see us go away. And then I think we're all competitive and want to push back and make sure we don't go away, and we flourish. And, uh, that's a good reason to be passionate, because this is, this is a rich part of our fabric that we can't let go away.

RUSSELL: This is an eightieth anniversary today of the repeal of Prohibition is today. Uh, you see the big --------(??). But they hadn't told Kentucky that yet. What? How many state, how many counties is still dry in Kentucky?

MORRIS: There's thirty-eight that are still completely dry.

RUSSELL: Completely dry. Lot of us are moist. (laughter) We can go to a package liquor store and buy and take it home with us, or go to a restaurant and have a drink with our food. But that's it, uh.

SAMUELS: But those thirty-eight counties do share in the revenues generated--

RUSSELL: --that's what, that's what I--

SAMUELS: --of the beverage alcohol that we make--

RUSSELL: --that's what I've always argued. If we're going to pay taxes on 00:56:00barrels aging every year, they go back to the counties where it's stored. But everybody, the whole 120 counties gets money out of the spirits industry. But they won't, don't allow it in their counties.

MORRIS: Um-hm.

RUSSELL: They'll drive in the next county and buy it, though. (laughter)

SAMUELS: Yeah, they will. Right.

BROWN: That happens a lot across the state, as I understand.

SAMUELS: Well, not as much as it used to. It is civilizing.

MORRIS: Yes, getting better.

BROWN: Mark, as, as kind of a little bit new to the industry, um, what's, what's your view on being a master distiller? Uh, how long have you been a master distiller?

COFFMAN: Uh, it'd be about six years.

BROWN: Okay.

COFFMAN: Yeah.

BROWN: Okay, and, and what drew you to this particular job?

COFFMAN: Well, it, I was involved with the engineering and, uh, design of our systems. Uh, our, our beginning started with a brewery that we bought in 1999, 00:57:00the Lexington Brewing Company. And from that, um, and the cur-, the curiosity and passion for fermenting and making a good product is, is just overwhelming sometimes that you made some that doesn't taste bad. (laughs) But it's that passion that we have to, to ferment a product, bring it all the way through a finished, uh, bottle. Uh, it's got great taste. But, but designing and, and engineering the systems, you, I kind of inherited the position. So, you know, in a way I've grown into it. Uh, but it's, it's a fascinating business. It's fascinating the curiosity you see from visitors that want to come in and they'll ask specific questions. Uh, they want to know about it. And they really want to know what you know about it, and how passionate you are about your product and your brands. And, uh, and when, when you've, you've developed it and you've 00:58:00worked it, uh, it, it's more, it's your home. It's, it's your livelihood. And just like Jim was saying, it's, it's just, uh, you want to be there every day. You, you want to be a part of it.

RUSSELL: To me, it's not a job. The first day it becomes a job, I'm retiring. (laughter) It's something I enjoy getting up and going to do.

MORRIS: Right.

RUSSELL: I only live six miles away. And I go out there every Saturday and Sunday, I'm, you know, I'm maybe not there all day, but I'll drive in and say hello to people that is working and all. It's, uh, my wife likes to go with me, too, especially in the spring of the year, in the fall of the year, when it starts in the warehousing, when it starts, uh, warming up in the spring. There's beautiful aromas coming out of those buildings. Fall of the year, when it starts cooling off, and it's something I, it's your life. You just enjoy, enjoy it every day. I say, when it becomes a job I'm going to retire.

MORRIS: Um-hm.

RUSSELL: Uh, it's something I enjoy. I think all of us say that we--

BEAM: --yeah, I, I enjoy the, uh, aromas, the, you know, that you go through the distillery, and just, just, I don't know, it seemed like more in the wintertime you, even hits you more, I guess, with the smells. And, and, and just being around it. Uh, and you, I'm fascinated about, you know, what technology's out there nowadays to, to be able to keep everything consistent across the board, uh, cause when I first started Heaven Hill, we was at the old distillery here in Bardstown. And like they were saying, Jimmy and Jim there, uh, everything was done manual. You know, you had a wire tied around a valve that you turned the valve so far to just mark where this wire goes. And, uh, we had steam pumps that you, uh, put packing in by hand, and, uh, steam on the steam, packing around the, around the steam end, and, and, uh, rings around the liquid end of the steam pump. You had them old pumps just a pumping that my grandfather bought those in the forties, and we were still using them down here 01:00:00when the, when the distillery burnt down in 1996. And so, of course, they've been rebuilt several times. But, but they could push and pump for one end of the county to the next, that's how good they were. But just, you know, growing up with all that. And of course, when we got the distillery in Louisville, cause that went from manual to full-time, uh, automated, uh, down here at, uh, at the distillery in Louisville. So we went from nine people per shift in Bardstown down to four people per shift in Louisville due to the automation. But, uh, um, so it's just growing up with all that, and then being around all of it. And then you can hear the sounds. If you got problems, you pick that up, too, as a master distiller, the sounds of the distillery. You know, you can get out of your pickup truck and you think, Uh-oh, something don't sound right. Got a bearing out somewhere. Or some steam leak, or the bolt is not right. You, you do, you pick up on those kinds of sounds, uh, too, when you're growing up 01:01:00around all that. Vibrations, you can feel vibration. You get next to your meal room, you think, oh, you feel a vibration in your feet. Something's not right. This meal's got a bearing going out somewhere, so. And, you know, then you get a hold of the maintenance team and shut that the meal down, and sure enough you have a bearing, or might even be a coupling, so you pick up on that kind of stuff.

RUSSELL: Each one of our stills makes a certain sound. I call it a whistling sound. You do, too, all of us do too.

BEAM: Right, right.

RUSSELL: And if the least little thing change, that sound will change. Now, when you, when I started they was doing it by hand. The people running the still you think is laying back asleep. That sound would change, you'd see their hands start moving. (laughter) Now, uh, now we're still not fully automatic. We have computers and all. But we have to have operators on our computers, and they have to still punch the buttons, and they have to go, as they're putting a grain in the cookers and everything--

BEAM: --oh, right, right--

RUSSELL: --uh, you know, they make them now where you, it can run everything. But ours, we have computers where they can set there and see everything all the time, but they still have to punch the buttons and everything to make sure everything's right.

BEAM: Right.

RUSSELL: And they have to go out when they're putting the grain in the cookers. Empty the fermenter and everything. They still have to, still have to do that.

BEAM: What our guys do, they, uh, of course, the guys in Louisville, course they never had to do it really manually down here, you know. So when, when something happens to the program in the computer, of course, like Jim said, we got guys that are sitting there monitoring the whole operation by computer, and they might have to push a button now and then, but for some reason if that program, something in that program doesn't work that day, and they have to push that button a few extra times, they act like that's really hard. (laughter) "Oh, I got to push this button a few extra times." Uh, of course, to them, that's manual. I said, "To me, manual's going down a flight of stairs and going up a flight of stairs"--(laughter)--"turn that valve a little bit, come back down, 01:03:00then look, then go back up." But, uh, they don't, I just kind of laugh at them when they, they complain they got to push that button on their keyboard a few extra times a day, so. (laughter)

RUSSELL: And now you have to have the still operator room, and the cooking room is air conditioned.

BEAM: Oh, yeah.

RUSSELL: That still is two hundred and some odd degrees, and you sat right beside of it when I started. (laughter) You didn't--

BEAM: --yeah, oh, yeah, yeah--

RUSSELL: --it was hot--

BEAM: --be, be 130 or 40 degrees--

RUSSELL: --felt good in the wintertime sometimes--(laughter)--

BEAM: --130, 140 degrees on the mash floor. And of course, I'd seen them older guys just sitting there, drinking coffee all day long, just sweating in this. "Shew," I said, "I don't know where you could drink that coffee like that." But, uh.

COFFMAN: Now you got to have air conditioned rooms for them. (laughter)

BEAM: Oh, yeah, yeah.

RUTLEDGE: Well, also, you, you mentioned aromas, uh, sounds. We depend so much, and part of the art, uh, to me, of the business, again, is depending so much on our senses, our small, taste--

BEAM: --um-hm, right--

RUSSELL: --perhaps sound, uh, whether it be a fermenter, or, uh, evaluating a finished barrel, or a distillate before it goes in, distillate like before it 01:04:00goes into the barrel, uh, uh, to approve it. And, uh, you know, I can remember when the first day, I can recall, recall as clear today as, as it was yesterday, the day I walked in the distillery, walking back to the back building, uh, research and development. Walk, the bottling building was on the left, the distillery was on the right, and they were mashing, and I started smelling the stuff. I said, "Jeez, what is this?" You know, I didn't grow up in the industry now. "What is this odor, aroma?" And I said, "I'm not sure I can continue working in a place that smells like this." And, uh, of course, after a while that all, all changes. And I remember, uh, the first time on distillery shift supervisor. And I, I think I was on midnights. And some guy walks back, the fermenter room operator. I see him dip his little cup in a fermenter and take a drink. And I said, "What in the world is he doing?" (laughter) I said, "I'm not going to touch, let that stuff touch my lips." And, uh, I asked him. And, you know, he says, "Well, I'm just checking the fermenter." Uh, and again, 01:05:00I said, "If somebody expects me to put some of that stuff in my mouth, I'll, I'll have to quit, turn my notice tomorrow." But now, you know, walk through a fermenter room after lunch, it's dessert, going around smelling all the nice, uh, fermenters, uh, the different ages. And as it progresses through, uh, very sweet to begin with, with the sourness, uh, little bit at the end, uh, smelling and tasting, using our senses to evaluate. And, uh, you know, this start from, "I'm not sure I can continue here," to, "Hey, go over there after lunch and this is dessert." And we just learn to love to appreciate, uh, uh, any of us could walk around and look at a fermenter and tell, "This has got a problem," or "This is gonna be really good." Uh, we, you know, we call ourselves distillers. It'd be better fermenters or something, perhaps--(laughs)--cause we can't make something good with distillation that wasn't done right from the beginning. And so, that's the part of the art I was mentioning earlier. Uh, from the grain 01:06:00selections, approvals, through, uh, our yeast and fermentation, that's where the flavors are generated. We can't, uh, we can screw it up with the distilling, with the still operation, the way we, it's, if it's not operated right. But we can't take something that wasn't done right. And a part of doing that and knowing what is, is right or wrong, we use our senses, especially smell and taste.

RUSSELL: You know, the funniest thing, you get used to looking at those fermenters, the pattern on top of that fermenter, during the different stages of fermentation. And like Jim said, it's the least little thing wrong, you notice it just like that. And remember, I, I, I stand there days at a time, uh, a lot of times in the morning the first thing I do is walk all the fermenters. Stand there and look at them, look at them. And none of us mentioned the main part of our job: we get to taste all day long. (laughter)

MORRIS: Yeah.

RUSSELL: None of us said anything about--

BEAM: --in all different stages, too--

RUSSELL: --all different stages, the day it's made, the two-year-old, 01:07:00four-year-old, six-year-old, eight. We're all, we're tasting them all the time, every year as they sit there and age. So they're not mentioning it, y'all don't say anything, but. (laughter)

SAMUELS: It's the reason we all look seventy when we're ninety. (laughter)

RUSSELL: Yeah, right.

BEAM: And vice-versa.

SAMUELS: You speaking for yourself?

BEAM: I am. (laughter)

BROWN: This could be behind your rockstar status. Uh, master distillers have, as you know, achieved rockstar status. So the KDA says, and they're right. Um, and this is the part, I think, that a lot of people really envy: the fact that you do get to taste all day. Um, and that, it sounds as though that's, if things are going well, that's a really nice part of the job--

MORRIS: --well--

BROWN: --that you get to do that--

MORRIS: --everybody thinks it's, it is wonderful, but it's a, it's a huge responsibility. And you just don't taste, and you're, you're writing notes. You have to rate. Ratings go into batch, uh, creation. And if you don't do 01:08:00your job right, the product in the bottle won't taste the way it's supposed to, and then you have a, a business issue. So it's very responsible. And you have to focus. And of course, everybody thinks we're just sitting around drinking. But you, you are either nosing, tasting, spitting; you're not drinking. It's not a cocktail party.

SAMUELS: No, that's right.

MORRIS: It's, it's, it's work.

BEAM: Right.

RUTLEDGE: We're tasting, uh, they have a table, these tables are usually just for, circular tables that rotate so we don't have to move, but, uh, bring the glasses around. And when I'm tasting, I'm just putting, wetting my tongue just enough. And, of course, we nose it all first. And I'm not taking a, a drink and a shot down; I'm just putting enough in my mouth to wet my tongue. And, uh, then I, I'll swallow cause I want to know what the finish is like.

BEAM: Right.

RUTLEDGE: But, uh, I could look at twenty, thirty samples, and, and the way I do it, I might not have a shot. So it's, we, we can look at a lot, but we're 01:09:00not, we're not really drinking a lot.

RUSSELL: No, you--

BEAM: --I'll tell, tell a story off of that, uh, Jim. Uh, of course, you know, I don't know if you all are, but, of course, I'm in a drug program. You know, I get pulled through Heaven Hill, sometime it's twice a year and sometimes it's just once a year. But anyway, I came in one morning here last year, and it was my time to be pulled for a drug screen, which I think, I believe it was alcohol this time. So they, of course, they got somebody, safety, our safety director. She takes you down there, you know, to where we'd go down here in town and have it done. And so, uh, of course, I went in there and the lady was going to, you know, I had to breathe to do the alcohol test. So I'm telling her, I said, "Why, I just got through sampling some samples this morning." She said, "Well, you had to spit it out. Uh, you spit it out, didn't you?" I said, "Well, no." I said, "I'm the master distiller. How you going to, how you going to, how you going to finish your product, you know, know what your product, uh, tastes like 01:10:00if you just spit it out? You got to, you got to swallow it so you know what, what the end result is." She looked at me kinda funny. Course, I was kidding her. She did, I never did tell her for a long time there until then I said, "No, I'm kidding, I didn't. You just caught me, though, just the right time, so. Another hour later, you might've, might've, uh, had different results." But so you never know. (laughter)

RUTLEDGE: So what were the results?

BEAM: Well--

SAMUELS: -- --------(??)--

BEAM: --it was zero. (laughter) Course, I hadn't, uh, hadn't had a chance to taste any yet. So caught me at the right time.

BROWN: Well, speaking of tasting, what makes a great bourbon? This is what everybody wants to know. What, we'll start, we'll start with you, Mark.

COFFMAN: Well, like Jim, Jim said, uh, the yeast and fermentation gives it a lot of character, but I think at least 50 percent is coming from the wood. Uh, the wood gives it so much character. Uh, it's the first expressions you're 01:11:00coming off with that alcohol, that's really extracting a lot of flavor and a lot of components in there that giving it just its very unique bourbon characteristic. Um, and the selection of the wood has a lot to do with it, too. And the management of those barrels, and where it's staged in the rickhouse, uh, the, the seasons that it's going through, these are all, uh, complex factors that really have a big impression on, on your final product.

BROWN: Okay. As, as far as taste itself is concerned, um, what, what should people be looking for? And I say "people" loosely, but, say, anybody who wants to try bourbon, as, perhaps, getting into bourbon a bit, or an aficionado. Taste-wise, um, what's a good bourbon? What would be a good, um, what qualities of a bourbon would be good for somebody to look for in tasting bourbon?

RUSSELL: Well, I use simple terms. Uh, I think the caramel, the vanilla, the 01:12:00sweetness of it. And a lot of that comes from your barrel. Uh, and the, uh, the most important thing for me, as Jim said, is the finish. What kind of taste does it leave in your mouth? You know, I've eaten food at times that didn't leave a good taste in my mouth. I don't want that food anymore. You want something to leave a good taste. It's a lot of different flavors in bourbon, but me, personally, I'm looking for the caramel, vanilla, the sweetness, and the finish it has. And, you know, bourbon is the only product in the world that you can't add color to. The day it's made it looks just like water. All the color in bourbon has come amazing --------(??) charred oak barrel. When you char white oak, you're caramelizing the sugars and the vanillas and all. The summertime, when that barrel breathes, as Mark says, it goes out into that wood. The wintertime, it extracts. It's got to have that movement in and out of that wood. If it went in the wood and stayed all the time it wouldn't age any. Or if it never went into the wood, it wouldn't age. So you've got to have that movement and the breathing of the barrel.

MORRIS: That is--

SAMUELS: --we, we have a, uh, a little different way that my father insisted 01:13:00on. Rather than look at it from the inside-out, he said, "Let's observe from the outside-in." And our measure of success will be, were the people that tried it excited enough to go tell their friends? And this is really what allowed Maker's Mark to be the first word of mouth bourbon to become an international hit. So it, whether it tastes good or not was judged by the people.

MORRIS: Um-hm.

SAMUELS: And whether it was good enough to, "Just can't wait to tell my friends." And I think, I think there's a lot of that going on today, and I think that's the, that's the reason we're not looking at a short trend, all of us.

MORRIS: Cause I do ask, I ask a question back, cause we're asked that quite often, and I don't think it's any single answer, because do you like light flavors or heavy flavors? You know, what do you drink? Do you drink something else that's high proof or low proof? Because to suggest, "Here's a great 01:14:00bourbon and it's 140-proof cask strength," you might not ever see that person come back. "Or the 80-proof is too light, a four-year-old's too light, a ten-year-old's too heavy." So I talk to people and ask what do they like. Because as Jimmy and everybody said, there's certain bourbon flavors that we recognize as bourbon: the sweet, caramel, vanilla notes. But again, how, how they all come together. Because we have such a range of product from our, our various distilleries, there's not one simple answer to that question. It's to Bill's point: what do they like?

SAMUELS: Well, I think there is an answer--

RUTLEDGE: -- --------(??)--

SAMUELS: --I think, and you can see it the way the customers are talking to their friends and they're talking about bourbon; they're to talking about the other whiskeys so much.

MORRIS: Well, yes, within the bourbon world there's not one simple answer.

RUTLEDGE: Right. And I, I, I agree with what they're saying. I mean, it's, people ask me that question quite often, and I ask them back, "What do you, you tell me what, uh, you like." They'll ask me, "Well, what flavor should I look for?" I said, "I'll tell you my tasting notes only if you tell me yours. 01:15:00Because what I like you may not like. What you like I, you know, I may not." Every individual, we all have our own senses of smell and taste. And it's, uh, uh, it's in the eyes of the consumer, what they like. It's, it doesn't make any difference what I like or not like. It's what's, it's the consumer, what they like. And there's, we all do this basically the same thing, but a little different. And we offer varieties of flavors, uh, finishes, tastes, uh, heavier, lighter bodies. It's all bourbon. And we're different. We're not, it's not all the same. Like, I can remember years and years ago, uh, it was sort of like vodka, twenty/thirty years ago--(laughs)--before they had started making all the flavors. Go in and buy the cheapest bottle of bourbon, cause it's all the same anyway. Who cares?

RUSSELL: Right.

RUTLEDGE: And there couldn't be anything further from wrong. And now people understand the differences. But I, I will never tell anybody what, uh, what a 01:16:00bourbon should taste like. You tell me what you like. And, uh, and try all of us. We'll set up a tasting with everybody's bourbon here. And you pick out what you like and I won't try to change it. And we're part of this great industry. And there's room for all of us here. And it's up to the individual what they like.

RUSSELL: Your mind plays tricks on you. I like to do a blind tasting. Set up several different products--

RUTLEDGE: --um-hm--

RUSSELL: --from different, and let you taste it to see which one you like. And you'd be surprised, they'll all tell you, you'll be surprised, "Well, drink that one a lot, but that's not the way it tastes." But in a blind, blind tasting, sometimes they can't pick them out. Same way with soft drinks. How many different flavors of soft drinks you have? Coke, Pepsi, 7-Up. Same way in the bourbon. It's what you like, the flavor that you're looking for, the taste that you like. You want a heavy body? You want a lighter body? As Jim said, it depends on what you like in your taste. It's not, not what I like. It's what you like, cause I can't drink five hundred thousand barrels. (laughter)

BROWN: Not even over a lifetime? (laughter) Getting a little personal, um, when you are sitting with your, your friends, your drinking buddies, your other master distillers, um, Craig, what do you, what do you like to drink? Just when you sit down, if you had your choice?

BEAM: Well, if I don't have mine, I, I've drank everybody's here before, from one time or another.

BROWN: But what of yours?

BEAM: Oh, what of mine?

BROWN: Um-hm.

BEAM: I, I usually drink the Evan Williams Single Barrel.

BROWN: Do you?

BEAM: Um-hm, yes.

BROWN: Okay. Chris, what about you?

MORRIS: Woodford Reserve.

BROWN: Okay. Mr. Samuels?

SAMUELS: Maker's 46 Manhattan on the rocks with only French vermouth.

BROWN: That was your bourbon, wasn't it? That was your idea?

SAMUELS: Uh, what the French vermouth?

BROWN: The 46.

SAMUELS: Yeah, it was. Well, I had to have one idea. Lord, I served fifty 01:18:00years. (laughter)

BROWN: Jimmy, how about you?

RUSSELL: I drink most of our, our best, uh, small-batch, barrel proof, Rare Breed, or the Russell's Reserve Small Batch Ten-Year-Old bourbon. I like all of them, the 101, all of them, but I drink more of those two than I do any of them.

BROWN: Okay.

RUSSELL: And I drink it neat in the wintertime. Summertime I keep it in my freezer. I like it cold.

MORRIS: Um-hm.

RUSSELL: And wintertime, I just drink it neat.

BROWN: Okay, thank you. Jim?

RUTLEDGE: Uh, sitting around in a group like this, uh, I would probably have our Four Roses Single Barrel. If I'm out working, uh, an event, uh, I, I often drink, and especially if, uh, if I'm driving, if I'm in New York or San Francisco somewhere in a cab, it's different. But I only allow myself a couple drinks a night, and I always drink our, uh, our 80 proof, what we call our Yellow Label. And, uh, cause, whether two hours, four hours, I only allow myself, and I just want to make sure that I'm always safe. (laughter)

BROWN: Got you. Mark?

COFFMAN: Well, mine, uh, mine'll be seasonal. Uh, right now I'm testing out, uh, Town Branch Rye that we're going be releasing soon, so I'm trying to really pick up the good characteristics on that. But, uh, usually in the wintertime I'll, I'll stick with our, our single malt whiskey and Town Pearse Lyons Reserve, or, uh, summer, spring I'll stick with the Town Branch, our, our main label.

BROWN: Okay.

RUSSELL: You know, all of us got to be very careful. All the companies, uh, if we get out drinking, you get caught, uh, you know, these young troopers would be glad to catch one of, any one of us. (laughter) It would make headlines. I said, "Somebody make the local paper." Somebody said, "No, it'd make the world papers if one of us got out."

RUTLEDGE: Oh, yeah.

COFFMAN: They'd want a picture, just like Dillinger, when he was shot.

RUTLEDGE: Yeah.

RUSSELL: But that's something we, and we, all of us, uh, spend a lot of money against drinking and driving. That's, a lot of people don't realize, uh, some of them's not on television anymore. And the one I remember for many, many 01:20:00years that was sponsored by the people was two glasses. Y'all remember that one? The two glasses running together--

MORRIS: --um-hm--

RUSSELL: --crashed. Don't drink and drive. That was sponsored by the industry. But if you start advertising and saying things. And then they turn it around, say, "Well, that they're trying to get you to drink more. Drink more." And, uh, but that's what I see in a lot of advertisements. It's a lot of us, all of us do a lot of advertising against drinking and driving.

MORRIS: Um-hm.

RUSSELL: But we don't want any credit for it, because, you know, people think, "Well, they're trying to get you to drink more." Or that's the way I look at it.

BROWN: Um-hm.

RUSSELL: And especially youth. That's one thing we're, underage drinking.

BROWN: As far as the industry is concerned, the bourbon industry, um, Bill, as chairman emeritus of Maker's Mark, I'll--

SAMUELS: --it means I get free coffee. (laughter)

BROWN: Thank goodness. You've earned that, I'm sure. Um, what direction do you see the industry taking in the next few years?

SAMUELS: Well, in, in the last twenty-five years--again, looking from the outside-in, uh, it was a market dictated and controlled by, uh, large brands. And now there's a definite move toward craft and authenticity. And this really plays right into bourbon's hands. It's, uh, I think we're looking at a very sustainable. Uh, my fear is that, uh, some of the upstarts will get desperate when they run out of cash and, and start taking shortcuts. That's not an indictment. Uh, but it does tend to happen when you've got five, six hundred new licenses spread all over the country, and, and there's not near the oversight that we had when we're all located in six counties in Kentucky. But overall, it just could not look brighter, which is also good for the Kentucky economy. Okay. And, uh, I mean, I, I could go on with this one forever, 01:22:00because we're actually growing manufacturers in a state that is losing them at record rates.

RUSSELL: Well, I hope it continues, cause our company just spent $140 million building the new distillery, new bottling house, new visitor center. And, you know, we're planning on, say, eight to ten years down the road now. And, uh, uh, that's a lot of money to invest in the state of Kentucky.

COFFMAN: Don't want to get that one wrong, do you? (laughter)

RUSSELL: Making, making a lot of bourbon. If people don't keep drinking, we're going to have a lot of old bourbon--(laughs)--

MORRIS: --um-hm--

RUSSELL: --several years from now. But I think, uh, uh, nineteen and--you all correct me on this--I think 1970 was the largest amount of bourbon barrels produced in the state of Kentucky until last year. And last year, it was more bourbon barrels produced in Kentucky than there's ever been produced before. From [19]70 up until last year, it had been--well, not until last year, but it'd 01:23:00been dropping off a lot. But the last, since the nineties, I guess, somewhere in that range, it's really more--

SAMUELS: --it's, it's grown every year for the last twenty years, double digits about half of those years--

RUSSELL: --double digits--

RUTLEDGE: --um-hm--

RUSSELL: --um-hm, um-hm.

SAMUELS: And the international part is just now starting.

RUSSELL: Yes.

MORRIS: Just starting, true.

RUSSELL: They love us.

BEAM: And we've all expanded our distilleries, our warehouses, like they were saying--

RUSSELL: --everybody's spending a lot of money right now--

BEAM: --right, yeah, right.

RUSSELL: --and like I say, I hope it keeps going. If it don't, whew. (laughter)

BEAM: Right, right. Got a lot of money invested.

RUSSELL: Back to micro-distilleries, now, me personally--y'all might have a different opinion--this is the reason you're seeing a lot of white, we call it white dog, on the market. You can't start up a distillery and wait three or four years to get return on your money. You keep spending money every year. And I, me personally--maybe you all disagree with me--but I think that's the reason why this white dog is coming on the market. Them people's got to have a little money. You all agree or disagree with me?

COFFMAN: Oh, absolutely.

MORRIS: Oh yeah.

BEAM: Right.

RUSSELL: They got to have, uh--

BEAM: -- ----------(??) dollars--

RUSSELL: --they got to have money to keep operating. You can't keep making something for four, at least four years, three, four years without getting any 01:24:00return on your money. And that's the reason I say it, that's what I see a lot of, I don't know whether you all agree with me or disagree--

BEAM: --oh, yeah, oh, yes--

RUSSELL: --but I see, a lot of the reason why the white dogs are on the market now.

MORRIS: We'll see if those eventually leave the marketplace as they do have mature spirit--

RUSSELL: --right, right, um-hm--

MORRIS: --moving forward.

BROWN: Well, that's, we're at 11:30. Thank you all so much. Really appreciate your participating today.

BEAM: Thank you.

RUSSELL: Thank you for having us.

RUTLEDGE: Thank you.

RUSSELL: Thank you. Appreciate it.

BROWN: You're more than welcome.

RUSSELL: You're always welcome at our distillery.

RUTLEDGE: It's been a pleasure.

BROWN: Good.

RUSSELL: You're always welcome at our distillery. All our distilleries, Kentucky Distillers Association, uh, come and visit with us. We'll be glad to have you.

BROWN: Thank you, will do.

JOANNA HAY: Uh, keep the cameras rolling. Um, you had one or two--maybe to finish up, Brittany? Did you?

BRITTANY ALLISON: Yeah, I do. And when you all answer it, just look at Katherine like she asked it. But we talked a lot about who your mentors are. And both Craig and, and Mark have pointed out that some of their mentors are sitting in this room. Do you all feel responsible for educating the next generation to ensure that, um, the legacy of good premium Kentucky bourbon lives on?

RUSSELL: Well, I hope so, with me, as my son. (laughter) He's new in the business. He's just been there thirty-three years now. But, uh, backstory about him, he was playing football for Western Kentucky University. And, uh, he tells the story that Mama told me to put him to work one summer. Like some of the rest of them said, and he come to work that summer. He says, "It's been a long thirty-three summers."

BEAM: Right.

RUSSELL: He's been there ever since. He's really enjoyed it. And got a good education. He had to go to school at nights and daytime to finish his education. But, and again, back, uh, I don't believe in pushing your children into anything. If you push your children into something and they don't like it, it's hard on the whole family. Uh, they have to make that decision for theirselves.

MORRIS: That's one of my responsibilities at Brown-Forman is, is, it is across the corporation, is succession planning and building for the next generation. And I guarantee it's not going to be one of my children; it will be somebody 01:26:00else. Uh, and Brown-Forman's goal is to make sure that Brown-Forman continues on. So that is a very important part of, uh, my role. And, and I take it seriously. So I'm working with a number of young people. And one day one of them will succeed me.

SAMUELS: When my son graduated from the University of South Carolina after flunking out twice, he came and asked for a job. (laughs) And I said, "Unh-uh." And so, I said, "You go out on your own." This is the Brown-Forman thing.

MORRIS: Um-hm.

SAMUELS: "Get a second degree. Go out and accomplish something on your own. Then we'll talk." And it's one of the bigger mistakes I ever made, cause ten years later I, I, I had to recruit him back, and it cost me about four times what I would have if I'd have let him in out of college. But it's been, it's, it's been one of the highlights of my fifty years. And I take very little credit for it. I mean, he's a good one. And, uh, and when you got good ones, 01:27:00they learn fast and they push you out of the way faster.

BEAM: Well, I've got five daughters, and so--

RUSSELL: --same thing --------(??)--(laughter)--

BEAM: --so they're, uh, four of them are all out in college, doing, uh, getting their degrees. And, uh, so, but I got one or two of them that's really always asking questions about the bourbon industry, and any brands that we have. Or somebody they'll run into is asking them questions. And, uh, in fact, some of them work, have, have sideline jobs working at bars. And so, uh, I don't know how all that'll ever turn out. But, uh, so, and then, you know, you're trying to show your younger, uh, guys at the distillery, uh, younger supervisors, you know, how to, how to keep everything clean, and trying to, how to keep making the whiskey good. And, and so, maybe somebody down the road, uh, uh, you know, will pick up on it from what you've helped them, what you've taught them. So 01:28:00you don't know how that's going to turn out.

RUTLEDGE: I think it's, uh, it's something, you know, again, we love what we do and we love to share what we do. And, uh, I, I mentioned earlier on that, uh, knowledge is power. And, you know, just spreading that knowledge, and teaching everything you know, and generating the, the passion in others, uh, uh, that's just a part of the job, as Chris said. And, uh, teaching, and, uh, one of these days when, uh, I retire, there will be several people that are in a position to, uh, be able to step in and take over. And, but it's, uh, we love to share, cause we love what we do so much that, uh--(laughs)--anybody comes along, we're going to, going to want to start, uh, teaching the process, the history. And, uh, and it's all a part of it. We're all, uh, none of us started our distilleries, but we're maintaining and building and, and making it better. And 01:29:00that's what we should always do. And, uh, we hope to pass that on to others down the road.

RUSSELL: Be consistent. Taste today, tomorrow, eight, ten, that's what we strive for. Teach all of ours to make sure it's consistent, day-in and day-out, year-in and year-out.

BEAM: You know, the growth is just, you know, we've all grown tremendously. So to try to keep it all consistent, you know, as, as you go along with the growth is, is, uh, something we all strive for.

UNKNOWN MALE: If you weren't doing this job, what would you be doing?

RUTLEDGE: I'd be retired. (laughter) I don't want to retire.

RUSSELL: I just, I don't know. That's the only job I've ever had. (laughter)

COFFMAN: That's really a good question, Eric. What would you do? I mean, everyone here has got their passion in the business that they're at. It'd be hard to carry on that same passion with, uh, another skill or another task.

RUTLEDGE: Yeah, Jimmy said earlier, and I feel the same way. The first day I come in and feel like, oh, jeez, I got to get up and go to work, I know there's 01:30:00something wrong and it's time to retire.

RUSSELL: Yeah, time to retire.

COFFMAN: Right.

RUTLEDGE: But, uh, when you get up in the morning and say, "Wow, here's another day, let's go." And, uh, I don't know if there's, uh, we all feel like we're, we're the luckiest people in the world to, to be where we are. And it's hard to walk away from. (laughter) And, uh, that's why we're all old. Uh, we're getting older. We get older in our jobs, because--

RUSSELL: --what do you mean?

SAMUELS: We're still on the topside. (laughter)

RUTLEDGE: I, I looked at, I look around the room.

SAMUELS: Well, it's the only job, it's the only job I've ever had that I wasn't fired from, so. (laughter) So I just, you know, I'm still hanging on, still going in the office, reading my paper and--

RUSSELL: --drinking your coffee--

SAMUELS: --and drinking the coffee, and harassing anybody that'll listen to me, which is a diminishing number every year.

BEAM: I, I don't know what I would do either. I know before I started in the, in getting into the distillery, I always thought I was, I always liked, uh, I always was fascinated about the weather, and always thought about being a 01:31:00meteorologist, but I thought, well, again, with the last name Beam it wouldn't seem right being up there giving the weather, you know. Uh, so I just, uh, I don't know. I guess I'd just have to just keep doing what I'm doing.

BROWN: And the story is for the readers of Kentucky Living. Some know a lot about bourbon. Some have no idea. So this is, this is the readership. And, you know, what would you like for them to know?

RUSSELL: Well, to me, I think they all, the bourbon industry is a family affair, the way I feel about it. We're all competition one way, but we're all family. Uh, get along good together and have a great time. One of the things I remember, we don't do this as much as we used to, but every once in a while the master distillers would get together at different places. (laughter) The invitation said, "Bring your own bottle. But you can't drink it."

MORRIS: Yeah.

RUSSELL: "The last one out, turn out the lights." (laughter) Some of you all. (laughs)

RUTLEDGE: Yeah, bring a bottle and you can drink all night long--

RUSSELL: --you can't drink--

RUTLEDGE: --but you can't drink your own, and that's the relationship we have--

RUSSELL: --right--

RUTLEDGE: --and we're proud of it--

RUSSELL: And the last one out, turn out the lights. (laughter)

BEAM: We turned down a few lights there, haven't we, Jimmy?

RUSSELL: You have. Not me. I go to bed early.

BEAM: Yeah, he's early. (laughter)

HAY: There might be a story there. I think you're out late, aren't you?

RUSSELL: No.

RUTLEDGE: You're pointing at Jimmy, right?

UNKNOWN MALE: Not anymore.

RUTLEDGE: I don't know, I big to differ. I was at WhiskeyFest a couple of, uh, years ago. And this one in Chicago, and, uh, it was WhiskeyFest Chicago is a one-night affair, not like the two nights it turned into. In, in, uh, New York, and we had an early morning flight. Unfortunately, it's during the Kentucky Derby Festival. We're all busy during that period of time. We had an early flight coming, uh, leaving Chicago to fly back to Louisville. Uh, three or four of us that had gone up. Since we, we're meeting down in the, uh, lobby of the 01:33:00hotel to catch a cab and go out to the airport together, about four o'clock, quarter after 4:00, something like that, uh, in the morning to catch this early flight. Getting ready to walk out the door and Jimmy walks in. He said, "What are you doing?" "We're going home." Said, "What?" And I said, "Jimmy, what are you doing?" He said, "I'm just getting in. I got to, I got to go get some sleep, cause I'm heading to"--I can't remember whether it was Japan or Australia--

RUSSELL: --Australia, that's right--(laughs)--

RUTLEDGE: --"Australia this afternoon." But he was getting in when we were leaving. So he still stays out. (laughter)

RUSSELL: I was taking my early morning walk.

RUTLEDGE: Uh, uh, yeah, right. All the way from Delilah's. Oh, Lord.

BEAM: Yeah, one, one time we were--

RUTLEDGE: Delilah's is a, a bar that we, uh--

RUSSELL: --we all get together--

RUTLEDGE: --a big bourbon bar in, uh, Chicago--

RUSSELL: --that's true.

BEAM: Yeah, one year there, I guess, what's it been, ten, twelve years ago? We was in St. Louis together at a barrel seminar, and, uh, barrel symposium. So Jimmy and I and, and, uh, another guy from Heaven Hill, we all met down at the 01:34:00bar, down at, uh, the end of, at the motel. Must've been, what, eight o'clock at night, I guess?

RUSSELL: Yeah.

BEAM: Something like that. So we had started off Wild Turkey shots. Fact, we ended up with Wild Turkey shots all night, sitting there just the three, talking. And I don't know. It must've been about one o'clock in the morning, I guess, they ran out of Wild Turkey. Of course, the gal tried to pull something else over on us--

RUSSELL: --yes--

BEAM: --that, and we've, we, we told her, "No, that's not Wild Turkey." So Jimmy went up there and found out she ran out. So he told me and the other guys, said, "I'll be right back." So he goes down the street. Now, it's one o'clock in the morning in St. Louis. We didn't, we didn't know where he was going. So he said, "I'll be right back. Don't you guys leave." So he comes back in with a whole tray of Wild Turkey shots, all he could carry. And we sit there and drink those. They finally ran us out of there about three in the morning. But he went on down the, we went to bed, me and the other guy did, but Jimmy went on and met up with some other people down there in, what, a parking 01:35:00garage or something. He stayed out another. (laughter)

RUSSELL: That was all the bartenders. That's where they went.

BEAM: Yeah, bartenders, and they got out, so he was still out--

RUSSELL: --they meet in a parking garage after they get off of work--

BEAM: --4:30 or 5:00 in the morning. I don't know what time.

RUSSELL: They're telling stories on me.

UNKNOWN MALE: I don't see how he does it.

UNKNOWN MALE: What's your favorite bar? Where, what and where? What's your favorite bar?

RUSSELL: That, that'd be hard for me to answer.

BEAM: Yeah. Yeah. I--

RUSSELL: --there's so many--

RUTLEDGE: --yeah.

RUSSELL: It's so many of them.

BEAM: I don't know. I couldn't tell you, either--

RUSSELL: --Delilah's is a famous bar--

RUTLEDGE: --they're all great when you're, when you're there. (laughter)

BEAM: Yeah, yeah.

RUSSELL: The only thing about Delilah's--you all probably agree with me on this--I guess twenty, twenty-five years ago, the first time they took me there, if I'd been by myself I wouldn't have went in there, would you?

RUTLEDGE: (laughter) No--

BEAM: --yeah, I know it. It's--

RUSSELL: --it's, it's a rough-looking place--

BEAM: --yeah, it is--

RUSSELL: --and one of the most famous bars in Chicago--

BEAM: --it's rough place--

RUSSELL: --and everybody in there is doctors and lawyers and everything else, but from outside--

BEAM: --yeah--

RUSSELL: --if you're by yourself, I don't know whether you'd go in. Would you go in there?

BEAM: No, I, I doubt it. Twisted Spoke can be pretty bad sometimes.

RUSSELL: Yeah, Twisted Spoke can be bad.

BEAM: (laughter) Yeah.

UNKNOWN MALE: Well, really quick, we've lost, in the past year or so we've lost a lot of, of, uh, friends and colleagues: Lincoln, Elmer, Harry. Just real quick, you all just tell, it's unfortunate we're not, they're not here anymore --------(??). Tell us a real quick story on each one of those gentlemen. I know, Craig, you've probably got a lot here, too. Just real quick on just your favorite memories of, of those three gentlemen.

BEAM: Well, Harry, he was always personal. Very, very kind. I mean, he's all, he was just a very personal, kind fellow. He could sit back. You could talk to him for now on, and he'd always ask about how, how Dad was doing all the time. But he's, he's a real good guy. He'll be really missed. And, uh, and, uh, Lincoln, I, I've been around Lincoln Henderson quite a few times. I looked up to him, and, and what he knew. He was another mentor of mine. Uh, oh, uh, 01:37:00Elmer Lee, I'll never forget down at the, we went to St. Louis on the barrel symposium on a, on a, on a river ride, on a raft. And I remember Elmer getting, uh, his raft turned over and he went underwater. I remember reaching down, trying to pull him out of the water, cause he went plumb under the water, so. (laughter) Hanging on to him. But, uh, yeah, that was some good memories.

MORRIS: Of course, yeah, I echo that Harry was always a, a gentleman. We served on some KDA committees over the years with Harry. And, uh, of course, Lincoln was my mentor at Brown-Forman. Uh, funniest thing about Lincoln, uh, was he couldn't drink. One drink, and he was out. He was not you. He was very different. And, uh, Elmer, I didn't know Elmer very well. Uh, but he was always very cordial. Um, just, just a great gentleman.

SAMUELS: I think I met Elmer when I was in middle school or something. He was, he already had that hat on. He wore it--

RUSSELL: --oh, yeah, always wore(??)--

SAMUELS: --we're not sure he had the top of his head. (laughter) But he was, uh, uh, he, he was amazing. Cause, because that H&H distillery went through a lot of transitions. And, and when they got through stirring up and killing people, Elmer was the only one left normally. And they went for generation and generation. Finally got his own bourbon style. They, they really, uh, begin to recognize the talent the man had. An absolute legend. And, uh, I think Lincoln, almost among all of us, was the master of mentoring. Everybody that, that I knew that was outside of Kentucky that really was looking for a grandpa, it seems like they ended up with Lincoln. And he was so kind to, to many of my friends. They didn't come to me, cause I got a little too much of a hard-ass. They'd go to Lincoln. And he'd spend the time. And that was, it, it was really something. And I got to tell you, the thing, this is, this is a little personal about Harry. But when Max needed family support, Harry came to the rescue.

BEAM: Um-hm.

SAMUELS: And those two guys, Max Shapiro and, uh, and his first cousin, Harry, made, in my judgment, the A-Team in this industry. So he was, he was important to Max. He was important to all of us.

BEAM: Um-hm.

RUSSELL: Yeah, I say thing, same thing about Harry. He was one of those gentlemen that, uh, was like that all the time. Lincoln was, too. And Elmer was a true gentleman far as I was concerned. You're not taping, are you?

HAY: Um-hm.

RUSSELL: Oh. (laughter) Lincoln, Elmer and I, well, Elmer, actually Elmer and Booker and I was together at a seminar. And we, we was telling like we was talking today, you know, and Elmer was quiet. Elmer was a quiet fellow. Was a gentleman in every way. And this, we told all about it. And this fellow got up, and he got to go in all these different flavors in bourbon, and about forty-some-odd of them, Elmer finally looked over at me and said, "Jim, I don't 01:40:00put any of that shit in mine. Do you?" (laughter) I never will forget that. And Elmer was one of those fellows that never said anything. I never will forget that with Elmer. But Elmer and I were buddies for over forty-some-odd years, so. We, we lived within ten miles of each other. So we were together all the time. But Elmer, he was a gentle-, I think every one of you say that Elmer was a gentleman every way you can think of.

BEAM: Yeah, yes, uh.

RUTLEDGE: Absolutely, uh, they all were. They're all Southern gentlemen, uh, icons in the industry. And the industry, uh, was hurt a lot this year with their losses. And I can echo what they're saying, but that's the main thing to me. Uh, you know, everybody liked all the guys. Every one of them. And they meant so much to the industry. And, uh, uh, to see them all go in one year, it's been a pretty devastating year.

RUSSELL: You know how people love, we're talking about how all of us love the business. I think Elmer had been, what, two more days, he'd have been 01:41:00ninety-three? And he was still, when he was able, he was still going to the distillery one day a week and doing the tasting and all. (laughter) It's, uh, cause I was down there with him hadn't been a couple months ago. And he'd come in one day a week when he could. And I, was it two days, I think it was two, if he'd lived two more days, he'd have been ninety-three. But he was still, how much we love our jobs, or, he was still going to the distillery one day a week when he could, and doing tastings, and all.

COFFMAN: I didn't really get a chance to meet Harry or Elmer. But I got to know Lincoln a little bit at an event last spring. And you could tell, uh, the experience that he, that he had, um, the passion he had for it. And, uh, I, I just seen he had so much of a mentoring aspect to him that you could learn so much for him. Uh, it's lot of experience lost there.

RUSSELL: Yes.

BEAM: Speaking of, uh, of Elmer, Jimmy, you remember thirty years ago today 01:42:00what we were doing?

RUSSELL: I wasn't living then.

BEAM: Yes, you were. Yes, you were. We were in New York, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition--

RUSSELL: --um-hm--

BEAM: --and it was the, especially Elmer, cause I don't know that he had ever been to the big city before. And he, he spent all day looking around at the buildings, and stumbling over the manholes and stuff. Wasn't that a sight? We all went through. (laughter)

RUSSELL: Had that little cap on, too. (laughs)

BEAM: Yeah, had that little cap on.

RUSSELL: (laughter) I'll tell you another good story about Elmer. We was out in San Francisco to the WhiskeyFest. And, uh, they was having some kind of big protest. You all remember several years ago they had this big protest in San Francisco, and they was laying out in the streets?

SAMUELS: Every day.

RUSSELL: Every day, and the fellow that was driving us. Uh, you had to know how Elmer talked. We was going down through, and the, the driver said, "What would this happen if that was in Kentucky? What?" Elmer said, "It'd be just 01:43:00like running over a speed bump." (laughter) That's the way Elmer was.

HAY: Eric, are you happy?

UNKNOWN MALE: I'm fine, yes.

HAY: You guys, thank you so much.

[End of interview.]