The Crew

Being from Kentucky, I have been around bourbon and whiskey for a good part of my life. I remember family sitting at tables, campfires, campsites, and parties, always having great laughs and good times sharing stories with a bourbon in hand. The argument always came up of what was better: Kentucky bourbon or Tennessee whiskey!

When I started drinking bourbon and whiskey, it was the cheapest thing on the shelf that I could afford. I have always enjoyed the flavors of bourbon and whiskey, but I really found that the bourbon drinker was my kind of person. We enjoyed the same laughs and good times sharing a nice bottle.

As I have grown older and moved around from place to place, I have always created a group of people that enjoyed bourbon and whiskey. These groups of friends have let me enjoy some of the best bourbons in the world, but more importantly, they have become lifelong friends.

To me, a bourbon or whiskey is only as good as the person you're sharing it with. So my goal is to sit down and create lasting laughs, good times, and memories around every glass. My bourbon and whiskey tastings are about that first, and the bourbon second.

This might be why friends bring over insane pours and drop bottles to share—because they also know the experience, friendships, and laughs make every bottle taste better.

It all really started after a trip to Kentucky for work. I had a few days of a conference in Louisville and much of the rest of the group was going to Keeneland to watch a horse race. The wife and I opted to check out part of the Bourbon Trail instead. We went to Jim Beam, Bulleit, Four Roses, Heaven Hill and Evan Williams. I would have loved to have gone to Michter's and Old Forester, but both were still being built at the time.

We did the tours at the first few and I was fascinated with the story and history of bourbon. From where and how the grains were grown, to the science behind the recipes, the history and stories behind the distilleries and the drama and fighting of the families. It reminded me quite a bit of our trip to Italy. You have this picture in your mind of this idyllic story and how all these artists got along and created these amazing works of art. In reality though, they despised each other and there was all kinds of competitive, fighting and pranks they pulled on each other. The story of bourbon seemed quite similar. From family members stealing yeast strains from each other and starting their own competing distilleries to all sorts of sabotage. Fascinating and fantastic stuff!

We actually didn't get much bourbon on the tours as the rules in Kentucky were still quite strict at the time and none of the distilleries were allowed to have bars. We went to dinner, the restaurants had lengthy whiskey lists, but I honestly had no idea what I was looking at. We didn't even do any hunting at stores that weekend, so there's no telling what I missed on that trip.

That set the hook for me and I started stopping in a few stores back home. This was around 2017/2018 so bourbon was popular, but not to the crazy extent that it has become. There wasn't Pappy sitting on the shelf and good bottles were still mostly hidden in the back. I was just another "bourbon guy" in the stores and the managers mostly gave you a shrug of "here's another one" and didn't pay much attention.

I didn't ask for Pappy, Blanton's or any allocated bottle. I'd just go in and talk to the folks and ask what they liked and if they had anything interesting I should try. I didn't run around the state either. I had a store by my house and store by my office that I consistently visited, always talked to the employees and always purchased our normal stock of other liquors, etc.

I was always nice and polite and just got to know the folks over time. I witnessed people get mad and yell over not getting a bottle of Blanton's. I never understood how someone thought they would get an allocated bottle by demanding it or being mean. Over the years, the employees would start offering me allocated bottles and I made sure to always bring a sample back so they could try it as well. After all, bourbon was always about the story and sharing. It's that friendship and connection that is the special part of whiskey. At that point, I was hooked. It became an adult version of an Easter egg hunt and a bit of a challenge to see what we could find and try. We always opened them and I was never one to set them on a shelf to collect dust. I had a small group of local enthusiast friends that always enjoyed trying something new and they also always had something interesting to try.

Somewhere in those years, I got introduced to older whiskey, known as Dusties. New and highly allocated bourbon became increasingly harder to find. My connections had retired or management had changed and I was no longer a preferred customer. I didn't have the time or inclination to spend the days driving around the state and these new to me, Dusties, began to gain my attention. They were quite unique and had flavors and aromas that you don't find in the newer bottles.

Some of my favorites smelled of a dark, dank and stank basement. Something that reminded you of climbing down the stairs of my grandparents house to an unfinished basement that you were slightly terrified of as a kid. You just didn't know what was lurking in those dark hidden corners that you couldn't see into.

Little did I know that there very well could have been 1980s Wild Turkey in a decanter or Old Ezra! Don't even get me started on 1969 Old Crow Chessman or some Old Grand-Dad or Old Forester from the 1950s or 60s. To me, these were so much more rich than current varieties and had complexities and flavors that you might not expect from an 8 year old or 80-90 proof whiskey. It became a rabbit hole at this point and I was fortunate to have a good connection of buddies that would occasionally stumble across what seemed like an ever expanding offering of Dusties.

Several years later, I was looking around on a local whiskey group site and came across a post of a guy looking to trade some store pick Weller Full Proof that he had for a Weller 12. I had a bunch of 12yr and thought that was an interesting trade, so I messaged the fella. He agreed and we started talking about the meet. Turns out he was literally ¼ mile from my house and he said to swing by on my way home from work.

He was outside on the front porch and we swapped bottles and started a little small talk. It didn't take but 2 minutes, but he invited me in to his basement bar for a pour while we kept chatting. His basement bar was amazing and contained a bunch of whiskey paraphernalia, as well as a wide selection of bourbons and whiskeys. I'd tried a lot of bourbon at this point, so I honestly didn't pay much attention to the Pappy or Buffalo Trace Antique Collection on his shelf. I always look for something interesting that I haven't tried before. After what must have been a couple of hours, he had handed me a bottle of Parker's I was looking for and an older Rock Hill Farms and just said to find something interesting for him later…. Challenge accepted and this Dude had no idea the Dusty rabbit hole I was about to send him down…

It didn't matter what we drank that day, but we hit it off just chatting about our bourbon stories and adventures. His name was Stephen, and here we are years later with a website and a crew of other Dudes that I've met at the Fire Pit. PJ, Dan, Tom and Dustin….quite a few others have stopped by from time to time as well. A bunch of dudes from all walks of life, careers and stories of how bourbon played a role in bringing us all to this spot.

Cheers friends!

My journey into the bourbon world started long before I actually knew anything about it.

Back in college, my fraternity's house drink was Jack Daniel's. Late nights and plastic Solo® Cups. At first, I tolerated it; over time, I grew to appreciate it. But the real turning point came in 2016 when I moved South. That's when the training wheels came off. I traded in the black label for more sophisticated pours like Old Forester and Woodford Reserve Double Oaked. Suddenly, I wasn't just drinking; I was hooked. I became fascinated by the strict rules, the deeply rooted history, and the fact that two distilleries using similar ingredients could pull drastically different, complex flavors out of a charred oak barrel.

The deeper I fell down the rabbit hole, the more the community opened up. I connected with fellow enthusiasts who introduced me to bottles I'd never heard of and stories I couldn't stop reading. That path eventually led me to this current crew of Dudes. Tasting the elusive unicorns and experiencing the old and dusties.

From the early days and the Bottled-in-Bond Act to the dark days of Prohibition, the post-war boom, the "glut era," and today's massive craft explosion, I love every single chapter of bourbon history. But at the end of the day, the history is only half the fun.

The best part? The community, the friendships, the bonds. I'm a firm believer in our group's ultimate truth: Bourbon is meant to be opened, poured, and shared.

My journey into whiskey has pretty much followed my passport.

It started in Denmark, where I somehow ended up with a group of engineering friends who believed the proper way to spend an evening was to cook a great meal, break out the board games, and collectively justify buying a bottle of good Scotch. We'd meet once a month, each throw in a little money, and slowly convince ourselves we were developing sophisticated palates instead of just expensive habits.

Then I moved to Florida. Figuring "when in Rome"... or more accurately, "when in the tropics," I traded Scotch for rum. It seemed like the right thing to do, and to this day I still enjoy a good rum from time to time.

Eventually, work brought me to Louisville, where a friend insisted I give bourbon a fair chance. Up until then, bourbon occupied a very small corner of my brain labeled "stuff you mix with Coke." Then he poured me an E.H. Taylor (EHT) Single Barrel. That glass completely rewrote my understanding of bourbon.

Since then, my mission has been to keep expanding my horizons—tracking down old and dusty bottles to see whether they actually deserve their legendary status, while also discovering newer releases from distilleries that consistently put out fantastic whiskey. Sometimes the unicorns live up to the hype. Sometimes they're just expensive reminders that marketing is a powerful thing.

The best part, though, isn't collecting bottles—it's opening them. I genuinely enjoy sharing great pours with friends and introducing someone to a whiskey that changes their perspective the same way that first E.H. Taylor (EHT) changed mine.

And on nights when there's no one else around, you'll usually find me with a small pour in hand, sitting in front of the stereo, enjoying some good music and appreciating how far the journey has come.

I was a vodka drinker for most of my adult life. Always enjoyed a nice cocktail with friends and family.

PJ and Tom are great buddies of mine, and I would hear conversations of them hunting bourbons, drops, and some tastings they were attending. I travel for a living, and they would ask me to drop by a store if I was close to see what they had in stock.

The turning point was a trip to Dallas where I was able to taste a William Larue Weller (WLW), and then my buddies invited me to their annual trip to Kentucky where they hit distilleries and hunted. I got it then—we laughed our asses off through most of the trip and I was able to try a King of Kentucky (KOK) 17. I don't know if it was the King of Kentucky (KOK) or the guys I was traveling with and the memories we were creating...

I was HOOKED! Soon after that, I was invited to the fire pit where I met the rest of the guys and I knew I was a part of something more than just bourbon. I met a great group that had the same values and had great times. Fast forward to today where I have built a bar and a collection of my own with 50 plus bottles and some great DUDES on the way.