Most people know Kentucky for its bourbon. In fact, 95 percent of the world’s supply is crafted in the Bluegrass State, and bourbon is America’s only native spirit. The $8.5 billion industry creates 17,500 jobs, accounts for billions of dollars in capital projects, and is responsible for millions of tourism dollars. It’s no surprise that the state is chockful of professionals willing to pass on their knowledge to new generations of bourbon connoisseurs serious enough about the spirit to open new distilleries.
At Moonshine University, educating new bourbon producers is one of the keys to keeping the state’s bourbon tradition alive and well.
Moonshine University Business Development Director Kevin Hall said that since the school opened in January 2013, students from 45 states and 27 countries have enrolled. One alum built a distillery 35 stories up in a skyscraper in Manila, Philippines.
“He’s an outlier, had money coming out of his ears,” Hall said with a laugh. “It was obvious that people needed help opening a distillery, for any type of spirit.”
MU has the advantage of being in Louisville, near many bourbon distilleries. Its aim is to provide people with an opportunity similar to what is offered throughout the United States for those hoping to become sommeliers—wine professionals.
“For the wine industry, you can get degree programs. For example, at UC [the University of California at] Santa Barbara and in the beer industry, it’s the same thing, but for distilled spirits, that doesn’t exist,” Hall said. “We’re in Louisville, and it’s the geographic epicenter of the larger industry, so all of the resources are based here. We thought that was an opportunity if we put in a small distillery with a classroom attached to it and then leveraged off of all of those resources to teach classes.”
But average bourbon drinkers may not be interested in applying. Ringing in at $6,000 for the five-day course, MU is focused on helping those seriously considering diving into the industry or for people already in the industry who want to deepen their knowledge.
Hall said roughly 600 people have passed through MU. Also at the facility are one-, two- and three-day classes on topics such as nosing and sensory specializations, Distilling 201, Stave & Thief Society (a bourbon certification program) and some custom courses.
Class sizes vary from about 12 to 30 participants, and teachers come from all over the country. MU’s 5-Day Distiller Course, which is offered quarterly, qualifies for continuing education credit or 5.5 business management credit hours through Jefferson Community and Technical College. It is the only intensive distilling workshop in the U.S. that can offer college credit and is endorsed by an accredited college and professional industry organizations.
“Our core class is the 5-day distillers course, where 35 presenters come in over the course of the week to teach,” Hall explained. “That really is a 30,000-foot overview if you’re getting into this industry. Most people are in some stage of due diligence. It covers things like building selection, construction, legal, marketing, permitting and compliance, packaging, production, [and] making the spirits, including whiskey, rum and vodka. Equipment, sales strategy, business planning—everything from beginning to end. They can’t learn it all at once, but it gives them an idea of what they don’t know.”
When asked if most people are discouraged or encouraged after the class, Hall noted that the entire week is “kind of a roller coaster.”
He said the classes are not for the faint of heart, but “the feedback is almost invariably positive. The class is expensive, so they’re serious. We priced it because we wanted to weed out the tire kickers.”
Kentucky business people take bourbon and other spirits seriously, and MU knows that. It is backed by the Kentucky Distillers Association, a nonprofit organization that traces its roots back to 1880 and exists to promote and protect all things bourbon.
KDA Director of Member and Public Affairs Colleen Thomas previously served as marketing director for Louisville-based Flavorman and its sister company, the Distilled Spirits Epicenter. In 2014, she developed the Stave & Thief Society, the first bourbon certification program recognized by the KDA. Now, MU students can attend the prestigious Stave & Thief daylong class.
“Stave & Thief Society was my signature project—my baby, if you will,” Thomas recalled. “It was a joy to work with so many of the top bourbon and hospitality professionals to develop such an outstanding program.”
Thomas also worked with Hall and Colin Blake, MU’s director of Spirits Education & Creative Services, to build MU from the ground up.
“I’ve seen hundreds of distilling entrepreneurs go through Moon U’s classes, and I have a deep respect and admiration for the extraordinary investment each and every one of them puts into their venture—not only monetary, but the time, energy and learning curve that comes with starting a business in this industry are truly astounding,” Thomas said.
“Stave & Thief Society embodies Kentucky’s reverence for our signature spirit by providing an authentic bourbon education and a tremendous support system through its collaboration with the KDA and top practitioners in the bourbon industry,” said KDA President Eric Gregory. “This program is elevating the bourbon experience for consumers across the country.”
Moonshine University has major backing from big names in the bourbon industry but also includes professionals from dozens of other industries who are employed to run a successful distilling operation.
“We have people from across the industry—like Ph.D. biologists in fermentation and people specializing in branding and public relations, glass people, label makers and attorneys,” Hall said, noting it also employs industry leaders such as Peggy Noe Stevens, the world’s first female master bourbon taster and founder of the Bourbon Women organization, as well as a 30-year Jim Beam operating veteran.
MU operates next door to the 25-year-old Flavorman. One of the country’s foremost authorities on flavor, it specializes in beverage production through technical innovation. Some of the MU classroom time involves trips to the adjacent building that is full of numerous beverage flavors—including those of the alcoholic variety. It’s like a miniature laboratory for the students, as is the adjacent Grease Monkey Distillery.
MU is less than a mile from Louisville’s Bourbon Row and is a mere 10 blocks from iconic Brown-Forman, one of the largest American-owned companies in the spirits and wine business.
“We have a great relationship with Brown-Forman, and when we joined the KDA, they were our sponsor,” Hall said. “They were instrumental in the curriculum development of Moonshine University and amended the bylaws of the KDA to make us the exclusive education provider. All the heritage distilleries helped pool resources to teach these classes, so we have the best people in the industry to teach.”
Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer is a fan of the school. The mayor has a special task force for the city’s front-end hospitality staff and likes for them to attend MU courses.
“If you go to Napa, you’d expect your waiter to know about wine. People come here, and they expect their waiter or bartender to know about bourbon,” Hall said. “So we put together Stave & Thief. It’s backed by the KDA, so people come and become executive bourbon stewards.”
He said many everyday bourbon enthusiasts enroll in that course, including a man who flew from Tokyo to take it.
Hall said the school has no advertising campaign and has relied solely on the internet and word of mouth for marketing. So far, that’s working. The timing for its inception also happened to be perfect, he said, noting that previously there was no other resource like MU.
For some, going to MU wasn’t supposed to be in the cards. Joyce Nethery wasn’t supposed to go to bourbon school.
Now, the former chemical engineer, educator and chief financial officer is one of the state’s three female master distillers and co-owner of Jeptha Creed Distillery, a 15,000-square-foot distillery sitting on 64 acres of Nethery family-owned farmland in Shelbyville. Jeptha Creed is the 32nd member of the KDA and the first distillery in Shelby County since Prohibition.
Jeptha Creed, which opened in November 2016, and Nethery owe some of their newfound success to Moonshine University.
“When I went to Moonshine University, it was my husband that was wanting to build a distillery,” Nethery recalled. “I told him I thought he was crazy. But he kept on it, and I was like, if he’s going to do it, he needed some training. So I found Moonshine U, and they had a five-day distillers course, and I got him signed up for it. Then he couldn’t go; so I went. I was like, ‘We paid for this; now I’ve got to go.’ ”
Nethery previously had worked in distillation, and her husband was raised on a dairy farm. They had raised their children on the family farm, so they had the background to run their own distilling operation using ingredients raised on their farm.
After attending the course in 2013, Nethery said she “fell back in love with my engineering, fell back in love with copper and all of the pieces [of making bourbon]. But I think the most important thing that came out of that experience is that I was able to see that we could create our story. They kept saying, ‘You need a story.’ We could combine the farm and the farming aspect of what we were doing with my knowledge of the engineering and distilling and make a fabulous product in the end. I saw that big picture.
“It took a lot of time outside the class to process it and put the pieces together and to actually get the business plan and all of those pieces put in place,” she said. “That all came afterward, but I think the most important piece was the concept that came out of the class.”
There are other examples like Nethery, and Hall said he’s confident that like the bourbon industry as a whole, the school has staying power. The name alone evokes curiosity, and when he wears his MU-branded attire out and about, Hall said he often gets stares.
“It’s tongue-in-cheek; people remember it,” he said, just like the names of sister businesses Flavorman and Grease Monkey Distillery. “People will stare at you when you’re wearing the jacket and go, ‘Is that a real place?’ Oh, yeah!”
The KDA points to growing numbers in the industry. The Commonwealth has a total of 6,657,063 barrels of bourbon, the most since 1974, when 6,683,654 new charred oak casks were gently aging in Kentucky warehouses. There are now roughly 1.5 barrels for every person living in the state, and U.S. distilled spirits exports topped $1.5 billion in 2013.
Hall speculated that bourbon will not die off.
“The numbers of distilleries have increased eerily identical to the way the craft breweries ramped up 25 years ago, and I think the craft brewing industry reached a stage of maturation, and some of the early adaptors got bored and moved on to distilling,” he said. “Then the numbers have exploded in the last five years.
“They’re drinking something, so it might as well be bourbon. Everything’s cyclical, but I think the distilled spirits base has long, long legs. I think there will be some flattening out, and there will be some consolidation—a lot of them are being bought up by big guys—but I don’t think it’s going away. People like farm-to-table food; they like that with their spirits.”
Hall noted that the export market is “virtually untapped” and there are still many more places for American bourbon to go.
These numbers and prospects can inspire MU students. Hall said there is a healthy mix of visionaries enrolled who, when combined with grounded realists in the program, “balance each other out.”
MU Success Stories
In addition to Jeptha Creed Distillery’s Joyce Nethery, Moonshine University alumni include the team at Kentucky Peerless Distilling Company in Louisville; Joe and Lesley Heron, founders of Louisville’s Copper & Kings American Brandy Distillery; and Marc Dottore, owner of Dueling Grounds Distillery in Franklin.
To learn more about Moonshine University, visit moonshineuniversity.com