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In 2018, the three founders of Miram & Greene, a distillery in Blanco, Texas, traveled for the first time to the San Antonio Cocktail Conference, one of the largest gatherings of bartenders, distillers, and their army of fans in the state. They looked forward to introducing the new whiskey until they stuck the assigned table in a corner away from the action.
Cold shoulders may have come because they weren’t used to the scene or because some of the whiskey was made outside of Texas. But not all three helped – entrepreneur Masha Miram. Heather Green, CEO and Master Blender. And Marlene Holmes of the Master Distillery was a woman trying to hold her own in an industry known for her assertive and sometimes aggressive masculinity.
“There were literally complaints like ‘why are you here’,” said Green.
The Miram & Green team won the tournament and in an indomitable spirit received high praise, including an award at the Texas Whiskey Festival in April. And three years after their first frosty reception, they were not only accepted, but also celebrated by other Texan distilleries.
“It was a complete turnaround,” said Green. “We just had to punch in and say, ‘We’re here and we’re one of you.'”
Similar stories are often found in the American whiskey business, where women have long played a silent and undervalued role, often in places like annoying queues and marketing departments. In recent years, however, women have begun to play a leadership role in manufacturing (distillation and blending) in corporate activities such as Cascade Hollow Distilling Co. and Milam & Greene in Tennessee.
In doing so, they not only gain credibility for a long time, but also shape the profession, which is still male-dominated.
Andrea Willson, a mature master at the Michters Distillery in Louisville, Kentucky, said, “The difference today is that over time they are recognized for their contributions.”
Distillation used to be considered a woman’s profession. That is part of their duty around the stove and the house. Fred Minick wrote in his book Whiskey Woman that a woman in medieval Europe used her distilling skills to make medicine but was persecuted when the same ability was accused of black magic. I am.
This tradition continued within the early American borders. Catherine Spears Flykerpenter, the mother of a widow in Kentucky and a liquor maker in the early 19th century, first wrote a recipe for sour mash whiskey.
With the advent of modern industrial distillation after the civil war and the increased gender role, women left their mark in other ways, but no longer played a role in whiskey production. In the 1950s, Margie Samuels designed bottles and labels for her husband’s new whiskey brand, Maker’s Mark, and developed her distinctive red wax seal.
Some women managed to get hired for a production role. Pam Heilmann, professor emeritus of the Master’s Distillery at Michter’s, and Holmes at Milam & Greene have worked for Jim Beam for decades.
Holmes, 65, says that when he started in the early 1990s, he had to overcome many myths about women and distillation, as well as the usual sexist stereotypes about women. For example, hormones can interfere with fermentation.
“If it was the time of the month when you were on your period, you’d be ruining the yeast,” she recalls.
With the dominance of the company’s wiser boss, Holmes took on more and more household responsibilities. “When I got off the bar 27 years later, I made the yeast,” she said.
There are other reasons women make natural distillers and blenders besides hard work. Scientists have long known that women have a more subtle sense of smell than men – Linda M. Bartoshuk, professor of food science at the University of Florida, said 35% of women said she was a super taster. We estimate it is legitimate to call, but only 15% of men do. This keen sense can be of great benefit when trying to determine if you’re ready for fermentation or when you need to tweak spice notes in a batch of whiskey.
Women like Holmes and Heilmann open their doors to young spirits manufacturers. Many of them come with a technical education in chemistry and engineering. This is an important advantage for breaking through what still looks like a network of old people.
Among them is Nicole Austin. She studied chemical engineering at university and worked for a wastewater treatment company in New York City. In the early 2010s, he began volunteering at Kings County Distillery in Brooklyn.
Her hobby soon turned into a new profession. Austin, 37, helped set up the New York Distillery Guild in 2013 and has since worked with Dave Pickerell, a consultant who built dozens of craft distilleries and the huge Tullamore Distillery in Ireland. It was.
In 2018 she returned to the United States to become the manager of Cascade Hollow in Tullahoma, Tennessee, the home of George Dickel whiskey. So she revived the once dormant brand – Whiskey Advocate named its first major release, a 13-year-old bottled whiskey of 2019 – and the best young liquor maker in the country. Recognized as one of the providers.
Austin is dominated by a new generation of whiskey makers who are used to playing an equal role despite dealing with people who resent the idea of what women do. They said they were lucky enough to start their careers if they saw it as a male job.
“I’ve seen the best and the worst in transitioning to the whiskey industry,” she said. “During the most dramatic wage injustice and the most dramatic misleading corporate culture, I have also seen industries that repeatedly choose me as a manager.”
That tension is a challenge for women like Austin and the Miram & Green team. They say they want to respect achievement and not gender, but they also recognize that their position is a role model and a responsibility to help other women take on the challenge. come to mind.
This is a paradox that weighs heavily on Victoria Eddie Butler, the master blender of Uncle Nearest, a Tennessee distillery founded by entrepreneur Fawn Weaver in 2017. How people recognize her, especially as a black woman.
“I think we set an example for this industry by showing that women can play these roles, not just podiums,” she said. “I fully understand that I consider myself the first African American master blender in history. I take this responsibility, but I don’t focus on it. “
Dealing with the sexism that remains in the industry is difficult enough as it is. For many women’s distilleries, it’s not their colleagues who are the problem, but the men who are plagued by the possibility that their customers, especially women, know more about whiskey than they do.
After studying chemical engineering in college, Marianne Eaves enrolled at Brown-Forman, a Louisville company that makes Jack Daniel’s, Old Forester, and Woodford Reserve whiskeys. There she found a mentor at the company’s master distillery, Chris Morris. In 2014 he made her a master taster with a focus on sensory analysis and quality control and worked with her on the development of new whiskeys such as Jack Daniel’s Rye and Woodford Reserve. Double oak.
But she spoke of her frustration when a retailer pushed her away to wave a hand during a public event where Morris was promoting her work.
“He glanced at me and said, ‘Oh, you’re that taster’s girl,'” she recalls. “Chris said, ‘No, she’s our master taster.’ But the man said it again and Chris corrected him again. “
Eaves left Brown-Forman in 2015 for the startup Distillery Castle & Key, where she was a partner, master distiller, and the first woman to hold the title since Prohibition in Kentucky in 2019. As a counselor, she got up alone. (Two other women follow her at the top of Brown-Forman: Elizabeth McCall, assistant master distiller for Woodford Reserve, and Jackie Zycan, master taster for Old Forester.)
Eaves has been recognized for his recent work, creating ultra-premium whiskey for brands like Sweetens Cove, supported by groups of sports stars like Peyton Manning and Andy Roddick.
Still, she occasionally finds sexist attacks, especially from online trolls.
“At first I really got inside myself, but after a while I stopped reading the comments,” she said. “I don’t feel like I have to fight every fight. People follow me. Every time someone disagrees with my services, I don’t have to justify myself. “
But she added that there have been many changes in the 12 years since its inception. According to 2020 data from market research firm MRI-Simmons, not only are more men accepting learning about whiskey from women, but women also make up an estimated 36% of American whiskey drinkers. This change is underpinned by the success of groups like the Bourbon Women’s Association, founded by another former Master Taste of Woodford Reserve, Pegino Estevens.
“I love standing in front of women, answering questions, sharing stories and not being able to worry about sides or judgments,” said Eaves.
Source link In the world of whiskey men, more and more women are calling for shots | lifestyle
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