Topic: A Sip of Knowledge with WhistlePig Distillery Team

Hosts: Liz Rhoades, Lew Bryson, & Martin Duffy

What You’ll Learn: Join a trio of drink industry veterans in weekly conversation on whiskey, spirits, distilling, marketing, and the current state of the drink industry.  This week, Emily Harrison and Meghan Ireland of the WhistlePig distillery team join the group.

About Emily Harrison, Head Distiller:

Emily grew up in Kentucky where bourbon is a way of life and everyone knows (and loves) their local moonshiner. After graduating University of Louisville with a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering, Emily knew she wanted to make whiskey for a living. She started out in Kentucky’s large bourbon distilleries but quickly discovered craft whiskey was her true passion. Emily spends her days leading a young, innovative team that operates the distillery at WhistlePig Farm. This includes creating crop plans with WhistlePig’s farmer, checking quality of the mash ingredients and distilled whiskey, and creating schedules for mashing and distillation. Her favorite parts of her day include finding new ways to make our Farm more sustainable, hanging out with Mortimer Jr., WhistlePig’s Chief Pig, and distilling the finest and most interesting whiskey in the world.

About Meghan Ireland, Chief Blender:

After finding her love for chemistry in high school, Meghan went on to earn her Bachelors in Chemical Engineering from Clarkson University. During her Freshman year she read an article in Whisky Advocate about a female Chemical Engineer turned Master Distiller, and knew that she also wanted to get into the spirits industry. Soon after college, Meghan started in craft hard cider, then made the switch to whiskey in 2018, joining WhistlePig. Meghan is in charge of quality at WhistlePig, ensuring with careful testing and tasting that the whiskey maintains its award-winning taste. She also directs the whiskey from barrel to bottle, and manages samples for WhistlePig’s robust Single Barrel program – a treasure trove of cask strength whiskeys and experimental finishes that serve to incubate future WhistlePig innovation.

About the Hosts: 

• Liz Rhoades, founder of Spirit Safe Consulting, former research scientist for DIAGEO, distilling consultant, spirits writer for The Whiskey Wash & presenter.

• Lew Bryson, former managing editor for Whisky Advocate Magazine for 20 years, whiskey author, beer/whiskey writer and presenter.

• Martin Duffy, former DIAGEO Master of Whisky for the Midwest, DIAGEO Reserve Brand Ambassador for The Republic of Ireland, North American Brand Representative for Glencairn Crystal.