“I’ve had this on my to-do list for a decade,” says Renae Price as she rocks in a bourbon barrel rocking chair on the front porch of Old Pogue distillery in Maysville. She’s covered with corn and rye dust, though she doesn’t seem to mind.
A bourbon enthusiast for over a decade, she first had the idea to make her own bourbon at someone else's distillery ten years ago. She worked toward her goal by becoming an active member of the bourbon community in groups such as The Bourbon Women. She has also began studying the history of Brandy, lecturing on the topic at Copper and Kings last month.
Price spent five days last week at Moonshine University in preparation for this. “If someone is considering going into the industry, the expertise of everyone they’ve brought together at Moonshine University is invaluable,” she says, after describing the hands-on grain-to-bottle education she received. “It was the best prep I ever could’ve done to make this experience more real.”
Now she’s distilling her own bourbon at a small craft distillery, which she will eventually bottle under her own label. She timed her education just right to coincide with her turn in the Old Pogue distillery- five days learning and five days in practice. “It’s like when you have chemistry lab after chemistry class. It really helps you cement what your learned from the book by putting it into practice.”
Price has gone through the same steps each day this week, starting Monday. Since Old Pogue is such a small operation, it takes multiple mashings and distillation runs to fill a barrel. The process is repeated from start to finish every day. She’s not just overseeing the operations or specifying how to cook her recipe- she’s actually in the distillery doing the cooking with the help of distiller John Pogue.
Though the name isn’t yet settled, Price has one currently going through the approval process. Look for this new bourbon release in 4-5 years.
Photos Courtesy of Maggie Kimberl
