Dusting Off the Seat

Hank Shaw has spent nearly 20 years convincing hunters that the venison in their freezer deserves better than jerky and summer sausage. Now he has rewritten the book that made his case: a new edition of Buck, Buck, Moose, the Kickstarter cookbook that set out to raise $36,000 in 2015, raised $106,000, and went on to sell more than 100,000 copies.In this Off the Menu conversation, Hank and John talk about:Going from line cook to 18 years as a political reporter to James Beard Award-winning food writerWhy newspaper deadlines cured him of writer's blockWhat he cut from the old book, what he added, and the 30 new recipes built for real weeknightsEqualization curing, and why every chef reaches for Diamond Crystal kosher saltThe one cut every deer hunter should keep: shanksWhy the front of the deer is for pot roast and the back is for medium rareHow California, Virginia, and Minnesota shaped his cooking, and his love of "cuisines of scarcity"To The Bone, his Substack, and the pieces that were hardest to publishAbout Hank: Hank Shaw is a former line cook and longtime political reporter turned hunter, angler, forager, and cook. He has written seven books, won the 2013 James Beard Award for his website Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, and lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.Spirits mentioned: None this time. This one is all about the table.LinksBuy a signed copy of Buck, Buck, Moose: huntgathercook.comTo The Bone on Substack: tothebone.substack.comHank on Instagram: @huntgathercookEmbellishPod on Instagram and TikTok: @embellishpodEpisode page and more: embellishpod.comPinkies down, headphones on. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.embellishpod.com

Steve Smith will tell you up front that he is not a distiller. What he is, is the seventh generation of a Howardstown, Kentucky family that spent a couple hundred years in the business of untaxed whiskey, and the founder of Uncle Boojie's Distilling Co., named for his great-uncle.In this episode, Steve and I talk about:How his mother's death sent him digging into family history, and what he found in the hills along the Rolling Fork RiverWhy he spent a decade putting down barrels before selling a dropTrading the three-tier system for a Homeplace in Louisville's Paristown neighborhood, and why selling direct was the only math that workedBourbon glitter, one-of-one bottles thieved straight from the barrel, and why nobody there will tell you what you should tasteTen-gallon barrels on mule-back, and a program that lets you take home a barrel of new make and start your own rickhouseOrigin Story, a recipe pulled from a pre-Civil War ledger at the family store, made with a grain nobody uses anymore, with 500 bottles due in 2027Guest: Steve Smith is the founder and proprietor of Uncle Boojie's Distilling Co. A real estate guy by background and a storyteller by nature, he opened the Uncle Boojie's Homeplace at 700 Vine Street in Louisville in 2025.Whiskeys discussed: Uncle Boojie's Double Oaked (116 proof), Rye (130 proof), Origin Story (125 proof, releasing 2027)Also mentioned: Whiskey Thief Distilling Co. (formerly Three Boys Farm), Whiskey House of Kentucky, Maker's Mark, Woodford Reserve, Brown-Forman, Kentucky Bourbon FestivalLinksUncle Boojie's: uncleboojies.comEmbellishPod: embellishpod.com Instagram and TikTok @embellishpodPinkies down, headphones on. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.embellishpod.com

Some of bourbon's biggest names were Jewish immigrants. University of Kentucky professor Dr. Janice Fernheimer explains why almost nobody knows that, and how she's telling the story in a comic.Janice is a professor of Writing, Rhetoric, and Digital Studies at UK, the Zantker Professor of Jewish Studies, a James B. Beam Institute for Kentucky Spirits Faculty Fellow, and the founder of the Women in Bourbon Oral History Project. Bourbon Women named her its 2024 Mike Keyes Champion/Ally of the Year.In this episode:- Isaac W. Bernheim, from four dollars and a peddler's horse to I.W. Harper and Bernheim Forest- Paducah's surprising place in Kentucky's Jewish history- Spotting Stars of David in the old Heaven Hill tasting room- America's Chosen Spirit, her historical fiction webcomic with artist JT Waldman- Why "perfect is the enemy of done"- Maria the Jewess, Bourbon Women, and dusting off seats that were always at the tableChapters:00:00 Intro01:01 Meet Dr. Janice Fernheimer11:10 Isaac Bernheim and I.W. Harper17:35 How America's Chosen Spirit began22:57 Building the comic38:02 Perfect is the enemy of done46:00 Bourbon Women and Maria the Jewess50:27 Where to read itMentioned: I.W. Harper, Heaven Hill, Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest, Nearest Green, Fred Minnick's Whiskey Women.Read America's Chosen Spirit free on WEBTOON: https://www.webtoons.com/en/canvas/americas-chosen-spirit/list?title_no=1117946Janice on Instagram: @highproofprofWatch on YouTube and read the full story on Substack: https://embellishpod.comPinkies down, headphones on. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.embellishpod.com

Nick Maas of Dancing Goat Distillery joins the show to talk about Stillman's Sonder, the new 10-Year Bourbon and 10-Year American Single Malt honoring three generations of his family's work in whiskey — from his grandfather Duane Maas's behind-the-scenes production work at brands like Seagram's, to his father Tom's small-batch bourbon brand-building career, to Nick's own path running Dancing Goat today.The conversation starts with the word "sonder" itself — a term coined by John Koenig in The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows — and how a concept about recognizing the full inner life of strangers became the guiding philosophy behind an entire whiskey brand. From there, Nick and John dig into the actual craft: how Andean oak (Quercus humboldtii) behaves differently than American white oak, why double-oaking was used to correct for a thin, fruit-forward base spirit, the mechanics of continuous still runs and where the "medicinal cherry" note in some MGP whiskey comes from, and how the American Single Malt was built through three rounds of blending across virgin oak, ex-bourbon, Wisconsin brandy, Cognac, and Calvados casks.They close on the Frank Lloyd Wright–inspired label art, a tribute to a late Dancing Goat team member woven into the packaging, and where to actually find a bottle.Spirits & distilleries mentioned: Stillman's Sonder Bourbon & American Single Malt, Dancing Goat Distillery, Death's Door Gin, Beren's Old Fashioned Brandy, MGP (Lawrenceburg, IN), RumChataLinks:stillmanssonder.com · dancinggoat.com · Buy: seelbachs.com, sharedpour.comPinkies down, headphones on. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.embellishpod.com

Meredith Mills-Merritt spent her career building prestige beauty brands before she ever thought about starting a spirits company. Then her mom's backyard gin cocktail — built on frozen lemonade concentrate, muddled mint, and a floral gin — became the recipe behind The Original Southside, a canned, ready-to-drink cocktail now on shelves in more than 20 markets.On this episode, Meredith walks through the 13-month development process that turned a family recipe into a business, the difference between a compound gin and a distilled gin, and why she bet on gin instead of the far more crowded vodka and tequila RTD categories. She and John dig into the beauty-industry habits she brought with her: obsessive ingredient sourcing, real cane sugar over corn syrup, and a refusal to hide behind a vague "clean" label.That obsession led Meredith to co-found the Clean Alcohol Collective with Conor Begley of Fathers Brewing — a coalition pushing for the kind of ingredient transparency that's standard in food and beauty but still optional in alcohol. They talk through the FDA's decades-old awareness of benzene risk in citrus-preserved beverages, why flavored malt beverages can legally pretend to be tequila cocktails, and what it takes for a brand to earn a spot in the Collective.Plus: how to actually drink a Southside (over ice, with a lemon wheel, or topped with prosecco), what breaks first when an RTD scales past 20 markets, and why sales patterns move across the map like a horseshoe each winter.Spirits & brands mentioned: The Original Southside, Fathers Brewing, Happy Dad, Cutwater, Salt Point, High Noon, Straightaway Cocktails, Hendrick's, Tanqueray🔗 drinksouthsides.com | embellishpod.com | [email protected] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.embellishpod.com

Katy O'Donnell spent years telling stories for one of the biggest whiskey brands in the world. Now she is telling a very different one. In this episode she joins John to explain what happens when a Buffalo Trace national brand ambassador goes all in on agave.We get into why a barrel-proof tequila is close to a physical impossibility, why aging tequila underground in Jalisco makes proof go down instead of up, and why that single fact flips everything a bourbon drinker assumes about "a well-aged spirit." Katy also fields a question she says nobody in tequila had ever asked her before, which came from a room full of whiskey buyers.From there we get into how Tequila Tromba actually gets made. Master distiller Marco Cedano built the brand around a commissary kitchen model, taking over a distillery he does not own and producing under his own standards. Katy explains NOMs, the seven-year math of planting agave against a market you cannot forecast, the Agave Rewilding Project planting species the brand can never sell, and how leftover agave fiber becomes compostable straws and cutlery.Guest: Katy O'Donnell is VP of Brand Development at Tequila Tromba. Previously she spent roughly seven years at Sazerac, including three as National Brand Ambassador for Buffalo Trace Distillery.Mentioned: Tequila Tromba (Blanco, Reposado, Añejo, Extra Añejo, Cafeto coffee liqueur, 3.75L Extra Grande), Buffalo Trace Distillery, Sazerac, Siete Leguas, Fortaleza, G4, Tequila Ocho, Don Julio, The Sustainable Agave Company, Sheer Agave, Arte Agave.Video version on YouTube. Full written piece on Substack.Find everything at embellishpod.com. @embellishpod on Instagram and TikTok. [email protected]. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.embellishpod.com

Legendary Hollywood producer Larry Kasanoff joins EmbellishPod to talk about what it actually takes to bet your career on a crazy idea — and win. Larry's résumé spans over 250 film and TV credits since 1987, including Platoon, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, True Lies, Dirty Dancing, and the entire Mortal Kombat franchise. He's the founder of Threshold Entertainment and co-founder of Lightstorm Entertainment (with James Cameron), and the author of A Touch of the Madness: How to Be More Innovative in Work and Life . . . by Being a Little Crazy. In this conversation, Larry breaks down the three principles at the core of his book — Create, Ask, and Play — and tells the stories behind them: greenlighting Platoon as a 25-year-old executive, convincing a skeptical CEO to hand over the rights to what became Mortal Kombat, talking Cher into her first-ever animated film role, and the infamous Guns N' Roses music video stunt behind Terminator 2. He also gets candid about the bets that didn't pay off, why he doesn't dwell on the misses, and how "embracing the madness" applies just as much outside the movie business as in it.A masterclass in creative risk-taking from someone who's lived it for four decades.Mentioned: A Touch of the Madness (BenBella Books), Threshold Entertainment, Vestron Pictures, Platoon, Terminator 2, True Lies, Dirty Dancing, Mortal KombatLinks: atouchofthemadness.com | thresholdentertainment.com | Instagram @larrykasanoffLive everywhere — audio, YouTube, and Substack. #PinkiesDown This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.embellishpod.com

The Backlog EpisodeI’ve been quiet for a bit. Not the good kind of quiet where I’m off somewhere sipping something rare and taking notes for later — the kind where life just eats your recording schedule alive. The samples kept arriving anyway, stacking up on the shelf like little reminders that I owed some friends of the show an actual conversation. So that’s what this one is: a backlog episode. Seven pours, no formal tasting notes, and a lot of catching up on what’s actually happening in this industry right now.Two States, One Bottle (Sort Of)The first thing I cracked open was a pair of bottles that are clearly in on the joke with each other — one labeled Kentslyvania, one labeled Penntucky. It’s a collaboration between Liberty Pole Spirits out of Washington, Pennsylvania, and MB Roland Distillery out of Pembroke, Kentucky, timed to land around the country’s 250th anniversary. The concept is simple on paper and more interesting the longer you sit with it: each distillery picked one of its own barrels and one from the other, then built its own blend from the same four base whiskies. Liberty Pole’s version leans on their sweet-mash, double-pot-distilled Monongahela rye tradition. MB Roland’s leans on their pre-prohibition style and that dark-fired corn they’re known for in western Kentucky.I could pick out the MB Roland character almost immediately just from the nose — that distinct house profile doesn’t hide easily, blend or not. The Penntucky version read a little more rye-forward to me, though I’ll cop to that being purely anecdotal. What I actually want to flag here isn’t which one “wins,” because that’s not the point. It’s that I think we’re going to see more of this kind of thing — distilleries using each other as an introduction to markets they don’t already have a foothold in. If you want to understand western Kentucky whiskey, MB Roland is a great front door. If you want Pennsylvania rye, Liberty Pole is exactly that. Pairing up isn’t a competition, it’s a proxy.A Blending House Doing What It Does BestFrom there I moved to something that’s been sitting on my shelf longer than I’d like to admit — Dark Arts Whiskey House’s Empyrean, a high-rye bourbon finished separately in red and white port casks. Macaulay Minton and the Dark Arts team have built their whole identity around blending and finishing rather than distilling from scratch, and this one leans into that fully: seven-and-a-half-year Indiana distillate, finished in white port casks specifically, which is a less common move than the usual red port play. The name is a reach for “highest heaven,” and honestly, letting it sit and open up in the glass for a while, it earns a little bit of that reach. Thick, syrupy texture, long legs in the glass. No notes today, but it’s good. Real good.Grown on Eleven AcresNext was something I picked up in person, not shipped to me — an Estate Bourbon from Lux Row Distillers in Bardstown, from a trip I took a few months back with their team. This is a five-year rye bourbon mash bill (78% corn, 12% malted barley, 10% rye) where the corn was grown on the eleven-acre plot that now houses three of their rickhouses. That’s the kind of detail that sounds like marketing copy until you actually think through the logistics — harvesting a single eleven-acre field means dedicated equipment runs, dedicated storage, no cross-contamination with any other crop. It’s expensive to do at that scale, which is exactly why a five-year bourbon carries a price tag that would otherwise raise an eyebrow. It’s a limited, distillery-exclusive pour, and it’s a genuinely interesting one for anyone who cares about where their grain actually comes from.Pride of Anderson County Goes NationalThen there’s a whiskey with a complicated history: Pride of Anderson County, the collaboration between Rare Character Whiskey Co. and Wild Turkey historian David Jennings. The original run was a limited lottery release tied explicitly to Wild Turkey — expensive, scarce, and it made a lot of people upset in the way whiskey people get upset. This new chapter is different. It’s transitioning into an ongoing single barrel series releasing twice a year, going national instead of staying a one-off. Whether or not it’s tied to a specific named source doesn’t really change my read on it — Rare Character’s track record speaks for itself, and this pour backed that up. It might be the best thing I tried all night.Decanters, Barrel Picks, and What’s ComingA couple of quick hits before I wrap: Green River Distilling Co.‘s tasting-room-exclusive ceramic decanters are some of the most fun packaging in the category right now, and the whiskey inside holds up regardless of what else is happening with their parent company — a story I’ll let the actual news outlets cover.And finally, the one I’m most excited about: I joined Casey Jones Distillery‘s new public barrel pick program, open to anyone who wants to sign up. We worked through five barrels alongside folks from the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, converged on the same favorite before anyone knew what it was, and that barrel is now the official Kentucky Bourbon Festival pick for the year. It’ll be available at the festival this fall — and if you’re going, that’s a bottle worth standing in line for.What’s NextOff the spirits beat, I’m keeping up the monthly cocktail series on Substack (this month: a bourbon blackberry smash) and running album reviews as advance copies come in. More episodes are coming, including some familiar faces from the Kentucky Bourbon Festival world before summer’s out.If you want the full conversation — the tape-wrestling, the tangents, all of it — the episode is live now on audio, YouTube, and right here on Substack, if that’s your thing.#PinkiesDown This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.embellishpod.com

There’s a moment about halfway through this conversation with Sam Lacy where he stops recapping events and starts talking numbers — 37 states, 900-plus bookings, a local bar up 57% in a single week — and you can hear it click into place: National Bourbon Week has stopped being a nice idea and become an economic engine for a small Kentucky town.Sam is the Executive Director of the Bourbon Capital Alliance, and he joined me fresh off the third annual National Bourbon Week, held June 14–21 across Bardstown and the surrounding counties. Eight full days, ten partner distilleries, and — by his own admission — barely a chance to catch his breath before we recorded.From a Lawn Ceremony to an Eight-Day FestivalIt’s easy to forget how young this event actually is. Three years ago, National Bourbon Week was closer to a single ceremony on a lawn. This year, it was a full week of distillery-hosted experiences: a Big Vat blending class and the debut of Big Vat Liar at Potter Jane, wood finishing at Old SteelHouse, a “proof by the spring” tasting at Log Still, the Beam Luau, Maker’s Mark’s Bill’s Bourbon Soirée, and a downtown bar crawl that sold out in a single day. Special releases — Elijah Craig 21, the 250th Anniversary Wadiboon from Preservation, Big Bat Liar, and a first-ever Knob Creek 15-Year Cask Strength — gave collectors a reason to plan around the week, not just show up for it.Sam’s read on why this year worked so well comes down to one word he kept returning to: experience, not event. “Consumers want experiences,” he told me, “and particularly if you can offer them a unique educational experience, all the better.” Distilleries leaned into that, and the bookings followed.The Mashup, ReimaginedOne of the clearest examples of that evolution is the Bourbon Capital Mashup, the Alliance’s signature tasting event featuring all ten partner distilleries. This year, the event expanded its footprint by partnering with Neat Bourbon Bar next door to Bespoken Bond, giving VIP ticket holders an early window with the distilleries before general admission opened, plus a dedicated lounge with vintage pours and a menu from chef Newman Miller. Ticket sales jumped from about 130 last year to 160 this year, and it sold out. Sam’s takeaway wasn’t just that it sold well — it’s that attendees who’d been to both years told him, unprompted, that year two was simply better. That’s the value of a real postmortem: distillery partners and the Alliance sit down after the week, compare notes, and build the next version from what actually happened, not just what was planned.The Numbers Behind the WeekHere’s where the conversation got genuinely interesting. After National Bourbon Week wrapped, Sam spent days compiling booking data from partner distilleries — location, event attendance, timing — into a spreadsheet of more than 900 individual bookings. The findings: visitors came from 37 states, and 70% of bookings came from outside Kentucky entirely.That’s not a regional festival. That’s a national one, and it’s happening in a town that most people couldn’t find on a map five years ago. Sam is using that data for more than bragging rights — he’s building the case for a real sponsorship program heading into 2027, and he’s already pulling hotel occupancy and Airbnb data to round out a full economic-impact report. One local bar owner told him he was up 57% over a typical week. Multiply that across restaurants, hotels, and shops downtown, and you start to see why Sam calls bourbon tourism “not dead at all” — a pointed rebuttal to the periodic headlines suggesting the category has peaked.Enter the Bourbon Capital DiplomatIf National Bourbon Week is the Alliance’s flagship event, the Bourbon Capital Diplomat Certification Experience might be its most ambitious long-term project. Officially launched to the media in June, the program addresses something the Alliance identified as a gap all the way back in its founding community study: Bardstown’s hospitality workers — the bartenders, servers, and front-desk staff who talk to visitors every day — often don’t know as much about the ten distilleries around them as the guests asking the questions.The curriculum, built directly with input from all ten partner distilleries, runs about two hours inside the Bourbon Capital Academy classroom at the Brindiamo Penthouse. It opens with a welcome cocktail and a quick lesson on building a proper old fashioned, moves into a guided tasting (Basil Hayden, Monk’s Road Rye, Evan Williams Bottled-in-Bond, and Old SteelHouse Batch 2 were on the mat this round, rotating quarterly), and weaves in video content shot directly with master distillers like Fred Noe, John Rempe, etc. — so the story behind each pour comes from the source, not a script. Participants finish with a 50-question exam; pass at 80% and you’re a Certified Bourbon Capital Diplomat, pin included.Sam is candid that this program will take time to build momentum, and that it’s designed to stay alive rather than end at graduation — biannual “Diplomat Summits” will keep certified diplomats connected to new releases and distillery updates. The long-term vision reaches beyond Bardstown too: conversations are already underway with the Kentucky chapter of the United States Bartenders Guild to bring bartenders in from Louisville and Lexington, with an eye toward eventually reaching bars far outside the state.What’s NextWith National Bourbon Week’s postmortem underway and 2027 dates already being planned, Sam’s next few months belong almost entirely to the Diplomat program — though he’s also eyeing an offsite version during September’s Kentucky Bourbon Festival. For now, his advice for anyone thinking about next June is simple: book your hotel or Airbnb early. Bardstown fills up fast.Want the full conversation? Listen to the audio episode or watch on YouTube — links below.Enjoyed this one? Subscribe to EmbellishPod on Substack for new episode write-ups, extra context you won’t hear anywhere else, and first access to future interviews with the people building Kentucky’s bourbon industry. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.embellishpod.com

What does a PhD chemist, a 150-year-old Roman family company, and a lemon you can eat like an apple have in common? This episode, that’s what.Dr. Micaela Pallini — President and CEO of Pallini S.p.A. — joins EmbellishPod from Rome to pull back the curtain on the world’s number one limoncello. Micaela is a fifth-generation family leader who left a career in chemistry to help perfect the recipe that now ships four million liters a year to over 80 countries. She is also the first woman ever elected president of Federvini, Italy’s leading spirits trade association.In this conversation, we get into the sfusato amalfitano lemon — a PGI-protected citrus grown exclusively between Positano and Vietri on the Amalfi Coast that takes a full year to grow, can’t travel by ship, and will go moldy in your fridge in two weeks. We talk about what it means to infuse fresh peel in near 200-proof alcohol, why Pallini landed at 26% ABV, and how a family recipe became a global category leader without losing its soul.We also get into Mistrà, Pallini’s original dry anise liqueur born from Venice’s trade routes; Limon Zero, their non-alcoholic limoncello launched during COVID; and Micaela’s own preferred serves — including a limoncello tiramisu recipe you’re going to want to write down.This one’s live on all audio platforms, YouTube, and Substack if that’s your thing.Find Pallini: limoncellopallini.com | @pallinilimoncelloEmbellishPod: embellishpod.com | @embellishpod | #PinkiesDown This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.embellishpod.com