452. Mother of Bourbon: A Whiskey Story Worth Telling

Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of the Bourbon Road Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Shannon.

And I'm your host, Todd Ritter. We've got a great show for you today. So grab your favorite pour and join us.

Hey roadies, it's Diane Strong with Bourbon on the Banks Festival. We've got another amazing event coming your way this year. Be sure to join us at the half and I'll tell you a little bit more about the event taking place October 4th, 2025.

Todd and I are proud to have Smokies Lifestyle Cigars as the sponsor of this episode and as the official cigar of the Bourbon Road podcast. Our hosts and listeners alike enjoy the ultimate experience of premium cigars. Smokey's Lifestyle Cigars are where flavor and craftsmanship meet. Find out more during the halftime break and at Smokey's Lifestyle Cigar dot com. The Surgeon General warns that cigar smoking can cause lung cancer and heart disease and is not a safe alternative to cigarettes. The Hill House Bed and Breakfast, located in Loretto, Kentucky, is ready to be your bourbon country home away from home. Located less than three miles from Maker's Mark, the Hill House is convenient to Bardstown and the rest of the Bourbon Trail. The next time you visit bourbon country, choose comfort and convenience. Choose the Hill House Bed and Breakfast. Listen in at the break for more details or visit their website at thehillhousekentucky.com. Hello listeners and long time roadies. Welcome back again to another show. Todd and I have, well we put on our hiking boots today and we've left Shelby County. We are now in Jefferson County. We're in downtown Louisville. We're hanging out at one of my favorite places. Where are we Todd?

We're at Rabbit Hole Distillery with Cave Zemanian. We're here to sip some of his Mary Dowling expressions and dive into, you know, he's not only a distiller, owner and CWO, he is now, he's got author under his belt. So, Kawe, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Todd. Thank you, guys. It's a pleasure to be here.

I feel a bit amiss that I didn't look up the prior episode where you were on the show, but it's always a pleasure to return and see how things are going with one of our old friends.

Thank you.

We always enjoy drinking your whiskey. We certainly enjoyed it the last time we were here on site and we're looking forward to trying, for me anyway, some whiskeys that I haven't had before, Todd.

Same. I think I've only tried one of these expressions, and it's very impressive. And yeah, there's the tequila finish, which spoilers. That's one I'm definitely very interested in trying, because you'll kind of hear why I think why he went with a tequila finish on that. There's a reason behind that. It's all on the mother of bourbon, Mary Dowling.

Before we dive in, and we're going to dive in pretty quick here because we do like to get to that first port pretty fast, but can you give us the 10,000-foot view of Mary Dowling, the mother of bourbon, and why we're sitting here today?

Yeah, you know, I think that Mary Dowling's story is arguably one of the best, most amazing American whiskey stories that not a whole lot of people know about. I came across her as a footnote in a couple of books years ago and just struck a chord with me, I was very curious about her life and her accomplishments and over time started digging in and learned a lot about her and realized she's one of the most successful distillery operators and distillers in the history of Kentucky Bourbon. and American whiskey. And most notably, I say American whiskey because she was quite influential and tied to the 1964 act of Congress that ultimately declared bourbon an American spirit. There is a connection there that hopefully we can get into today.

All right. Well, I'm excited to try what's in our first glass here. This is the first time I'll taste a whiskey sporting her name. But I don't know, Todd, have you had an old Dusty of Dowling?

I've had Dowling, yeah. House of Commons in Frankfurt has a couple of Dowling expressions. And then I've also had the water, Phil Frazier, some of them. That's right. You can find those here and there in some of the nicer dusty bars that are becoming prevalent here and there.

Yeah, it's been fun since we launched this brand to see some of the old bottles show up on aftermarket in some of these auctions, especially the water fill ones.

Yeah, I was just telling Jim I'm not supposed to be on there or anything like that. And they really don't exist kind of thing. But I just saw three of the Mexican releases. Well, tell us a little bit about what's in our glass here.

Yeah, so what we're drinking is our basically base Mary Dowling expression. This is a weeded bourbon. So it's 65% corn, 25% wheat, and the balance of it is malted barley. It is aged in toasted and charred barrels. And as we tend to do here at the facility, it is in the barrel at 110 proof. So when it comes out, it kind of ranges when you're tasting at cask anywhere between in a low 100 to about 120. But what we're drinking today is essentially are weeded at 93 proof.

All right. Let's check it out.

Cheers.

Cheers. Cheers.

Nice cherry note. Yeah. I mean, that's the first thing that pops out at me. Cherry bread. It does have a nice, uh, zero note to it. I like that. And what was the bar of content again?

25%.

That has to be a contributor.

I apologize. Weed is 25%. Weed is 25%. Yeah. The balance of it is, um, it's about 10%.

Still substantial. Let's taste it. Cheers.

Cheers.

What a better way to spend a Saturday than sitting in downtown a little rabbit hole having a sip.

No doubt. No doubt.

That's nice. Nice caribou notes. Yeah.

Now, when did you start the Mary Dowling brand? So we started laying down. With the facility here, we have a lot of extra capacity. So we started laying down different types of bourbon and rye a while ago. Mary Dowling as a brand came to life about three years ago from an idea stage to when we actually launched about a year and a half ago. And so all in all, about three years, the project's been in the works, but about a year and a half that's in the market now. And it's a nice backstory if you guys want to hear about how it came to be, because I was fascinated with Mary as a character, learned a lot about her. and then ultimately ran into a gentleman here at Rabbit Hole, who, with his wife, owned the Waterfell and Frazier and Dowling Brothers trademark. And we have a painting that's commissioned up at Rabbit Hole's tasting room with Mary Dowling's name on it, among other few notable whiskey makers that people don't know a whole lot about. And he asked, who knows about Mary? we were connected. Next thing you know, he's basically telling me that his wife's grandfather is a gentleman named Robert Gould, who at one point owned Wild Turkey before it was Wild Turkey. And he also had the rights to Waterfell and Frazier and Dowling Brothers. And he was trying to give it a go as a brand, not a whole lot of success. And then we chatted. And I basically said, I'd love to see if I can give it a go. And next thing you know, we made a deal. And here we are.

Wow, that's a great story. It's great to see some of the old names and old distillery histories come back to life. It really is.

It's a great whiskey. It's a really good whiskey. Very viscous. I mean, that nice spice for 93 proof. What's the MSRP on this coffee? So this is $55. Yeah.

I mean, I just think that whiskeys that have a low barrel entry proof, like 110, they just tend to stand out in the flavor profile that just packs such a wonderful texture and also flavor. And this is very nice and balanced. It really sits on the palace nicely. Add a little bit of a kind of full tongue, peppery bite to it. I love that. It's really good.

Yeah. I'm glad you guys like it. You know, for me, it's all about balance and harmony. I don't like a whiskey that punches me in the face and every note has to, you know, in some ways compliment each other.

Right. Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit about your book, Mother of Bourbon. This is something that Todd and I both have just completed reading within the last week or so.

Well, I finished it a little bit before that.

Yeah, it kind of took a little bit longer. I'm a slow reader. But very enjoyable book. Tell us a little bit about the book. What spurred that? I mean, what caused you to say, I want to be an author. I want to write a book.

Yeah. So after the conversation with Alan Bartel, the gentleman who owned the trademarks for Waterfell and Dowling Brothers, I decided to roll up my sleeves and do more serious research about her. Because one of the things about some of these, you know, old historic heritage based names and brands made me wonder, you know, are they are they on the right side of history or not? And that's one of those things that I wanted to make sure that, you know, in some ways, I understand and learn more about Mary and who she was in the process. I just discovered so many things about her that made it so intriguing that ultimately it felt like not only we have to named the brand after her. Most importantly, it felt like we have to tell her story in a compelling way and what better way to do it by trying to essentially capture her story in a book format. Initially, I was thinking about it as almost like a documentary, but the more we discovered about the cast of characters, the more it felt to me that it would be nice to write it as a historical fiction. So we have all these real characters, we have the real events, but obviously we weren't there to know exactly what the dialogue and the narrative and the conversations were like. So we took a little liberty there in creating the conversations that we imagined happened at various points of her life to bring Mary and her experience to life.

So, Cave, why do you think her story has been untold, basically?

You know, it's a great question. I think that one of the major currents throughout her life was essentially fighting what I would probably say the establishment, in a sense. At the time, the establishments were very powerful men who were running the distilleries and the lion's share of the bourbon business, a lot of them actually Protestant distillers. She was a daughter of Irish immigrants, Catholic. She married John Dowling, who was an Irish immigrant, also a Catholic. there was a lot of anti-Catholic sentiment at the time. And John and Mary, essentially, during the Know Nothing party and all the kind of currents that were happening post-Civil War, were able to, together, within a span of 25, 30 years, build an amazing, well, they had two cuprages, three distilleries, really kind of a rags to riches story. But when John died in 1903, everybody came after her. The distributor dropped her. The banks basically dropped her line of credit. And there was a fire in her coup riche in one of the distilleries. There was speculation that basically they were trying to push her out and buy her pennies on a dollar. So there is this overall kind of overarching current of I would say in some ways prejudice towards her as an Irish immigrant or daughter of Irish immigrants, as well as being a woman that may have kind of fueled some of this.

Yeah, one of the things that I really appreciated in the book was the character development and the way that those characters were brought to life. John and Mary, you kind of built their relationship and their interactions together with such a unbelievable kind of scenario. It was such a, I mean, at times they struggled, at times they loved. I mean, they worked hard all the time and they build an amazing thing together. And then of course she went on to do great things. But the characters, because I know some of the things you can't do in a historical fiction a lot of times is you can't have access to the personalities of people or the conversations they had privately. And of course those had to be created. Congratulations on doing a really good job of making a great story out of that because I felt like even early on in the book, maybe even in the first few chapters that I was already knowing the characters and that was great.

Yeah, thank you. I mean, first I have to give a shout out to my co-author and collaborator, Eric Goodman. Eric's a phenomenal writer. You know, I'm an emerging writer, let's put it this way. So I did a, my contribution was on the narratives to a certain extent, but Eric really set the frame in a beautiful way. And I think when it came to this story, I'll tell you, one of the things that was most intriguing to me was the relationship between John and Mary, because John, at a time when women had no rights to property, the right to vote or anything along those lines, made her a full partner. And as you pointed out, together, they built this business together. So for me, the love story and the connection between the two of them and having a person like John believe in his wife in the way that he did is really probably one of the most intriguing parts of the story.

How were you able to balance that historical fiction with your research that you had done into that? Was it the Dowling family? Were you able to contact any of them and get some info on things like that?

Yeah, you know, what started to emerge We got a whole slew of information through, believe it or not, sources like newspaper.com. So there was a lot of articles that we found, for example, from papers in Lexington or Lawrenceburg or even Louisville. Not to jump ahead, but there was the court case that she was involved with. There was a lot of data that came and correspondence around that, particularly around the prosecutor and the judge and so on and so forth. And then we were able to, through certain folks in Lawrenceburg, to be able to connect with various cast of characters from starting with the Rippey family and then ultimately to the descendants of the Downings. We were able to, I was able to interview and speak with her great-great-grandson, two of her great-great-grandsons and her great-great-great-granddaughter, we were able to see a lot of photos, photographs, and then not only correspondence, but some artifacts that are really great, which, for example, she had this relationship with her distributor in Chicago that, you know, he gave her various like and we were able to see those artifacts, which gave us a little bit more. So those were all real. You know, the pendant that she received and all that, we got to see those in real life. And then the last thing I would say is the Beam family. Bruce Phillips Beam is one of the Beam family members who provided the only surviving pictures of her distillery in Juarez, Mexico. And Bruce used to tell me that every year, The Beam family gathers together for a celebration and every year they give a toast and have it for years, for decades, to Mary Dowling. So it was really nice to be able to get all these folks to contribute and give us that information.

Yeah, we don't give any spoiler alerts here, but that's a great part of the story when the Beams get involved. It really is.

Which segues, I think, into our next poorer, right? Yeah. Yeah, let's do it. As you just heard, she and we'll get into a little deeper dive of why she moved it to Mexico. But yeah, we're getting ready to try. What's our second expression here?

Yeah, so the second is a high rye finished in tequila casks. So we're sitting at Rabbit Hole Distillery. One of the nice things about this facility is it gives us a lot of flexibility to create different mashpills, different finishes. And what we decided to do with this, we took our high rye, which is high gold. This is 70% corn, 25% malted rye, and the balance is malted barley. And then we finished it in tequila casks for Yeah, the range is different. It could be anywhere between four to six months, essentially in the tequila casks. And it's in the bottle at 91.

All right. Let's check it out. Cheers. Cheers. It's like a light touch. It is a light touch. Yeah. Yeah.

That was a key thing, because it's one of those things where I think agave can really overpower the base bourbon. And honestly, I like it. I think it's very distinct. But at the same time, when I do tastings, people either love it or they hate it.

Yeah. It also seems to be an upcoming trend I'm seeing. I know we talked about the beams. Well, I think Freddie Ngo is doing a one of his little book or one of the doing or the reserves or something like that is going to be tequila finished. So and I'm starting to see, you just know, yeah, they've kind of done a lot of other stuff. So now they're, you know, starting to look for new and different stuff is, you know, you got to kind of play around and experiment and

Yeah, I think what's happening from a consumer standpoint that I think is exciting is people are expanding their palette. They're looking for new things. And as a consequence, we're as suppliers, as producers, we're experimenting. And it's fun for me as a maker. And it's nice to see other people have a wide range of options.

Yeah, it seems like, you know, in the early days of finishing, obviously in the very early days of finishing, it was really surrounded, uh, port barrels. More wine barrels and some armagnac barrels and things like that. But it's always been grape based, right? Primarily. And then a few came out and did some, uh, some kind of brandy kind of stuff. So, but you know, getting into, uh, Finishing another, like, well, Brandy's a spirit, but getting into other spirits, you know, that are not great based really changes the profile altogether.

Yeah, it does. And I'll tell you, there is a there's an art to it. And I feel very fortunate to have we have a great team. And we do all the aging close on the facility here. Because I say, you know, when it comes to secondary barrel finishing, it's like watching a newborn, you got to you got to really baby it and take good care of it, particularly with tequila casks or ambarana casks, which are, you know, a little bit of a, you know, like you were pointing out, they're not your standard kind of wine based finishes. So it's a very different timeframe. And, and ultimately, you got to really watch it closely to make sure it's a balanced product in the end.

It's interesting because when I'm tasting this, and I just took a taste by the way. I did too. Okay. Leaning back on the first pour we had, the weeded, this one is completely different.

Agreed.

But the funny thing is I expect to have a little bit more bite on the tongue, but you don't. It's a little less sweet. But it's got this different depth to it. I don't know. Maybe it's tequila. I'm not directly tasting tequila. I'm tasting something that it imparted on the barrel.

I was going to say it's like a nice kiss on it. Tequila kiss.

Yeah, for me there's just a hint of agave and there's an earthiness that I think it comes across.

Yeah, and that's where the big difference is, I think, between the first one we had. It was a little bit softer, but it had that peppery bite on the tongue. It was sweeter. And then this one comes in just a little bit different. And I really do like it. It's not typical of what you would expect. It's very interesting and surprising.

Well, that's music to my ear because I don't like to put the same product in our releases. So it doesn't matter if it's Rabbit Hole or Mary Dowling, each bottle has to be distinct in my opinion.

Just curious, the distillery in Juarez, and again, we're sort of leaping ahead of here a little bit, but did they produce tequila as well?

Not to my knowledge.

Okay.

Yeah, I think they were making actually well, they were making bourbon all the way to 1964 Okay, and then after the act of Congress they continued to make whiskey Of course, they couldn't make call it bourbon anymore and that distillery kept producing all the way to the early 70s before they they shut down to get to Mexico if you will Prohibition comes about and

Mary's kind of under, what would you say, under the gun from the feds because of her son selling bottles illegally and calling it bootleg. And then they pretty much want to make her an example of her. So she kind of gets peeved. And what'd she do?

Yeah, she really gets ticked off and basically feels that they're shortchanging her and they're again singling her out. And she had previously actually before Prohibition had started selling in anticipation of Prohibition her barrels. She was not able to get one of the six medicinal whiskey licenses. She was basically getting prepared for Prohibition. And she sold some of those barrels in bulk to Julian Pappy Van Winkle. And she sold also some to a gentleman named Antonio Bermudez in Mexico. When all this stuff came up with the court and singling her out, she got really peeved. And ultimately, through a couple of mutual friends, was able to reconnect and started thinking about what it would be like to move the operation, Waterfill and Frasier, basically to Juarez, Mexico, and start producing south of the border.

I would imagine that was a very tough decision to make for somebody who was so rooted in Lawrenceburg.

You know, I think it was excruciating on multiple levels. I think part of it is that rootedness. I think the other piece of it, as I mentioned earlier, this is a rags to riches story. She had a dream to basically become somebody like what it is, a very typical American story, American immigrant story. And by all intensive purposes, she had made it. The son that actually ended up getting caught up in this and a scandal, if you would. Her youngest son, Apple of Arai, he ended up going to Exeter and then Harvard. I mean, think about it. John and Mary had barely had sixth, seventh grade education, and they're able to get their youngest to go to Harvard. The oldest son ended up actually becoming a Kentucky congressman and senator. when her son was back in town, you know, he was, he was just goofing around. I mean, this is kind of where I'm just, I'm just trying to contextualize it a little bit. So he's basically selling, he sold 24 bottles, pocket change, pocket change to, to what I would consider back in the day, pre marijuana days, you're kind of local pot dealer type of a thing.

Well, she was allowed to keep a bunch of barrels on premises because it was allowed because of her debt.

Yeah, most people don't realize that if you had whiskey prior to prohibition, you were allowed to keep it as long as it was in your residence, and you were not commercializing it.

Right, and the tax was paid.

And the tax were paid, which that was indeed the case. Now, with that said, she did have about 6,000, 7,000 bottles in her basement. And I, you know, the funny thing is, I know you're laughing, Todd, but I generally tell folks is like, you know, it sounds like a lot, but if you're in the business, like if you go to my basement, there's a lot of whiskey down there because, you know, I pick, you know, we get every batch or two, it just gets scrolled away. And before you know it, after a few years, you got a lot of whiskey sitting there, but it was all paid for tax wise and it was in her residence. So it shouldn't have been from a legal standpoint, an issue, but it turned out to be.

I picture a lot of her neighbors coming over to borrow a cup of sugar, and I'm using quotation marks around sugar. Like, hey, Mary, can I borrow some sugar?

Exactly. And the legal part of your book, the part that surrounds the trials and the issues that happened during Prohibition, it's a great read. It's definitely for anybody who likes to listen to or read a recount of a trial and the details of that trial and how things go back and forth between prosecution and defense and the lawyers and the public for that matter at that time. very, I'm not going to say entertaining, very engaging is what it was for me. I mean, I was really tied to that part of it. For me, I kind of like that stuff anyway, so it's kind of down my rabbit hole. Pardon the pun. Yeah, pardon the pun. But I really enjoyed that part of it. And even though, and I'm not going to give away the end of it, because I think you need to read the book to find out about it. But I really think that she played her cards well. She did. She was a smart lady.

She was a very smart lady. I think that's one of the things that really stood out for me. She's incredibly smart, tenacious, and very thoughtful because she cared about her family, she cared about her community, and she genuinely felt that what's happening in terms of what the government was doing was wrong. So she did have a kind of a moral compass there and felt like it's an overreach on the government's part. So there was a little bit of that as well that All in all, she had the right to be able to do what she did. And it was a disappointment, obviously, but extremely smart lady. No question about it.

Yeah, definitely. Well, I think this is probably as good a place as any for us to take a short break here. Yeah.

I hate to, but I hate to.

We're going to get back into more conversation about this, but after the break, but we'll keep sipping on, um, on this tequila finished whiskey. And in the second half, we've got another expression more on the mother of bourbon, uh, and, uh, and what's to come. So stick around folks. We'll be right back.

Hey, roadies, it's Diane Strong with Bourbon on the Banks Festival again. We have another amazing event this year, but we want you to come early because we've got a lot of events leading up to the festival. Starting on Thursday, we've got another mixology with master mixologist Heather Wibbles on the Bourbon Bell and O.H. Ingram. Leading into Friday, we have got Peggy No Stevens. She's back with another bourbon pairing and a lesson called The Stave is the Rage. It's going to be amazing. Limestone Heritage Distilling is going to be bringing in three single barrels. You're going to learn a lot. We've got the VIP coming back and this year we are celebrating women in bourbon. This year, Bourbon on the Banks Festival promises to be even better than ever. We've already got more than 70 distilleries that are going to be there. More than anything, I need to encourage you to get your tickets as soon as possible. They're selling fast. Some of them are already sold out. If you want to come this year, please get your tickets. We don't want to miss you on October 4th in Frankfurt, Kentucky on the banks of the amazing Kentucky River.

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Welcome back, roadies. We are here at Rabbit Hole Distilling with Kawe Zemanian and we just tried two expressions from the Mary Dowling line. The first was a weeded bourbon and the second was a tequila finish, which we didn't dive into. What's the price on that Kawe? $70. $70. And yeah, we were kind of just talking during the intermission and I love it. Like I said, it makes me want to go to the beach and fix like a, I said like a bourbon Rita or something like that. But it's just got that nice kiss of a tequila on it. It's really good. So well done.

It's a great time, you know, sitting here. It's like some bourbon whiskey history nerds just having a few pours and talking about Dusty's and wow, lots of fun. Yes. All right, so let's get straight to it. What is in our first class, or our last class, the first class for the second half?

Yeah, so this is a wheated double oak. So we started with our wheated, which is that 65% corn, 25% wheat, and balances malted barley. This is that base that is now aged in a secondary new toasted and charred barrel. And it's a double oak cask strength wheated. And what's the proof on this? So the one we're tasting now is 107. OK. So each batch, obviously, has got a different proof.

So you might call this the big girl of the three. Yes.

About how many barrels do you do in a batch?

So we only blare 15 barrels at a time. That's basically it.

Wow, it's got that nice toasted marshmallow. Oh, yeah. It does. Wow.

Yeah, it's phenomenal on the nose.

And that color, it's twice as dark as the other two, which you could expect from it being double up, but it's beautiful.

I'm expecting great things. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. That's nice. Oh, yeah. That's elevated for sure. I like that. And what's this one, Ron?

This one is 120.

Yeah, this one brings a little bit of a oily, buttery note. It's kind of a little bit more, I'm assuming they're all non-chill filtered? Yes, absolutely.

This one really brings it home, though.

It's got a great texture to it, buttery, and has a nice, I don't know, Kind of a, a little bit of a fig to it. I don't know. Okay. Like a dark fruit note.

Yeah. It's this, this is a real, um, decadent bourbon for me, you know, it's got a lovely mouth feel and a lot of, um, fruit notes. And I do pick up the fig that you're talking about as well. And, and a little bit actually dark chocolate too.

And I'm really starting to like these 105 to 115 proofs. I mean, not going to lie, we've had some hazmat on that's fantastic, but there's something about that 105 to 115 range that's just really hit me immediately.

The funny thing is you kind of go through a process in your whiskey drinking journey, right? I mean, you work your way up in proof, and you find yourself into the higher proof whiskeys. Then you kind of drift back down a little bit and you're like, okay, this is a nice spot You know, and I think it tends to be right around that 105 to 115 range tends to be a very comfortable place to be now Is that for everybody? No, a lot of people like to stay in the 90s for sure But for me, I think I love that I love being around your barrel entry proof.

Yeah, I appreciate it. I think to me, especially if you're looking for a sipping bourbon, that proof range is wonderful because if it's a well-made, well-balanced, you just get a full flavor and a good mouthfeel and it's a nice sipping bourbon.

Are you a cigar smoker?

I am. I'm not smoking as much, but I am. I do love a nice stick every once in a while.

I notice the large humidor in the retail space downstairs.

Yeah, yeah. We've had this partnership with Scandinavian Cigar Company for a while with diesel brands for, I mean, God, we're going on eight years now. And we send our barrels there and they age it in various expressions. It's been a fun collaboration.

Fantastic. It's really neat. This might be good with a cigar. What do you think?

Yeah, definitely. We still need to have that cigar. We still need to have that cigar. My goodness. One of our sponsors is a cigar maker. Todd and I haven't sat down together and had a cigar. I used to be more into cigars, but kids and trying to be healthy. You know, I already have this one vice we're sipping on here, so I'm trying not to add more to it. Yeah, there you go.

I'm not an everyday cigar guy. I'm not an every week cigar guy, but I do enjoy it once in a while. And having it with a good matched bourbon, having it with something that pairs well, makes all the difference in the world.

I love a good stick sitting around with good company. I mean, there's nothing like it. You sit around with a couple of friends and a little sip of bourbon on the cigar goes beautifully.

I was going to say, if I'd gotten into podcasting at a younger age, then we'd probably had a cigar every show. Because then you don't think about it.

You're like, I'm going to live forever.

But yeah, man, three great expressions today. This is awesome.

So when did the book release? When did it go public?

So it was released this spring. I think sometime mid-April was an official release date on it. And we've had a great reception so far on it and hoping that with these kinds of conversations, more and more people discover it.

Yeah, absolutely. So what was the most rewarding part of bringing this story to life to you, Kabe?

You know, probably I would say, especially, I don't know if you guys heard about this or not, but Mary is now being inducted into Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame.

Yes.

So to see the look and the reaction by her family has just been pure joy. You know, those guys never imagined that they're basically, ancestors name is going to be resurrected and brought to light in the way it has. And they're thrilled. And for me, it's just been an absolute pleasure to see those guys get excited to be able to not only have their great, great grandmother acknowledged, but also as a family to come together and now talk together and connect together in ways that they haven't around Mary again, after all these years.

So it's kind of brought the family together a little bit. It has. Yeah. Wow. That's really something. It has. So, I mean, I would imagine a lot of this has had to be like genealogical based, right? I mean, because there's a lot of family relations that are brought out in the book and the digging. I mean, what kind of, did you have any training in that prior experience in doing like historical research?

That was actually one of the reasons that I brought Eric to the table, because Eric is not only a phenomenal writer, he is also someone who is very good at these types of archival research. And of course, my background, as you guys probably know, I have a PhD in clinical psychology. So in my old days, my job with research as well. So Eric and I had a lot of fun digging in. And he came out to Kentucky a couple of times, we went to Juarez, several interviews with different cast of characters. And, you know, I think between his skill set and mine, we were able to, you know, get into places and find things that I think a lot of the folks in the industry, a lot of writers had not been able to discover.

I could imagine a few phone calls between the two of you where it starts out, you're not going to believe what I found.

100%. 100%.

I would think one of those might be there's a certain gangster we've all heard of a gazillion times when his name pops up. And do you want to talk about that?

Yeah. So once the distillery gets going in Juarez, there's a very famous club that is still there. It's called the Kentucky Club. So the Kentucky Club has been around since basically those early Juarez days, and it was based on, in part, there was a lot of GIs that were actually going down, a lot of Americans going down south to imbibe and enjoy. So we speculated that one of the cast of characters that she had some interactions with was Al Capone, because the whiskey that was being made down south was making its way up north. through various cast of characters. And so there is some reference to Capone and Mary's couple of meetings basically down there. Mr. Capone.

So the Kentucky club is still there.

Oh, yeah. The Kentucky club is still there. And we went down, Eric and I, and they have pictures from back in the day. And all the way through Prohibition and beyond, you had a lot of amazing cast of characters from Hollywood and other notables that used to go down there and party.

Wow. Yeah, I could imagine, you know, if you, if you wanted to enjoy your, your liquor, you had two ways to do it. One was, well, three ways, one way legally anyway, two ways legally to do it. One was to get a prescription. That's right. One was to go to Mexico.

That's right. Or Canada. You could find it on the market or Canada. That's true. Yeah.

I imagine there's probably a similar club up there somewhere that was very notable. I'm sure.

Maybe another Kentucky club of Canada or something.

Well, you see it actually in Detroit, too. There's places where the boats can go underneath and just dock right off the lake. And yeah, I mean, on both sides of the border, there was a lot of cool activity going on back then.

That's so interesting. I mean, such a crazy time. Crazy experiment. I'm glad I didn't have to live through it, to be honest with you, but looking back, being on this side of prohibition is much better, for sure. But hasn't it taken a long time to sort of put, and we still haven't put 100% of prohibition in the review mirror, have we?

No, you know, when I started Rabbit Hole, we had more dry counties in Kentucky than wet counties. So a lot has changed in the last 12, 13 years, but you're right, there's still remnants of it left.

Yeah, and I think that, you know, we see that. Maybe we don't realize it today, but a lot. Three tier distribution is definitely, that was built after that kind of thing. So you mentioned earlier this law that came into effect in the 1960s that solidified bourbon as an American product. That's really, it was really tied to Mary Dowling.

Yeah, so Mary Dowling had a role in that because there was a gentleman named Louis Rosenstiel who after the Korean War ended up betting big on bourbon. So he at one point had the largest stock of bourbon and he his investment, if you would, didn't pay off. He imagined that after the Korean War, there's going to be a spike, which there wasn't. So he started really hustling and trying to market bourbon globally. And he was sending, he spent millions of dollars sending bourbon to all the consulates, US consulates around the world. But as it's getting close to, you know, we're approaching in the 60s, he's getting really worried about the possibility of all this investment going to waste, particularly because bourbon can be made anywhere. And he knew that Mary's distillery in Juarez is still going making bourbon. So there was an active effort to try to get Congress to declare bourbon an American spirit in order for essentially his business not to suffer. And ultimately, that's kind of the direction it went. So in 1964, Congress is about to pass the law to declare bourbon an American spirit. But there's only one thing that's standing in the way, and that's basically the distillery in Juarez. And Mary's descendants had to agree no longer to produce bourbon there in order for bourbon to become, um, an American spirit.

Wow. And that was in 60, 64, 64. Okay.

You know, it's easy for me to remember because it's the year that I was born.

Or similarly aged. This is a great whiskey. And we've had three really good Mary Dowling whiskies today. So, But this one kind of brings home the concentrated, bold, viscous. Yeah, it just lingers on the tongue like that sweet oak. Sticks around. Yeah, it's a very sticky whiskey. It's got a nice lingering finish.

Sometimes people ask about the recipes and there was any connection to the original recipes that were made at Waterfill. I didn't know exactly what they were making. I eventually found out through a news clipping that what she was making was 70-15-15 at Juarez. And ultimately, our tequila finish, the base is 70-25-10, so it's closer.

Right.

that we did was really predicated on this idea that to try to create something, one, that doesn't conflict with the rabbit hole expressions, number one. Number two, you know, I just imagined a softer, more elegant because of Mary ultimately was a very elegant kind of product of that Gilded Age. And we wanted to make something that represents that both in the packaging and the liquid. And I hope we got close to it.

Yeah, speaking of that, like the cover, speaking of elegant, like that cover, I don't know who the artist was for that, but it's, she's gorgeous on that cover. Thank you.

Yeah. Yeah, we have a great partner. Her name is Savannah. Savannah has done a phenomenal job with the artwork.

Yeah. It's really striking.

Let's talk a little bit about the book and where it can be had. So this book, I mean, obviously Todd and I have both read it. In my case, I listened to it, I think you did as well. So it's available on Audible, probably other outlets as well.

Yeah, of course, Amazon, you know, all the big box books sellers. But I would say probably most of the independents. And I really would like to put a plug for all the independent booksellers in your local community. I would I would look there first. All of those guys should have it. And if they don't, they can certainly order it for you.

Now, has there been a book tour or will there be a book tour?

Yeah, we started our book tour actually in May. Our launch was at the Fraser Museum, and then we did a couple of events in Chicago and Detroit. And there's a few that are getting organized now for the fall.

Fantastic.

God's still sipping on it. I know, I'm sorry. This thing is so good.

He's the one with all the wonderful notes. So I'm looking to him to

Were you able to do any research in Mexico? I mean, I'm sure researching in the United States is very involved, but it can be done. And you can't find everything. But research in Mexico, is that like a whole other, I guess,

I have to give kudos again to Eric on this one because he was able to find a showman named Carlos Villarreal. Carlos's grandfather was one of the guys that actually worked for Antonio Bermudez and was hustling bourbon up north. And he showed us the route that his grandfather used to take up north over the river. We were able to stay at the hotel that the Dowlings and the Beams stayed, which is a hotel called Paseo del Norte in El Paso. So we stayed at the hotel that she stayed in. We walked the path to the distillery that she built. We talked to Carlos and a bunch of other folks, cast of characters that he introduced to us in Mexico. There was actually, we found out there was another distillery down there around the same time. So there were two distilleries, both of them owned by Americans initially. But the first one, the guy sold it almost immediately to a Mexican group. So essentially it was Mary's and this other Mexican-owned distillery down there. So there were other cast of characters. Although I got to tell you, going to Juarez, it was a little hairy because even the Mexican gentlemen were with us, had bodyguards with them. So it was a little limited in terms of what we could do because Juarez could get a little sketchy.

So any warnings for our listeners who might be thinking, I want to go there?

Yeah, I would think twice before. a little sketchy but but El Paso that whole area the connection is there and it's just really lovely to see especially the hotel because it's very well preserved almost like you know you're walking to a hotel from 120 years ago 100 years ago.

So do you feel like the The government officials who were in charge of managing the Volstead Act and Prohibition in general were largely good people or do you think that there was a lot of bad people?

You know, I think it's hard for me to say if it's an issue of good or bad. I think that there's people with competing perspectives and philosophy. I mean, obviously there was a lot of folks that were for prohibition because of either religious reasons or health reasons or any combination of things. But I think what happened, regardless of how we ended up getting to the Volstead Act, there were folks that were trying to take in some ways advantage of the circumstances. It doesn't matter if you were trying to take advantage by hustling and selling on the side illegally, or you were trying to make a name for yourself, which I think was the case with the judge and the prosecutor, which was very young, ambitious prosecutor that was trying to make a name for himself. That's right.

Yeah.

So I think, you know, in some ways it's kind of the human condition sometimes where when bad things are happening or difficult situations, you know, at play, you got folks that are acting out for self-interest. And I think that's part of what probably was happening at the time.

So at the end of prohibition, As things wound down at the end, do you feel like the distillery in Juarez would have preferred that prohibition continued or ceased?

I think probably they would have, from a financial standpoint, imagine would have liked it to continue because it's in their best interest. I think the reality is when you got prohibition in that sense, and we're seeing it now even with marijuana, you have more likelihood of illegal activities. So I think that's part of what was happening. And I think as Todd pointed out earlier, you know, prohibition also led to the whole, you know, the creation of the three tier system in the US, which I think at a certain point made sense. But at the same time, now it's presenting all kinds of challenges, particularly for the smaller producers, craft producers.

It's like it's a little outdated.

Yeah, exactly. Because in a lot of ways, I think there's good distributors and good distribution partners. There's no question about that. But I think sometimes you get distribution where it's essentially just simply logistics. And it's not really assisting the craft distiller's effort, which is ultimately selling and getting to the endpoint of their consumer.

You think about it looking back that it took a long time for prohibition to run its course. And then now, since the 30s until today, still a few artifacts of prohibition in our laws, right? Yeah. You think, my goodness, the legal system moves slow. It really does. But on the other hand, if you look at the people who were for prohibition, they worked many years to get to that point as well. I think the first state was Tennessee, I think, or one of the first states was Tennessee in 09.

That's right.

And prohibition didn't hit all 37 states that were required until 20. That's right. It took them 11 years to do that. So it moves slow on both sides.

Yeah. Well, I think in some ways, arguably, if you look at some of the writing and folks that are speaking in our industry now, there is a sense that there is some kind of neo-prohibitionist movement as well. I think the effort to try to weigh in on health implications of alcohol, I think, you know, and those are some things that depending on who you're talking to, it's either overestimated and exaggerated or not. And I think those are things that you're, you're still seeing those conversations and currents continuing to this day.

Yeah, sure. I mean, there's always two sides to every argument.

That's right.

That's right.

Yeah. I'm sure we could find a doctor out there that says cigars are great. That's somewhere. Just one doctor, because he's the smoker. But we touched on the beams a little bit. But you can't not talk bourbon history without a beam sneaking in there, it seems like. Absolutely. So you want to tell a little bit about how the beams are involved with Mary?

Yeah, so when Mary started looking to move for distillery, you know, one of the biggest challenges she had is to find the right technical partner or distillery operator to go there. Initially, she was trying to get somebody from her own operation, but Those guys just were not keen to go down to Juarez and make such a dramatic change to their life. But the Beam family, Joseph Beam was actually out of a job at the time. I mean, he was basically, they were doing manual labor work to get through Prohibition. It was such a devastating, had a devastating impact for so many folks here in Kentucky. Now, they connected again through mutual friends and the beams being Catholic as well. I think there was a connection there. Mary met not only with with Joseph, but also his wife, Katie, Katie Lou.

And they kind of hit it off.

They hit it off. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, what was interesting, what I discovered through the conversations with the beam family also is that very similar to Mary, you know, Katie was quite a capable whiskey maker herself. And that's one of those, again, threads in the storyline that you don't really hear a whole lot of the role of women in the whiskey making business. But they hit it off. And I think from there, it was just the rest is history. So she offered him a position, and they were out of a job. And because of what Mary, I think, did and that option, The Beam family is basically on record saying, you know, we owe a debt of gratitude for being able to maintain continuity in our family when it comes to the whiskey business. And I think, you know, of course, Mary's family is also indebted for the Beams being able to help out.

So we're at Rabbit Hole Distillery. Today is kind of a busy day in Louisville, Kentucky. The streets are filled with people.

It is.

Your retail space is loaded. We came in there earlier and it was just, there's probably 50 people in there. Just busy day for you guys.

You guys do well. Thank you. Yeah, no, I love it. I love seeing people through the distillery and tastings and enjoying themselves.

So when someone comes to Louisville, when they visit the Bourbon Trail, when they come to this area, what can they expect at Rabbit Hole?

Well, you know, you have a few options. You can go on a full tour and get a see our facility, our operation every step of the way, and also get a taste of our core products. Or if you've been here before, you can come in, just go to the bar and get a taste of not only What we have is our standard pours, but also our distillery series, which is pretty exceptional. And we only offer it here at the distillery. And there's a whole bunch of other special founders and stuff like that. There is no shortage of whiskey options when you come to the distillery.

You've got a cocktail area?

We do have a cocktail area that's perched up right above at the top of the distillery. So you get a little view of the river and downtown. And you can lounge around there. No one's going to rush you out. Come up here with friends and enjoy yourself.

I mean, it's a beautiful building. It's kind of it's a little bit on the modern side.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's beautiful. It's kind of I don't know. It's kind of a showpiece for downtown.

I appreciate it. Kentucky is my adopted home. I grew up in Southern California and then Chicago. I bring that little bit of that modern urban sensibility and ultimately a place that it represents what the brand is. But in the end, the objective was to build a place that's not only inviting, but really shows every step of the process in full view.

All right. Well, we'd like to give you just a minute here to tell people where they can find your book, Mother of Bourbon, where they can find it, where they can purchase it, where they can listen to it, whatever their mode of ingesting a book is. And then, of course, how to find the distillery, how to find Mary Dowling whiskey.

Yeah, well, first of all, I want to say thank you to both of you for having me here today. This was great. It was a wonderful conversation. Thanks for your support. Distillery is in Louisville, Kentucky. We're in Nulu, close to downtown. And Mary Dowling is available now in all 50 states. I think you should be able to find it in all your local liquor stores. If they are not available there, please just ask them, and they will be able to get it for you. And the book is Amazon, as well as all the big boxes and your local independent bookstores.

All right. Fantastic.

I got one more question for you.

Yeah, hit him up.

So when's the next deep dive in your second book, now that you're an author? You got anything planned? You know, anything going?

Well, you know, it's funny you ask that, but I am in the final phases of a book called Through the Whiskey Glass, which is a little bit more of a personal journey on my own trip down the rabbit hole. I was going to say, yeah.

So it's kind of an autobiography?

Yeah, a little bit, you know, because it's been quite a ride the last 13, 14 years, you know, from being a shrink to sitting with you fine folks.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you took the deep dive, no doubt about it.

I did, I did. I put everything on the line and, you know, fortunately it paid off and my wife is, I'm off the hook with my wife.

She's like, okay, all right, I took a chance on you and you did it.

And then one other thing I might add is Cabe was nice enough to sign our copy of our book, which I read maybe like the first chapter in there and I was like, well, my life's too busy to try to read. So like I said, I travel for work. So I started listening on Audible and It's always like really enjoy listening to books while I'm driving because I'm focused on driving, but I can still hear what's going on. So like my podcast and all that kind of stuff. So he signed a book and we will be giving it away on our Facebook page, the Bourbon Roadies. So keep an eye out. And yeah, thanks for signing the book. We appreciate that. My pleasure.

One lucky roadie out there is going to get to read it. And the rest of you, buy the book, or get the audible, whatever it is you listen to, right?

Yeah, we're all about listening.

Kendall or whatever it is, it doesn't matter. As long as you get the book, right? It's great. Well, Kawe, it's been great to have you on. We really appreciate another trip to the Rabbit Hole Distillery. Todd and I appreciate it. We hope to come back again soon in the future.

Absolutely. Thank you guys. Cheers.

Well, you can find The Bourbon Road on all social media outlets. You can find us on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, threads, all those things. Every single week, Todd and I put together an episode. Sometimes we've got whiskey makers on, like Cave. Sometimes we have authors on, like Cave. Sometimes we have musicians on, I don't know, do you play the guitar? Well, anyway, we always have a great time. We're always drinking whiskey. It's always a lot of fun. We hope you'll join us every single week. The best way not to miss an episode is to scroll to the top of that app you're on, hit that subscribe button. That way you'll get that notification that Jim and Todd have dropped another episode. And we'll get you through that next time with your headphones on. It may be like Todd, you know, driving down the road, doing a trip somewhere.

And down the Kentucky roads.

It could be cutting your grass, could be sweeping the house. You know, whatever it is that you do with your headphones on, we'd like to be part of your day. But until the next time, we'll see you down the Bourbon Road.

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