Bourbon industry runs on family tradition

BARDSTOWN, Ky. - The small group of men responsible for making Kentucky bourbons thinks of itself as a fraternity, where friendships seem as enduring as whiskey recipes. At some distilleries, those bonds are even tighter - connecting fathers and sons.

At Heaven Hill Distilleries Inc., Craig Beam traces some of his earliest memories to his carefree days of tagging along as his father carried on the family tradition.

His father, Parker Beam, had the same boyhood indoctrination - learning at his father's side.

Now, Parker and Craig Beam share duties as co-master distillers at Bardstown-based Heaven Hill, an independent producer of distilled spirits owned by the Shapira family. The company's bourbon brands include Evan Williams and Elijah Craig.

In the heart of Kentucky, where making whiskey has been a way of life even before statehood, the craft has been passed down from one generation to the next. The Beam family traces its Kentucky whiskey heritage to 1795, when family patriarch Jacob Beam set up a still.

"If you were a Beam, you sort of were destined to follow in the footsteps of either your father, grandfathers, cousins or uncles," said Parker Beam, a grandnephew of Jim Beam.

There are other enduring bloodlines among some distilleries churning out the smooth, amber-hued whiskey in Kentucky bourbon country. While the bourbons are controlled by large liquor companies, making the product remains a quaint family tradition at some distilleries.

At the Pernod Ricard-owned Wild Turkey distillery at Lawrenceburg, longtime master distiller Jimmy Russell has been grooming his son Eddie in the ways of the craft.

Eddie Russell, 47, spent boyhood days playing in the distillery and the cavernous warehouses where bourbon ages in oak barrels. "Everything was just so big," he recalled. "For a little kid, it seemed like the whole world was there."

As he reached adulthood, he soon realized he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps.

"It has to be something in your blood or in your genes," he said. "I came here for a summer job and within two weeks I realized this is where I wanted to spend my career."

Now, in those same warehouses where he played as a boy, Eddie Russell oversees the aging of hundreds of thousands of barrels filled with Wild Turkey bourbon and has been groomed to one day succeed his father, who has spent more than a half-century at Wild Turkey.

At Jim Beam, Fred Noe promotes its brands as bourbon ambassador and is training to someday fill the role of his father - longtime master distiller Booker Noe, who died in 2004.

"I'm a chip off the old block," said Fred Noe, a great-grandson of Jim Beam.

As a boy, the younger Noe fished and hunted near the distillery. He bonded with his father while watching him meticulously check distillery equipment on weekends.

"He had sly ways of teaching as well as making it fun," Fred Noe said.

His father would get around to quizzing him to determine if his son had been listening to the lessons. "That was the part I didn't like too much," Noe said.

The fatherly advice imparting the intricacies of bourbon-making went on for years. "Up until almost the day he passed away, he was still telling me stuff," he said.

Maker's Mark president Bill Samuels Jr. is a seventh-generation bourbon-maker in Kentucky who as a child played at the feet of an aging Jim Beam. The family tradition is being carried on by Samuels' son, Rob, who is global marketing manager at Maker's Mark.

Jim Beam and Maker's Mark are owned by consumer brands giant Fortune Brands Inc.

John Hansell, publisher and editor of Malt Advocate, a consumer-whiskey magazine, said the father-son tandems helped preserve the traditions of bourbon production. "It's one of those things that's very special and treasured about the bourbon industry," he said.

Those close ties among bourbon-makers extend beyond family.

Unlike rival sales and marketing staffs, where competition is fierce among liquor companies, the master distillers have forged close friendships through the years.

Parker Beam said he considered Jimmy Russell "a great friend" who would do anything to help him out of a bind. Parker Beam said he would gladly do the same for Jimmy Russell or another master distiller. Noe said when his father was ill, Jimmy Russell called frequently to check on him.

"We're all buddies," Noe said. "We enjoy hanging out together, tasting bourbon together, seeing what each other is doing."