Behind the Scenes: Married to a Whiskey Maven
I remember a moment when Dawn was working on putting together the brand in early 2024 and there was a collection of samples of whiskey from all around the country in little bottles of all sizes: I thought to myself “Oh, wow, this is real real and boy is it cool to be doing this”. I also remember noticing how such a cool exercise can also become a source of anxiety when the family business depends on it. Thankfully, Dawn has an amazing palate, which has helped her choose two amazing whiskeys – spoiler alert: I have had the chance to sample the rye and that, too, is amazing.
A whiskey connoisseur is born
Dawn and I have been together for a little over 16 years now and married for almost 15. When we first met in Southern Indiana, I knew little about whiskey. I had been homebrewing beer with a friend of mine from graduate school for quite a few years, and beer was still my drink of choice. I remember Dawn taking me to tastings with her graduate school friends and slowly getting pulled into the realm. Southern Indiana also had the convenience of proximity to Kentucky and access to a decent collection of classics. At that point, I had a clear understanding of what drove the diversity in beer flavors: it was based mostly on the ingredients and to some extent the process, but aging was not really much of a part of it. Wine had a lot to do with the fruit, which had an obvious connection to the climate. In my mind, I could see how a rye whiskey would be different from bourbon or Scotch, but I thought that bourbon was bourbon. Maybe older would be better but I’d never thought beyond that. With Dawn’s guidance I got to learn more about the factors that played a role in the diversity of flavors and how to pair with different moods, foods, and other booze for cocktails. I was hooked.
When hobbies and business collide
In the last year and a half, New Dawn has gone from “can we actually do this?” to a full-fledged brand, to two amazing offerings with awards, and a following. I don’t know if I can take credit for much of it: Dawn is the force of nature that is on the ground every day fighting the good fight and dealing with the craziness of the three-tier spirit supply system. I find that I get to enjoy a lot of the fun parts of being around a fledgling brand and for me, much of the effort revolves around my existing hobbies and in some cases professional skills: photography/videography; woodworking; driving the brand owner and Ruby, the ambassador around; dealing with IT challenges; tasting the mixology creations; and acting as a sounding board for decisions small and large.
The most enjoyable parts of my contributions revolve around something that I already enjoy doing, but I get to improve my skills in the process of helping out. I have been pursuing photography as a hobby for more than 30 years now and New Dawn has been the opportunity for me to learn about aspects of photography that I knew little about: studio photography, artificial light, and videography. The most challenging part of much of it for me has been the timing of it. I am used to doing things slowly and at my own pace, but when one is trying to put together content for a business, things need to get done much faster and without the luxury of going down rabbit holes the way I usually do.
In most of the cocktail videos, you have seen Dawn behind a bar cart that I hand built about a decade ago now or behind a tripod-table that has been her trusty travel companion as we drive around with our camping set up. I recently upgraded the bar cart to have a higher top; some drawers; and a shinier surface. Check my creation out in the upcoming cocktail videos. I’m also more often than not the camera man and one of these days I am going to put together a reel of all the hilarious bloopers.
The difficult job of cocktail taster
There is the obvious and maybe slightly easier task of being taster of all of the delicious cocktails that come out of “the lab”, which at the risk of sounding like I am whining, is not as easy as it sounds. Tasting delicious cocktails is obviously not a hard task, but providing useful feedback for every sample provided is often a challenge. Many of you have already discovered Dawn’s meticulous attention to detail and sometimes it can be a challenge to keep up and say something more useful than “O-M-G, that is so delicious!”
I love being in the background for New Dawn and contributing when I can. I don’t have Dawn’s intuition for how to build a brand and I am fairly certain that I do not have her palette, so I help in the ways that I can. I can’t wait for the brand to get big enough so that Ruby and I can be full-time in our dedication to New Dawn.
