289 - Taking Maker’s Mark From a Regional to a National Brand with Gregg Walker

Bourbon Pursuit

Hobbies, Food, Arts, Leisure

4.9 • 866 Ratings

🗓️ 21 January 2021

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Gregg Walker joins the show to share some inside stories about the history at Maker's Mark. Gregg was the second salesperson hired by Maker’s Mark and took part in 3X growth. Hear some of his stories about the struggle of growth, but also how him and Bill Samuels Jr. had a lot of fun as well. Show Notes: This week’s Above the Char with Fred Minnick talks about raffles. What song would you pick for karaoke? When did you get into the liquor business? Did you have to take the personality test before working at Maker's Mark? Were you part of any of the Maker's taste offs? Tell us about traveling for Makers. How do you plan for aggressive growth? What was the tipping point? How many cases were they selling? Talk about Maker's marketing. Were you there when the did the special edition UK bottle in 1996? Any memories with Bill Samuels that you'll never forget? What was your sales force like in the later years? What do you do today? Support this Podcast on Patreon

Transcript

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0:00.0	Bill always wanted to help bourbon.
0:03.4	Exactly.
0:04.1	Not just Maker's Mark, because he always felt like what's good for bourbon is always going to be good for Maker's Mark.
0:14.3	This is episode 289 of Bourbon Pursuit, the podcast featuring news, reviews, and interviews
0:24.1	with people making the bourbon whiskey industry happen.
0:27.0	I'm one of your host, Kenny Coleman, and before we start getting into a little bit about
0:30.5	Maker's Mark History, here's your weekly bourbon news update.
0:34.2	A few weeks ago, we reported about the TTB approving new bottle sizes, including the 700
0:39.3	ML, which is a standard for exports that we see to the European Union. Now, I made a prediction
0:44.4	on the first roundtable this year that we likely won't see a huge shift because of the
0:48.8	bottling and marketing process and even some of the upstream things that happen at the distribution
0:52.8	later. Well, I'm beginning to start backpedaling on those words a little bit.
0:57.2	Last week, I had a discussion with Chris Hart of Whiskey Need on another podcast, and now there's
1:01.5	a new Daily Beast article that talks about this may happen at a much quicker rate than I anticipated.
1:07.9	Even with 50 milliliters less in the bottle, you will likely not see a price
1:12.1	ship for the product being cheaper, so be prepared that a shrinking package size doesn't
1:16.6	actually mean a shrinking price. Maggie Kimbrill, a content editor for American Whiskey
1:22.0	magazine and also our guest way back on episode seven, has been selected as the new president of the Bourbon
1:29.6	Women Association.
1:31.2	Congrats Maggie and we look forward to seeing more out of Bourbon Women this year.
1:35.8	Now moving on to Bourbon Release News.
1:38.1	MGP has announced the release of its 2021 Rossville Union Single Barrel program with this year's
	...

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