I have made friends with many great people in the whiskey industry over the past thirty years. Unfortunately, many of them have since passed away. Ova Haney and Al Young from Four Roses, Booker Noe from Jim Beam, Parker Beam from Heaven Hill, Elmer T. Lee from Buffalo Trace, Steve Thompson from Kentucky Artisan Distillery, Gary and Mardee Regan, the whiskey writers and now Chet Zoeller.

Chet Zoeller and his son Trey created the Jefferson’s Reserve brand back in 1997. That, however, was not how I met Chet. He was a member of the Filson Historical Society and I first met him there while he was researching his book Bourbon in Kentucky A History of Distilleries in Kentucky. He would come into the Special Collections at the Filson to do research on distilleries. He was very interested in finding every distillery that ever existed in the state and compiled a huge data base on these distilleries. His book is a valuable resource for the history of Kentucky distilleries for years to come. Chet would sit and talk with me for hours about his research and we both learned a lot from each other. 

Chet did create the Jefferson’s Reserve brand with his son Trey Zoeller. The brand started as a sourced whiskey back in the 1990s. They always picked very good barrels for their product, but It had a rough start with trademark issues over the bottle they first used and the fact that Bourbon sales were not growing very fast in the 1990s. It was a struggle, but they held on. When Steve Thompson started Kentucky Artisan Distillery, the Zoellers were quick to form a business relationship with Thompson and Kentucky Artisan Distillery became the home for Jefferson Reserve. There, they started making their whiskey and created the innovative Jefferson’s Ocean brand. They placed barrels onboard a ship and sailed them for several months to many places around the world. This was in imitation of the 19th century voyages Bourbon made to markets on the west coast and elsewhere, picking up the flavors of the sea during the trip.
Chet Zoeller was made a member of the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame last year. It was a well-deserved honor and I am glad I got to be there to see it happen. Chet was a true gentleman and a scholar. His impact on the industry will be felt for a long time. His historical research and his whiskey are both important contributions to the industry. That is why I am making him a Bourbon’s Unsung Hero.

Photos Courtesy of Rosemary Miller