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Meet Jonathan Wingo of The Balvenie

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jonathan Wingo.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I am a Dallasite that moved to New York to finish school in 2003 and stayed to train City employees on the New York City Ethics Law. During the recession, government budgets tightened and an Ethics job in Colorado got nixed. I moved back to New York and started working in what was up until that point my hobby: whisk(e)y. Friends of friends had a small collection of shot and beer bars that they wanted to expand into new locations and increase their whisk(e)y collection. They brought me under their wing to learn their business with the intent to expand their whisk(e)y selection and open a retail shop.

The Whisky Shop was born above the Whisky Brooklyn and would be my baby. Being in the right place and the right time (hipster-haven North Williamsburg Brooklyn in 2010) with a shop focused solely on Whisky landed us some choice publicity. I received a call from a friend in 2011 verifying that I was under 30 because the celebrity chef she worked for was on the selection committee for the first Forbes 30 Under 30. I was lucky enough to be nominated and dumbfounded to be chosen as a winner in the Food and Wine category.

While at the shop, I also had the privilege of working at Kings County distillery doing everything from hosting tours, to bottling, and delivering. I really enjoyed being both close to production and the retail space where I was able to pair folks with a special bottle or three. All of this put me in the position to be approached by a friend working at William Grant and Sons. WGS in my eyes was the type of distiller I wanted to work for: independent and family-owned with a global reach all while having a very distinct mission to just make good juice. I was hesitant at first to leave production and the talking about all whiskeys from around the world in exchange for only talking about a handful.

However, I was given the opportunity to join The Balvenie, and that made the choice very easy. Already a fanboy, I enjoyed how consistent and elegant the whiskey was, and I truly appreciated how they talked about their whiskey. It appealed to the process nerd in me, while being really swinging delicious. I was hired on as The Balvenie Ambassador in 2013 and was moved (back) to Texas. It has been a wild ride across the country and globe with The Balvenie since then.

Has it been a smooth road?
Ha! A smooth road? How many people have been interviewed in this publication that has had a smooth road? That’s no fun! Struggles are all relative, but being a guy and white, I would love to highlight the luck that I’ve had within my privilege first: My ethics job right out of school (during a difficult job market) was pitched to me by a friend of a friend just before graduation while dancing at a party. Most of my peers graduating struggled to find jobs.

Winning Forbes 30 Under 30 very lucky in that one of the three judges selecting the nominations knew of me, I was in a Food and Wine category that Forbes didn’t have the most knowledge of at the time. It was the first year so they were relying heavily on the judge’s nominations! That said, there were struggles that led to my personal development. The Ethics Training wasn’t the most obvious job for me, but was something and ended up challenging me in great ways. I had to stand up in front of New York City Employees (attorneys, sanitation workers, teachers, accountants, or any one of 350,000 employees) as a 23 or 24-year-old and train them on Ethics Law.

My boss, through some crazy methods, guided me to step out of my ego in a room and becoming whatever the class needs you to be for engagement. This was a terrifying process, yet one that I can’t imagine anyone being successful at my job not going through. A more cautionary tale/don’t count your chicken’s struggle was moving to Colorado to establish residency for a job in the just-created Ethics board. My then-girlfriend and I moved to Denver for a job that I was highly recommended for, and one in which my career and experience were being used as minimum qualifications for the job.

Not saying that I was a shoe-in because it’s a government ethics job, so there were rounds and rounds of selections and interviews, but it was enough of a push to move with the promise of the job. I worked at a record store/headshop just biding time through all of the interviews. At the final stage round, I received a call telling me that the position had been eliminated. Hooray recession. From that point on, the girlfriend and I raced each other to the next job, wherever in the world that might have been. We packed up and moved back to New York.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into The Balvenie story. Tell us more about the business.
The Balvenie distillery is a wonderful jewel in the very shiny crown of the William Grant & Sons portfolio of spirits. Starting as a whiskey company, we’re now several generations on and celebrate a number of different spirits such as Hendrick’s Gin, Glenfiddich Single Malt, Tullamore DEW Irish Whiskey, Sailor Jerry Rum, and Milagro Tequila to name a few.

The Balvenie is a Single Malt Scotch that prides itself in making a high-quality liquid and maintaining very rare crafts in whisky-making. We still grow barley and maintain a traditional floor malting barn. We keep a cooperage on site, and we employ some of the top craftspeople looking after the mashing, distilling, warehousing, and maintaining of the distillery. We sell our beloved Single Malt throughout the world, with our largest markets in the US, Taiwan, and the UK.

My gig is to look after the Middle and South of the US as the public face, hype man, and educator of The Balvenie. As a company, we believe that Ambassadors should be category experts, and therefore we work hard to stay abreast of the industry and visit distilleries and markets throughout the world. I personally try to make sure that everyone in my purview, from the at-home drinker to the bartender to the distributor and even my colleagues, have everything they need to be able to enjoy and share The Balvenie. That means that I can be found doing classes, tastings, interviews, seminars, and bar sessions all throughout the country!

I feel lucky that I get to share The Balvenie liquid and story… because it’s very delicious and very real.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Very important to our industry, we’re seeing a thawing of misogyny. The longtime adage of whisky being an old-boys club is, thankfully, dying and moreover, the holdouts are being dismissed as tone deaf. Women have been in whisky from the beginning (tons of great articles and books on this #ourwhisky), yet haven’t had their share of the conversation or credit. This is not just in terms of enjoyment, but throughout the entire industry from process to bartending and education. This a long-needed shift, and we’re certainly not on the other side. When I am standing next to a female colleague at a whisky show, a shocking majority will still approach me for technical questions.

As a market, whisk(e)y is no stranger taste and value ebbs and flows. We are definitely in the Golden Age in that we are seeing higher quality offerings than ever before. The craft and local movements are in full-fledged boom time, and we’re seeing most promiscuity from drinkers everywhere. In the next 5 to 10 years we will see an increase in distilleries as well as consolidation. We’ll see more risk-taking from the newcomers and the bigger firms will match the ingenuity. I think we will continue to see a shift from volume drinking to more thoughtful consumption (all the while, more people will be drinking so overall volume should rise).

We’ve seen trends in Non-Age Statement whiskies. This is where distilleries have removed age statements due to stock constraints and/or they want to dabble in experimental innovation. This allows them to connect with new audiences and give some of the fans a different take on the traditional stock. I am certain this trend will continue while the gold (and value) standard will still exist in age-statemented whiskies.

We have seen the shift of connecting to younger drinkers evolve. There has been a growing shift from infantile palate continuation by way of candy and cupcake flavored vodkas, into flavored whiskies, and now further into traditional and modern cocktails.

There seems to be more willingness within the newly legal drinkers to push one’s palate to more challenging flavors instead of masking alcohol with flavors from childhood. I think this is a hopeful trend, as it’s supporting a growth in the class of industry professionals since more people are going out to experience bars and restaurants.

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