By Stephen Smoot
Upper Tract’s Swilled Dog keeps racking up both the sales and the hardware as they continue to operate as one of the more innovative producers of potent potables. The “majority female, family, and dog owned beverage company” has worked hard to stay ahead of the innovation curve in every aspect of their business.
And the industry has taken note.
In July of 2022, Swilled Dog earned a gold medal in the World Whiskies Award for its Sherry Cask Finished Bourbon and a silver in the same competition for the Double Oaked Series Bourbon. Kim Kirk, who is Swilled Dog’s experience manager and who also was honored by The State Journal as part of their Generation Next, explained that part of the high quality of the finished product came from use of neighboring Pendleton County cornfields that eschew genetically modified materials.
Over the past two years, the awards for quality continued to roll in to Swilled Dog. Last month, however, Brooke Glover, CEO and founder, was selected by her peers for a far different honor.
“The award is in honor of a man named Dave Pickerell,” Glover explained. The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, as a WBOY news story about Swilled Dog shared, “has dubbed Dave Pickerell as ‘the Johnny Appleseed of craft distilling’ and spent 14 years as Master Distiller for Makers Mark before he passed away in 2018.”
He also “was a very big advocate for the industry,” Glover said. “This award honors him and goes to someone who is representing craft distilling,” she added.
Glover serves as a member of the DISCUS Craft Distiller Advisory Council. This puts her in a position to advocate for the entire industry to those who can have an impact on the industry – for good or ill. “I was voted onto that,” she said, going on to add that “it’s been an honor. I loved it and met a lot of great craft distillers.”
She explained that the job included “doing Hill climbs on Capitol Hill” and “speaking to members of Congress.”
Glover described the entire West Virginia congressional delegation as “willing to listen and help.” She added that Senators Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito were both very knowledgeable about the challenges faced by the industry.
At the state level, “the West Virginia legislators were very eager to meet with us and they took steps that they said they’d take,” Glover said.
Glover’s task lay both in representing the industry as a whole, but also specifically the needs of the smaller “mom and pop” operations. Regulations and other burdens that large firms can accommodate with larger economies of scale could strangle locally based distillers, such as those thriving in Pendleton County.
“Their needs are different than the large distillers across the country,” Glover noted.
The award carries special weight because Glover’s peers chose to grant it to her and Swilled Dog.
Glover added in a release from her company that “This accolade is a testament to our passion for the craft and our continuous efforts to contribute positively to the spirits community. Cheers to Swilled Dog and the entire team for this remarkable achievement!”
