Whenever I speak with a distiller, bartender or brand ambassador in the whiskey world, they say a variation on the same thing: whiskey is best enjoyed with friends. It’s true (drinking alone is depressing), and the best thing about whiskey is that it can serve as a gateway to finding like-minded people who may very well have access to some fantastic rare or hard-to-find brown spirits.
I’m speaking of whiskey clubs. Now, these are different from the clubs we’ve discussed before, which are subscriptions tied to specific brands or curated by third parties. Here, we’re talking about the kind of clubs where people get together and talk all things whiskey (because we’re in the United States, and to keep my sanity, I’m going to use the “whiskey” spelling throughout, but the clubs cover spirits from around the world). There are hundreds of these clubs across the country, ranging from professional, multi-chapter organizations to tiny local groups. Usually these groups —whether they’re big or small — offer access to barrel picks and feature appearances from master distillers and dedicated tastings from craft whiskey brands. And a few of them provide a space for whiskey enthusiasts who have been overlooked by the industry, as you’ll see below.
The clubs also serve as a place not to just learn about whiskey, but make new friends. “I think for a lot of people, it’s more about the community itself,” says Samara Davis, the founder and CEO of Black Bourbon Society. “The single barrel picks and all that are great, but it really is just meeting like-minded people and sharing an interest, meeting people you might not have met before and enjoying good whiskey.”
Sounds like a recipe for a good time. Below, we spoke with the founders of four unique whiskey clubs that run the gamut from local to global about the benefits of joining a club that (to rephrase Groucho Marx) would certainly be honored to have you as a member.
Drammers
Technically, Drammers is a “global whisk(e)y, mezcal and spirits club,” but when Charlie Prince helped found the club in 2013, it was just an informal way for a few bourbon fanatics to talk about and share their favorite bottles.
“I lived around the corner from Astor Wines, and I got to know the guys there,” Prince says. “One guy there noted that there were about eight of us who came by regularly, and he thought we would enjoy meeting each other.” What started as a simple meet-up where a few guys would bring bourbon to a BYOB Chinese restaurant has, more than a decade later, turned into a society with thousands of members that get together in person and online in 50+ cities around the world.
“Basically, you are part of a club that has members and drinking buddies anywhere you get off the plane,” he says. It’s also a way to meet master distillers, whiskey authors and other spirits pros and get access to single-barrel tastings and other rare whiskies. They even do tastings at Burning Man, if that’s your jam.
Membership isn’t too strenuous; it’s $99 and gives you discounts on events and access to a robust barrel picks program. “It’s mostly invite-only, but there’s no test to pass,” Prince says. “We take turns hosting at people’s houses, so it’s more about figuring out if a person is or isn’t going to break your lamp. We drink responsibly; we’re not here to get smashed. I’d say if you think you’re a fit, we’ll meet up for a beer first.”
The Best Whiskey Clubs and Subscriptions for Gifting
And we certainly won’t tell if you keep these for yourselfManhattan Whiskey Club
While most of the clubs I spoke with are national, whiskey author Kurt Maitland keeps things local. He runs the Manhattan Whiskey Club, which started after a chance encounter at an Ardbeg release party with a few like-minded imbibers. “For some reason, I mentioned that I would love to start a whiskey club,” he says. “They then told me that they had an architectural firm and a conference room we could use to host tastings.”
It’s a modestly-sized society of about 50 to 60 members with a simple and noble mission: to try great whisk(e)y. “Our focus has been on tastings,” Maitland says. “Generally, we have a brand ambassador come in to talk about the whiskies, pour us some releases and explain what makes their whiskies special. Other times, I will run the tastings, which lets me pour whiskies from different brands and styles at the same tasting. We do all types of whiskies — Irish, bourbon, Scotch, Japanese, Indian, American single malt, blends, etc.”
Most importantly, Maitland says his local whiskey club doesn’t feel overshadowed by some of the larger nationwide/global groups. “They’re friends,” he says. “I’ve been to Drammers and Women Who Whiskey events and they have been to mine. I think we each offer unique experiences to our members, and some of our members are in more than one of our clubs. We have discussed doing some joint events.”
Membership is invite-only, and the club is purposefully small, but that carries its own rewards: you get to know your fellow whiskey drinkers, engage in more intimate spirits tastings and then use that knowledge when out in the real world. “My goal for every member is that they taste and experience different types of whiskies so when they are at a bar or a store or they travel, they can make informed decisions and recommendations,” Maitland says.
Women Who Whisky
“I didn’t really grow up around whiskey,” admits Julia Ritz Toffoli, founder of the global organization Women Who Whisky. “My parents are French and Italian, so we were more of a wine household, and I didn’t really discover whiskey until I moved to Canada for college and everyone was drinking rye and ginger.”
Thankfully, as Toffoli got older and “more discerning,” she branched out beyond cheap Canadian whiskies. After moving to NYC in 2010, she set out to explore the city’s burgeoning whiskey bar scene. “As I made my way deeper into the whiskey world, I was often met with condescending comments and made to feel excluded from what I quickly came to understand was meant to be a ‘man’s domain,’” she says. “I struggled to find a community where I could ask questions and expand my expertise. Unsurprisingly, nearly all the women I met shared similar experiences.”
In 2011, she gathered a group of friends who felt the same way and started organizing outings to whiskey bars. Slowly and steadily, that’s grown to a group with nearly 20,000 members across two dozen chapters globally (including one in Nairobi).
“The main benefit of being a member is about community,” Toffoli says. “We are a truly diverse and welcoming club, with members of all ages and backgrounds and interests. One thing I pride myself on in particular is that women often come to our events alone — they know there will be people to meet and talk to.” (And yes, men can join.)
Of course, the group gets access to great whiskey and other spirits, from the industry giants to tiny craft distilleries. “We are, fundamentally, nerds, and it’s not unusual for our members to really dive into the nuances of wood maturation, grain varietals or even yeast,” Toffoli says.
Black Bourbon Society
I first met Black Bourbon Society founder Samara Davis at a Maker’s Mark launch in 2021. The whiskey marked a collaboration between the BBS and the distillery as part of the Maker’s Mark Private Selection program, which allows retail partners and organizations to make their own bourbon by finishing fully-matured, cask-strength Maker’s Mark in a single barrel featuring a custom selection of oak staves. Needless to say, it was excellent (and it was my first social event post-Covid, which only added to my warm memories of the bottle).
Davis’s path to running a nationwide whiskey club that collaborates with huge spirits brands started, interestingly, with her marriage. “I started drinking whiskey because that’s what my ex-husband was into, and I was doing it as a way to try to connect with him,” Davis says. “Then I fell in love with the spirit. I fell in love with the story and I fell in love with the process of making whiskey.”
Her career also played a role. “I met this woman who worked for Jack Daniel’s at the time, and she needed help planning her activations in San Francisco,” Davis says. “So I started working with her and doing that, and then during that process, I realized these beautiful activations weren’t necessarily geared towards consumers who looked like me. That’s when I came up with the idea, through conversations with her.”
Now boasting about 30,000 members online and a few thousand paid memberships in 10 cities, BBS offers access to barrel picks, distillery tours and other perks. And it’s grown beyond its name. “One thing we’ve realized over eight years is our demographic, they don’t only enjoy premium bourbon, but they enjoy premium spirits, and it’s more of a premium lifestyle,” Davis says. “They love to travel. They love premium everything. So it’s also Armagnac and tequila [too]. Our audience is very educated and has a high discretionary income, so they’re really pursuing the highest quality of everything in life.”
Davis admits the Black Bourbon Society may take a different shape in the near future, as her five-year plan for the group got stretched to eight because of Covid. She’s already consulting with brands behind the scenes, including Beyoncé’s new whiskey. But whatever plan the BBS comes up with, their founder thinks the group has already made a huge accomplishment.
“During all this, we’ve seen great friendships develop,” she says. “It’s people traveling to different events in different cities and meeting with the folks that they were, a few years ago, only communicating with virtually, and then going off and doing their own distillery tours together and creating their own bourbon life with it. That has been something I did not expect to get from this group when I created it, but it is absolutely the biggest benefit I’ve seen.”
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