Local Flavor: The Bourbon Showdown
Comedian and podcast host Jesse Jones wants to raise a glass to Charlotte’s whiskey scene—and get us sipping his favorite spirit
As a student at UNC Charlotte, Jesse Jones drank plenty of whiskey and Cokes, but he was hardly a bourbon connoisseur. Five years later, he sampled Laphroaig, a smoky single-malt Scotch whisky that he says people either like or learn to like. “I loved it. I loved the dimension, the flavor profile,” he says. “You don’t drink it at the frat house at 2 a.m. You’re drinking it to experience something.”
The Mount Airy native had several careers before he began to proclaim his love of whiskey from behind a microphone. He owned a marketing firm called Imaginary Sandwich Design (“a ridiculous name that made me smile”) and was head of internet operations for J. Crew. He’s also moonlighted as a stand-up comedian since 2009.
Today, Jones hosts The Bourbon Showdown, a weekly podcast that features reviews, news, and interviews with top names in the distilling industry. It’s in its seventh season and available on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and Spotify. His comedy background helps his guests and listeners laugh, and more than 80 episodes later, he averages 27,000 listeners per week.
“I’ve never had a good answer to, ‘What do you do?’” he says. “Comedy is at nighttime, so I’m in a hotel room most of the day, running the podcast while I’m touring.”
Jones, 43, hatched the idea for The Bourbon Showdown in early 2020, after COVID canceled his gigs. “I must have said something about bourbon somewhere because I started getting stuff in the mail from bourbon-makers,” he says. “It kind of grew from there.” He wanted to find out who made it and the science behind it. In the process, he says, he unlocked his favorite aspect of distilling: stories of the makers who produce the best spirits.
Jones recorded the first episode in September 2020 from his makeshift studio, a converted closet in his attic. He spoke over Zoom to a master distiller from Heaven Hill Distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky. Subsequent shows featured distillers from across the South. Jones has sipped bourbon and swapped jokes with Dan Spivey of Broad Branch Distillery in Winston-Salem. He’s chatted with Whiskey Hall of Fame inductee Lance Winters about art, books, and the patience it takes to sit on aging barrels. Tara Lindley and Holly Booth of High West Distillery in Park City, Utah, talked Jones through the sensory process of identifying what’s in the glass. The podcast remains focused on bourbon, a Kentucky-born whiskey that must contain at least 51% corn in its foundational mash. But he occasionally branches into spirits like tequila and vodka as well.
The more episodes Jones recorded, the more he wanted to highlight North Carolina. In 2007, North Carolina had one commercial craft distillery. Today, it has more than 80, the eighth-most in the country, according to the American Distilling Institute. “There are more than enough distilleries in North Carolina for it to have its own whiskey trail,” he says. “I think there’s a stigma still entrenched in the old Prohibition mindset that whiskey brings problems, but that’s not where we are now. The beauty of Charlotte’s whiskey scene is we have some of the best whiskey bars and enthusiasts in the area.”
Since 2021, Jones has hosted tastings at restaurants and country clubs when he’s on the road doing comedy shows. In Charlotte, corporate clients hire him for team-building exercises. “We’re not going to Jocks & Jills for a happy hour where everyone eats cold wings,” he says. “We’re gonna sit down and learn about whiskey … and that CEO gets to look cool for a minute.”
Jones encourages his followers to abandon the idea that bourbon drinkers are just old guys in social clubs. He wants you to take a chance on something new, especially if it’s not your drink of choice. “Whiskey is now trending in that fine wine demographic,” he says. “If you don’t like it, give it two weeks and try it again. Maybe you just had a big meal full of acid and your palate didn’t take to what you’re drinking that day. It can be so much more than that thing you mix with ginger ale that will help you get through a party.”
TAYLOR BOWLER is the lifestyle editor.
