A Girl + Her Whiskey

Interview with Rachael Skyes, Distiller at Nashville Craft

WE'RE EXCITED TO GET TO FEATURE YOU! YOU'RE A PERFECT FIT BECAUSE OUR FOCUS IS ON WOMEN WHO ARE INTERESTED IN MUSIC, FOOD/ DRINKS, AND HOSPITALITY. I LOVE SEEING HOW THINGS YOU' VE DONE IN YOUR LIFE HAVE COME TOGETHER IN WHAT YOU'RE DOING NOW. I WOULD LOVE FOR YOU TO TALK ABOUT THAT. I KNOW YOU WERE BORN AND RAISED IN ARKANSAS. TELL US A BIT ABOUT HOW YOU ENDED UP IN NASHVILLE.

Okay. Yeah, so born and raised in Arkansas, and I moved to Nashville just a few months after I graduated college in 2001 and moved here shortly after. I can't believe I'm coming up on 20 years! I love music. It's always been what I wanted to be around. Nashville was always my dream city to live here.

Initially, I moved to Franklin and worked in the service hospitality industry for a little while until a friend got me a nanny gig with Wynonna. I did that for several years until the kids didn't need me to nanny them anymore. And then I was like, okay, well, I need to find something else to do. And that was when going back to waiting tables and bartending, you know, came into the picture. Working at the distillery, even though my official title is a distiller and mainly what I do, on tour days like today, I bartended all day long. So it came around full circle even today. I love being able to interact with people and all that. It gives me that satisfaction of still being in the service industry I've been in after 20 years now.

YOUR WHOLE PROGRESSION OF COMING TO NASHVILLE BECAUSE YOU LOVED MUSIC, WORKING FOR WY, AND BEING AROUND IT ALL TOURING WITH HER WAS SUCH A GREAT WAY TO BE INTRODUCED TO THE WHOLE MUSIC INDUSTRY IN NASHVILLE. DID YOU HAVE OTHER ROLES WITH HER?

I was her personal assistant for about a year, and then she moved me to nanny full-time after she just realized that the kids and I got along so well. It was way too much for me to try to be her assistant too. So yeah, from 2006 until about 2013, off and on, I was a nanny for her.

NASHVILLE CRAFT

www.nashvillecraft.com

YOU KNOW, WE HEAR FROM A LOT OF WOMEN WHO ARE DEALING WITH A SHIFT IN THEIR CAREER OR MAKING A LEAP TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT. I WOULD LOVE IT IF YOU TALKED ABOUT THE LEAP YOU MADE THAT WAS SO HUGE— LEAVING YOUR HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY JOB TO DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT. SO MANY PEOPLE CAN'T MAKE THAT LEAP, AS YOU KNOW. I THINK THAT IT'S SO INTERESTING THAT YOU DID IT. HOW DID YOU BEGIN TO FEEL THAT YOU COULD EVEN MAKE WHISKEY?

You know, working in the hospitality industry, serving and bartending, you make really good money, but the hours stink. So for me, it was hard because the money was great, and I had the flexibility to take off whenever I wanted to. That was my lifestyle for so long, but I wanted a career that I could grow in for my future. Being a server, I learned about spirits and beer, and it intrigued me. The first step was home brewing beer. After doing that for several years, I gained some knowledge that I could use to make whiskey because I knew about mashing. I learned about fermentation and things like that.

It was definitely a leap of faith, but I knew that I could do it. I was going to have to put in the work. So having somebody like Bruce, the owner of Nashville Craft, who wanted to take me under his wing as an apprentice was kind of like all the stars aligned, and it just worked out that we found each other at the right time. I was up for the challenge, and he was willing to take a chance on me.

Rachael Sykes and Bruce Boeko

www.nashvillecraft.com

I KNOW WOMEN DISTILLERS LIKE YOU ARE COMING ON THE SCENE IN NASHVILLE. DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY FEMALE WHISKEY DISTILLERS THERE ARE?

It's an exciting time for women. There are three main distilleries in Nashville. It's us, Nelson's Greenbrier and Corsair, that are the distilleries within the Nashville city limits. Corsair and Nelson's both have a female distiller. And then, of course, we do. It's great that the women in the industry are coming up and being a part of it. All overTennessee, even George Dickel, their master distiller, is a woman. The same goes for Old Dominick in Memphis. So yeah, it's changed a lot in the past five years. The new assistant distiller at Jack Daniels is a woman, and one of the distillers at Sazerac, who owns the Jack Daniels distillery, is a woman. So there's a growing number of us.

AS ONE OF THE DISTILLERS, YOU PERSONALLY DO THE DISTILLERY TOURS ON THE WEEKENDS, RIGHT? ARE YOU ALSO RESPONSIBLE WHEN YOU ALL HAVE THE OUTDOOR CONCERTS?

No, I don't do that, thankfully. I mean, just because it's a lot of work. I helped get a couple of artists early on, but Shelly Tackett took over for us and did that as far as the concerts go.

As far as the tours, it's where we're unique. We are distiller-led. If you come to tour, you will get either myself or Bruce leading the tours, which is unusual. We have five-star ratings across the board because people come, and they can ask the in-depth questions, the science, the technical stuff, and we can actually answer that. So it's scienceoriented and a lot of the technical engineering aspect of what distilling is.

So it's fun! I think that people enjoy that. We recently extended our offerings to start a hands-on distilling course where people can do a two-day course with us. They walk through every process. We teach them about the entire process. Hands-on participation in mashing grain, fermentation, first and second distillation for whiskey, and botanical distillation of gin. So we're taking it to the next level for the people who either want to start distilleries themselves or 'big bourbon geeks' who love being around that kind of stuff.

Rachael Sykes and her dog, Whiskey

Rachael Sykes and her dog, Whiskey

I KNOW YOU'RE SUCH A HUGE MUSIC FAN, AND I LOVE SEEING THE VIDEOS OF YOU THAT YOU POST, WHERE YOU'RE MAKING THE WHISKEY, AND YOU ALWAYS HAVE MUSIC WITH IT. DO YOU GET TO LISTEN TO MUSIC WHILE YOU' RE WORKING?

The cool part is that I have music playing all the time. We have huge speakers and you know, I'm always going to have my country music playing through the speakers. Well, Bruce and I go back and forth cause he loves Lightning 100 (local Nashville radio station known for playing local and indie artists). And I do too. During the week, it's just the two of us. So, yeah, I'm constantly playing music and letting those good vibes pump into the barrels as well. I love it!

TELL US A FEW OF YOUR FAVORITE GO-TO ARTISTS THAT YOU ALWAYS PUT ON IF YOU WANT TO BE IN A GOOD MOOD.

Eric Church is my favorite. I love Brandi Carlile. I love Wynonna. Right now, I'm on a big CeCe Winans kick, so it's kind of all over the board. I'm into a lot of male country singers. I like a guy named Riley Greene, who's an up-andcoming artist. I like Lee Brice a lot. Ashley McBride, who played our concertseries, and it was incredible.

WWW.NASHVILLECRAFT.COM

Whiskey at Nashville Craft

www.nashvilletreehouse.com