Whiskey Bourbon Scotch Enthusiasts (WBSE) was conceived and launched as a Facebook group on November 9th, 2014. Chad Cadden and Bill Varnell (Co Founders) met through a local York County Pennsylvania beer club, where Chad asked if there was interest in forming a whiskey discussion group. Bill responded positively, the group page was launched, and the rest is history.
Our mission was to provide a venue for whiskey enthusiasts to gather and discuss their likes and experiences with other whiskey enthusiasts. We also wanted to encourage the sharing and drinking of the best whiskey with friends and family. To this day, we still hold these values at our core. As a group strictly for discussion, we’ve always discouraged hoarding or selling allocated bottles.
Our format caught on very quickly and the membership grew by leaps and bounds. As we approached the 10,000-member mark, we decided to register our trademark, form an LLC, and branch out to include a webpage for written reviews (“whiskey enthusiasts”). That has now transitioned to a full-featured digital whiskey lifestyle magazine in which content is constantly updated. We are now in our fourth year of publication with “Whiskey Network Magazine,” which has a strong and continuously growing audience every month.
WBSE has since grown to over 48,000 members worldwide, with members on every continent. With that growth, we launched a weekly subscriber-based newsletter called “The Barrel Report,” which members automatically receive when they subscribe to our magazine. The Barrel Report features new Whiskey Network content each week, with short excerpts to draw readers to the site.
To further expand our reach with whiskey enthusiasts, WBSE partnered with Mash Networks to create a Direct-To-Consumer whiskey single-barrel-pick store in July of 2022. We personally curated each barrel and have sometimes included members to help select our barrels. These barrels were bottled and offered to consumers nationally and shipped flat-rate to 45 states. This store opened to great success and has even been featured in a national press release with Three Chord Bourbon on December 1st 2022. This collaboration with Three Chord Bourbon founder Neil Giraldo (Pat Benatar’s husband and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee) included three exclusive barrel-pick releases to our store. Neil then had a national press release sent out announcing the release and collaboration with WBSE’s Rickhouse (find it on Mash Networks here). We have since added a “Daily Drams” section in our West Coast store that features a selection of standard retail bottles for the convenience of our customers. We have also added an East Coast store, that brings exciting new craft whiskey to our WBSE members and beyond. We work with Mash Networks, a licensed seller/shipper to bring these exceptional whiskeys direct to your door for our members and customers.
In the past decade there have been many memorable events. One in particular stands out above the others. In October 2018, we held a members-only convention in Louisville Kentucky. Members from all over the country attended a special night at the Rivers Edge venue that included speaker Freddie Johnson of Buffalo Trace and the documentary “NEAT.” Freddie brought a wealth of history, knowledge, and wisdom to the members. His most memorable quote that he attributes to his father was, “Great whiskey will always be available, but you may not get another chance to live out the moments that sharing great whiskey creates”. This epitomizes the philosophy of our group!
Following the Friday night event, we rented vans and took our members around Kentucky to visit distilleries. Those distilleries included Buffalo Trace, Four Roses, Heaven Hill, Maker’s Mark, Wild Turkey, and Willett. We ended our weekend with meet ups on Whiskey Row in Downtown Louisville Kentucky, sharing the new-found friendships that were built on sharing great whiskey. This is what WBSE is all about!
We also featured a great partnership with Blacksmith and Jones Films, doing monthly live round tables about their Scotch whisky film “The Water of Life” (featured on PBS). The final event was a live virtual tasting with GlenAllachie Master Distiller, Billy Walker. Billy also personally selected a cask for WBSE that helped promote the film. We considered this to be a great honor!
As we celebrate the 10th anniversary of Whiskey Bourbon and Scotch Enthusiasts, we would like to extend our thanks to all who have helped build this great community of whiskey enthusiasts! Special thanks go out to our staff of writers for Whiskey Network, our Editor-In-Chief, Mark Pruett, Editor Col. Brian G. Miller, Newsletter Co-Editor Joe Gulino, and Webmaster Genevieve Keller. We would be remiss not to acknowledge all of our Moderators that keep WBSE free from spam and scammers. Special thanks to Salvatore Loiacono who screens all new member requests for legitimacy.
We have some fantastic things planned for Whiskey Network in the coming months, so don’t forget to subscribe, it’s FREE!
We hope to build better relationships with distilleries, by sharing information on our sites, about what each distillery has to offer to our great whiskey community. Join us on this journey we call whiskey.
Here’s to sharing great whiskey!
Bill Varnell & Chad Cadden
Co Founders
WBSE / Whiskey Network Information
E-Mail: Whiskey Bourbon Scotch Enthusiasts LLC – [email protected]
Website: Whiskey Network Magazine – www.whiskeynetwork.net
WBSE’S RICKHOUSE – www.wbserickhouse.com
You Tube: Whiskey Network – https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCMpNE7j0ZBfX7ZfQlfQCFFQ
Twitter account: @whiskey_wbse
Instagram: whiskeyntwrkmag
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