Marianne Eaves didn’t set out to become the first female master distiller in Kentucky – She simply wanted to become a chemical engineer. Yet a college internship at Brown-Forman changed the course of her life and, in many ways, the history of American whiskey.
Becoming the first female master distiller in Kentucky, she grew from Woodford Reserve and Brown-Forman into leading Castle & Key Distillery and Forbidden Bourbon.
From early on in her life, Marianne’s choices were on the unusual side. At high school, she took a math, science and auto tech course, fixing and building the carburetor of her first car. In college, she took chemical engineering.
Part of her internship for chemical engineering included spending time at Brown-Forman – that was enough for her to fall in love with the industry and the art and science of making whiskey. She then joined the Woodford Reserve team headed by master distiller Chris Morris. Marianne admits she never imagined a career in whiskey. Arriving at Brown-Forman as a chemical engineering intern, she quickly discovered an industry where science and craftsmanship met. Being a young woman on the production floor also meant she had to earn credibility every day. “I wanted people to see that I was capable, willing to learn, and had a viewpoint worth listening to,” Marianne said.
She worked closely with Morris to map out her stepping into that role when the time was right: “Together he and I were kind of mapping out what that process would be to achieve the title of master distiller when my time was ready, after he was ready to take his next step,” Marianne said. “But it just happened a little bit sooner for me.”
Fred Minnick then wrote an article about Marianne bringing her to wider national recognition. Things then happened very quickly for Marianne when Castle & Key reached out to her.
“I decided to make a bold move, and some people, most people, thought I was crazy to do it,” Marianne said. “But.. I wouldn’t have it any other way, even though it was an enormous project, and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into getting that facility going.”
Marianne said push back was actually coming more from consumers rather than peers in the industry that already knew her and appreciated her knowledge, experience, passion, and skills. Some doubted her simply because she was a woman. “You walk into a room and say, ‘I’m the Master Distiller,’ and people say, ‘No, you’re not,'” Marianne recalled. “At a certain point you just have to decide (to) stop listening to all of that. Once the distillery was up and operating and we were producing, people were able to taste some of the things that I made there…” and that was the big change that brought Marianne one more step up the ladder of public recognition.
“The founders of Forbidden came to me when I was making the transition from Brown-Forman to Castle & Key,” Marianne said. “So it was before it was actually announced to the public that I was making the move, but I’d already made that decision. They said, you know, “We wanna create this new kind of bourbon. We think that you are the right person to partner with.”
The rest was history, and Forbidden Bourbon was Castle and Key’s first contract with Marianne as master distiller.
Marianne stresses the fundamental difference between Castle & Key’s mashbill to Forbidden Bourbon’s mashbill.
Forbidden’s mash bill is extremely unique as it is largely using white corn (75% white corn, 12% white wheat, 13% malted barley) One more of Forbidden Bourbon’s defining characteristics is its fermentation process. Rather than chasing speed, Marianne deliberately slowed fermentation to encourage the yeast to produce a wider range of flavor compounds before focusing on alcohol production.
Looking back, becoming Kentucky’s first female master distiller was only one milestone. Today, Marianne seems equally passionate about ensuring that it won’t remain an extraordinary achievement forever. Through the Eaves Foundation, she’s helping create opportunities for the next generation of distillers—regardless of gender or background—so that talent, rather than tradition, determines who writes the next chapter of American whiskey.
