Around the Barrel - Transcript: Ep041 Jed Lirette
Jed Lirette: Some of those people who have been here before, who bring newcomers to the distillery, they're so excited about the story that they think you're about to tell that they preempt you telling them. It's like, "Ooh, I was about to get to that. That was my crescendo, ma'am. Yeah. I was going to finish big with that safe story, but go ahead and finish now."
Lucas Hendrickson: Don't let the aphorisms fool you; you can come home again. Yes. Sometimes it takes venturing out into the world to appreciate what's available to you a little closer to home, but that experience can be invaluable when your newfound role at home involves making others from across the globe feel at home in your home.
On this episode, we talk with Jed Lirette, senior brand ambassador and tour guide at the Jack Daniel Distillery about seeing such a familiar piece of home out in the world, about the world slowly opening back up after the struggles of the past year plus, and about how it takes every kind of taste bud to ensure the quality of what comes out of Lynchburg from Around the Barrel.
Welcome back to Around the Barrel, the official podcast from the makers of Jack Daniels. I'm your host, Lucas Hendrickson. Take one glance at Jed Lirette, and the first descriptor that might come to mind is no nonsense, solid build, shaved head, carefully crafted beard that says, "I know my way around both grooming items and power tools." It's a look that fairly shouts, "Do not mess with this man."
But then you actually meet him, and you realize there might not be a more gregarious person on the planet. Jed is a Louisiana native who moved to middle Tennessee with his family at a young age, and now combines the familiarity of home with an attention to detail and a gift for gab that makes him the perfect combination to tell the story of the Jack Daniel Distillery to thousands of guests per year. And while the past year has presented challenges none of us could have predicted, it's the pride in what so many people continue to accomplish in Lynchburg that keeps Jed energized about conveying that ongoing story every single day.
Jed: My name's Jed Lirette. I'm the senior brand ambassador for Jack Daniel's Distillery. Born in Houma, Louisiana. I live in Petersburg, Tennessee, and it's good to be here with y'all today.
Lucas: Jed Lirette. Welcome to Around the Barrel.
Jed: Thank you. Thank you.
Lucas: It's good to see you. You certainly have an interesting path to, then from, then back to Lynchburg as part of your overall story. Tell us a little bit about what brought you from Louisiana originally, then here to Lynchburg growing up.
Jed: It was the oiling industry in 1984.
Lucas: Sure.
Jed: My dad was in the oil field. He was a welder out there. We came to visit some family up here in 1984, just for a vacation. And the family fell in love with it. Seven months after visiting family here in Lynchburg, we moved to Lynchburg. A matter of fact, we lived in a small little house about four miles north of where we're at right now on the distillery grounds.
Lucas: Oh, wow.
Jed: Yeah. Went to elementary school here, and grew up some of my early life here. Graduated high school just about 13 miles south of here in Fayetteville. Yeah.
Lucas: Gotcha. And then you started off on your international adventures and stuff. What drew you to the Navy, and then as an IT professional? Talk about the merging of those two worlds.
Jed: Sure.
Lucas: It seems a little disconnected-
Jed: Disconnected. Yeah.
Lucas: ... and also very of a thing.
Jed: I got to tell you that after I got out of high school, very little direction, had really no idea what I was doing. So I started working at a factory. All right?
Lucas: Okay.
Jed: And I knew that's not where I needed to be. And so just, I guess out of desperation, needed to do something, needed some direction so I joined the US Navy. My wife and I had already been married at that point, and we moved to San Diego. She said it was the best four-and-a-half year vacation she ever had.
Lucas: Mainly because the weather was always 85 degrees and clear.
Jed: Yeah. Yeah. And the marine layer was going to burn off at some point.
Lucas: Right. Sure. Yeah.
Jed: Yeah. So, no, it was really nice. Spent five years in the Navy. It was a beautiful experience. I worked on Coronado Island. And after getting out of the Navy, I joined up with the Department of Defense, and I worked as a senior network engineer as a deployable unit.
Lucas: Gotcha.
Jed: I went to Afghanistan for three deployments, even though, while I was in the Navy, never stepped foot on a ship for five years. After my last deployment, my wife and I had bought some vacation land in Petersburg, Tennessee. That's where we live now. And out of necessity, my mom got sick, and we moved back home, and I, again, needed a job. And so I started temping at Jack and just waiting for something that I was trained to do to open up. And it never happened. And I got full-time at Jack, and this, believe it or not, it's my favorite thing I've ever done in my entire life.
Lucas: Sure.
Jed: I mean, it's Willy Wonka's chocolate factory for adults. I mean, it's outstanding.
Lucas: I've found that to be the case. Yeah. The stereotype for IT folks can be kind of that. Not very talkative. They'd rather deal with machines than people.
Jed: Absolutely.
Lucas: But your primary role here these days is kind of as a tour guide and being in front of people and-
Jed: Run my mouth.
Lucas: ... talking a lot. Yeah. When did you discover your gift of gab specifically in this kind of role?
Jed: I'll let you hear a story from my previous boss who came to visit me. After I left St. Louis, and that's where we moved back from, I started working here. My boss came down. He came to visit, took a tour, and he looked at me, and he said, "Jed, this is what you were meant to do because you ran your mouth way too much when you should have been working." And so I think I've always enjoyed talking.
Lucas: Right.
Jed: Good Southern boy. Not meeting a stranger. Everybody's your friend at first until you can prove me otherwise. And no, I love it. And since I've traveled all over the world, meeting people here, it's almost like I was back there again. I've landed all over the planet, and it's fun seeing those people come from other parts of the country or other parts of the world to visit us here in Lynchburg, Tennessee. It was like, "Yeah, I know that pub," or, "I know that location." So it's really neat. It's fun. And you're right. I can't shut up.
Lucas: So shape for us what your role is these days? We mentioned tour guide, but also brand ambassador. What does that entail on a day-to-day basis here these days?
Jed: Well, right now because of COVID and how that's restricted us, it's pretty much just tours. Most of the travel for festivals or events or onsite barrel selections or what have you, that's all been canceled right now, but you know, we're fingers crossed, hoping everything breaks soon. But as my role, when we have people of certain importance show up to the property, I get the distinct pleasure of walking them around. Barrel selections on property, sometimes I get pulled for that, but it is just a joy to be able to walk anybody around because this is our home. It's like inviting somebody into your house. You just want to let them relax for a second and show them around, have a good time. So what I do is a little more. I get to do stuff like this-
Lucas: Right.
Jed: ... where our beginning tour guides just won't have the ability, not just yet. Maybe some point in the future. But I get these sorts of things. This is fun.
Lucas: Sure. What, in this moment, and again, the world is starting to open back up a little bit slowly but slowly. That's a good thing. What about the tours have changed since you started, leading up to where we hit last year, and now how the pivots have happened over the past year? What's new and different? And then what has changed in the midst of all that new and different?
Jed: Well, before COVID hit, we were breaking all previous records.
Lucas: Sure.
Jed: I mean, people were coming in droves, which was a blessing.
Lucas: Right.
Jed: Well, I mean, it was really nice to have that influx of folks in because they're passionate about the brand, they're fans of the brand. March 13th of last year, it stops. And everybody's aware of that. We opened the front door, the visitor center, June 1st. And all we were able to offer was just a tour of the visitor center building. A bunch of us stood around, showed them the displays, try to talk to them as best we could, but through the actual process, and I know for a guest who hasn't been here before, it was probably more than they were able-
Lucas: Had been expecting.
Jed: Yeah, absolutely. But we knew that it wasn't as much as we could give. And so as soon as we could, we opened up the tour path as much as we could. Production buildings were off limits. We weren't allowed to go in there. And as this thing's progressed, we've opened up more buildings, more opportunities to see stuff. We're back in mellowing, which is my favorite spot-
Lucas: Oh sure.
Jed: ... because you get 140 proof Jack in your face.
Lucas: Wafted right in off those charcoal vats.
Jed: That's right.
Lucas: Yeah, absolutely.
Jed: And we went from small groups of 10 to now we're groups of 20. And that's happened within the last month. So things are starting to loosen up in a responsible way.
Lucas: Right.
Jed: All right. We're trying to be mindful of people who visit because our working force and the guests's experience, they coincide because this is not faked. We're making every drop of Jack here. So we want to protect them. We want to protect our workers because they want to still be able to drink their whiskey, and we can't shut down.
Lucas: No.
Jed: And so, yeah, it's grown. It's progressed, and it's gotten better over the last year period. And we're hopeful that it's just going to get better. There's things coming up in the future, though. So yeah, all the listeners, you need to be looking at on our website because there's new tour possibilities that are coming up. We do have a walkup tasting now.
Lucas: Oh. Right on.
Jed: Yeah. So I think it's Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. If, say for instance, you've been here before, or maybe the tasting tours are sold out, you can go up to the counter. You'll get a ticket for a tasting. You go to the Lynchburg room, and you select four samples out of all of our catalog. And so it's a pretty neat, not quite a bar experience, but the person pouring talks you through what that whiskey is. And so it's a little more than just a, "Here's your whiskey. Drink it and leave." It's definitely an education about that brand you picked.
