SB meets… David Wild, Never Say Die Bourbon

As the brand launches in the US, the co-founder of Never Say Die Bourbon tells us about its unlikely inspiration.

Can you share more about the inspiration behind Never Say Die Bourbon?

At the Kentucky Derby in 2015, I was listening to my old college friend, Pat Madden, talk about this horse that was born on his dad’s farm in 1951. The foal had a difficult birth and was struggling to breathe, so they gave it a shot of Bourbon to revive it. The horse made it through the night and so it was called Never Say Die.

Three years later, the horse had not only survived, it thrived – it won the Epsom Derby in England at very long odds of 33 to 1, with a then-unknown 17-year-old jockey called Lester Piggott in front of an audience of Queen Elizabeth II and Winston Churchill. American horses at the time were considered second-rate by the British horse-racing world and this win by Never Say Die was a massive shock. The horse went on at stud to create the modern American bloodstock industry that we have today.

We were drinking Bourbon when he told me this story and my synapses fused. I said to Pat: ‘Let’s make a Bourbon and call it Never Say Die’. He said: ‘You haven’t heard the rest of the story…’ and went on to tell me about a woman in Liverpool called Mona Best, who pawned her jewellery and bet it all on the horse because she liked the name – and she won big.

With that money, she founded the Casbah Club in Liverpool and bought her son, Pete Best, some drums, and then his mates Paul (McCartney) and John (Lennon) some electric guitars, so they could form a band called The Quarrymen. They played their first gigs at the Casbah Club and, of course, became The Beatles – with Ringo Starr replacing Pete as the drummer. Paul McCartney has even said that without Never Say Die, there would be no Beatles.

The Beatles then went on to travel to America and win big over there. That story shaped the whole project: the spirit of doing things that other people hadn’t done before, winning against the odds, and the positive effects due to serendipity, friendship, and transatlantic interplay all drove our attitude.

The whiskey’s ageing process is quite unique – could you tell me more about it?

We want to follow the story of the horse, so we decided to follow all of the rules for a Kentucky Bourbon – the oak, the ageing in Kentucky, etc – but we decided we would then transport the casks to England to age further. No Bourbon rules are broken in the process and we are classified as a Kentucky straight, but we wanted to be experimental and push the envelope of what a Kentucky Bourbon can be. We love and want to honour Kentucky Bourbon; we see our brand as building on the shoulders of giants.

Our distillers were convinced that the ocean journey and the different climate in England would make a unique flavour – and so it has proved. In Kentucky, extreme temperature fluctuations between seasons accelerate ageing then, when the barrels reach England, the climate is much more consistent and cooler, which promotes more complex flavours. The journey across the sea by ship also has a huge impact on its maturation, speeding up the interaction between whiskey and wood, contributing to the depth and colour of the Bourbon.

Can you tell me more about the different products in your portfolio?

We currently have three products. We launched last year with a six-year-old barrel-strength single cask Bourbon, with the particular barrels picked for their unique taste profiles. This is my personal favourite from our portfolio as it works so well in an Old Fashioned.

Our signature expression is a small batch of six-year-old Bourbon, which is a blend of just 10 casks chosen by our master blender – it really is the true definition of a small batch! We designed this to be an every-occasion Bourbon, with a lower ABV and mellowed spice.

In October, we launched a five-year-old American rye whiskey, which follows the same transatlantic ageing process as the Bourbons.

Why did you choose to launch in the UK before the US?

It was important for us to stay true to the story of Never Say Die the racehorse and we wanted our Bourbon to win in England – like the horse – before going back to the US.

Few Bourbon brands launch outside the US first, so again this added originality. It’s been great to see the positive response from UK whiskey fans.

At the end of November, we made our US debut through an exclusive deal with online retailer, Seelbach’s. We’re starting off in Kentucky, with plans to expand into Florida, and then California, Nevada and Arizona in early 2024.

Could you tell me more about your campaign against whiskey tariffs?

The tariffs were an outrageous imposition imposed in a trade war over things that had nothing to do with Bourbon. They were a result of the Trump administration imposing a 25% duty on foreign steel and 15% tax on foreign aluminium, which led allies – such as the UK – to retaliate by implementing tariffs on some US goods, such as whiskey. It was a potential disaster for our plans and held up our launch for at least two years.

The 25% tariff on Bourbon imports saw consumers pay £68 million (US$86.7m) in additional costs between its implementation in 2018 and its removal in March 2022.

My co-founder Martha Dalton and I created the Bourbon Alliance, along with industry partners like Beam Suntory and Jack Daniel’s, to lobby the UK government to do a deal with the US government to remove the tariffs and encourage trade both ways.

We had strong support from our Scotch whisky friends, too. It was ultimately very successful and we shipped barrels as soon as the tariffs came off, launching at the London Whisky Show last year, which was as quick as we could manage.