written by: Christie Marcy Β  Β  photos by: Adam Finkle

Who says you can’t get a drink in Utah?

Not the local whiskey-lovers group Whiskey Drinkers Union: Utah Local 801, co-founded by Jeff Thompson. β€œMy friend Jim and I are part of a bunch of national whiskey groups, so we’d see all these other people getting together and buying barrels and networking about whiskey and trading bottles,” Thompson says. β€œI created a group and I invited four people and everyone invited their friends and then friends of friends showed up.”

The group of over 300 has a home on Facebook, where they compare notes on spirits, share liquor-related news, learn how to navigate the arcane rules of the DABC and brag about the varieties of booze they’ve tasted. The group is also real-world activeβ€”Thompson and his co-founders schedule monthly events ranging from in-home tastings to tours of local distilleries.

Though the word β€œwhiskey” is in the group’s name, Thompson is clear that the club is about all liquor, with a focus on local spirit-makers. β€œWe have a bunch of bourbon nerds. We have a bunch of Scotch nerds. We have people who like whiskey but know nothing about it,” says Thompson, who puts a premium on educating the members of his group. β€œI host tastings and we’ll go through how it’s made and its history.”

A little education goes a long way in appreciating spirits, he says. β€œThere are people who come to our events and they say β€˜Oh, whiskey is OK.’ But when you put a glass of Scotch neat in front of them and you teach them how to drink itβ€”you sip it, you roll it around in your mouth, that whole thingβ€”they aren’t saying, β€˜This is gross and it tastes like fire’ anymore. They come around.” And to that end, Thompson says, β€œwe’re just trying to build the culture of whiskey here.”

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See more inside ourΒ 2017 September/October Issue.