The Best Thing I Found in Bourbon Wasn’t in the Bottle –
People outside of bourbon think it’s about the whiskey. The bottles. The hunt. The collections. The trophies lined up on shelves. But if you’ve been around long enough, you learn that the best part was never what was in the glass. It was the people standing around it. My bourbon story started around 2019, when I was trying to learn everything I could about whiskey. Being a woman in whiskey wasn’t always easy. I belonged to plenty of groups. Some were welcoming. Some were filled with endless mansplaining. Some seemed to attract men who viewed a shared interest in bourbon as an invitation to slide into your DMs.
Being new to whiskey was hard enough. Being new and asking questions could feel even harder. At the time, everyone was chasing Blanton’s and Eagle Rare like they were gold bullion. Every allocated bottle drop felt like breaking news. People lined up at stores. Rumors spread through Facebook groups. Finding a bottle felt like winning the lottery.
Then I found PA Bourbon Squad. The difference was immediate. People shared information freely. They talked about where allocated bottles were dropping in Pennsylvania’s state-controlled system. They debated tasting notes. They compared favorites. Most importantly, they welcomed questions. Nobody made me feel foolish for asking them. Nobody acted like they were the gatekeeper of bourbon knowledge. People simply shared what they knew.
I started building a list of bottles to try. Over time, I noticed my palate aligned pretty closely with one of the group’s founders, Matt. We’d joke in the comments, compare notes on bottles, and eventually exchange messages about whiskey, the group, and whatever ridiculous thing had happened that day. Then came the post. Someone shared a meme featuring a rather busty woman pouring bourbon. Matt messaged me and asked what I thought. Honestly, I wasn’t offended. My response was simple: I probably would have scrolled right past it. Then I started reading the comments. I was blown away. Some of these women were acting like their husbands had been caught in an affair, not like someone had posted a busty bourbon meme in a whiskey group. The comments got heated. People dug into their positions. Others got defensive. What should have been a forgettable post somehow became a full-blown debate. I jumped in. I shared my perspective about understanding your audience and choosing your battles. I joked that people posted Russell’s Reserve all the time, and that was far more offensive to my palate than this woman was to my eyes. Some people laughed. Some people calmed down. The whole thing eventually fizzled out.
Afterward, I told Matt that this was exactly why I could never be a moderator. I was too opinionated. Too mouthy. Not nearly diplomatic enough. He laughed. Then he told me something I wasn’t expecting. The moderators had already decided they wanted to ask me to join the team.
At the time there were four moderators besides me. Over the years, people came and went. Today there are ten of us. What started as a bourbon group was slowly becoming something much bigger. There was Matt. There was Rocky. The founders who built a community that somehow managed to stay welcoming, funny, informative, and supportive in a corner of the internet where that isn’t always easy.
Over time, these weren’t just people I knew from a Facebook group. They became my friends. Some of my closest friends. What none of us knew at the time was how much I would eventually need them.
A few years later, I experienced one of the most devastating losses of my life. Someone I loved died by suicide. The grief was overwhelming. For a long time, I wouldn’t allow myself to drink. I was afraid that if I started, I wouldn’t stop.
But I still visited the PA Bourbon Squad page every day. I watched people celebrate promotions. Wedding anniversaries. Birthdays. New jobs. Vacation photos. Big bottle finds. Everyday victories. I saw members helping strangers find bottles they had been hunting. I watched people offer samples simply because they wanted someone else to experience something special. I watched friendships form. And somehow, witnessing all of that joy helped me survive my own sadness. I didn’t always have the energy to talk about what I was carrying. But I could engage. I could comment. I could laugh. I could be part of something. The group gave me a place to exist when I wasn’t quite sure who I was anymore. It reminded me that life continued. It reminded me that joy still existed. It reminded me that people could still be good. In a world that often feels angry, divided, and cynical, PA Bourbon Squad was a daily reminder that community still mattered.
Eventually, I found my footing again. And when I emerged from that darkness, I did so with a purpose. I wanted to honor the person I lost. I wanted to support veterans. I wanted to make a difference. What started as a personal mission grew into fundraising efforts that would eventually become larger than I ever imagined.
And PA Bourbon Squad showed up. Not just with words. With action. The group rallied behind every effort. They donated bottles. They bought raffle tickets. They volunteered their time. They shared posts. They recruited friends. They helped spread the word. They believed in the mission. Together, we helped build events that grew beyond anything I could have imagined. The PA Whiskey Show. The Big F’n Waffle. Year after year, the community showed what it was capable of when people came together around something bigger than themselves. In 2024, we raised $63,000. In 2025, we raised $120,000. In 2026, we raised $153,000. Those numbers represent far more than money. They represent generosity. Compassion. Friendship. Trust. They represent thousands of people proving that bourbon can be a vehicle for something far greater than collecting bottles.
When people ask why I love bourbon, the answer isn’t Blanton’s. It isn’t Eagle Rare. It isn’t allocated bottles. It isn’t unicorn hunts. It isn’t what sits on my shelf. It’s PA Bourbon Squad. It’s the friendships. It’s the support. It’s the laughter. It’s the people who stood beside me during the hardest chapter of my life without even realizing how much they were helping. It’s the community that restored my faith in humanity when I desperately needed it. Bourbon brought us together. But people are the reason we stayed. And while I certainly found a love for whiskey along the way, what I really found was something much rarer. I found my people.
