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DENNY POTTER was recently appointed master distiller at Maker’s Mark having previously worked for Jim Beam, Heaven Hill, Cruzon Rum.... and Maker’s Mark.

“I’d say 80% of the time I’ll get called Danny Porter, so when I hear someone call me Harry Potter I think: ‘That’s fantastic, at least it’s not Danny Porter.’ But if I’m being mischievous I can blame it on that guy.”

During his first stint with the company, Potter worked his way up the ranks and when the late Dave Pickerell left his role as master distiller, he was named assistant master distiller.

However things changed dramatically for Potter in 2009 when Jim Beam bought Maker’s Mark and Cruzan rum in the British Virgin Islands, and Beam wanted someone to help run the show in the Caribbean.

“I thought it was incredible to move to the Caribbean, but as soon as I told my wife she started crying – not happy tears, she was happy here [Bardstown, Kentucky]. But it’s important to step out of your comfort zone and doing the company a favour like that I believe has led me to where I am today.”

Potter spent three years living in St Croix and he now misses the island lifestyle. “I’ve got a picture in my office of a little island we used to go to at the weekends – it was paradise.

“The culture is family driven and friendly because it’s such a small island and it meant we could go for cocktails and our kids could be there playing with their friends on the beach at the same time.

“They asked me to be general manager for three years at Cruzan, so me and my family moved to St Croix with the idea that I’d come back to Maker’s Mark after.” But he didn’t go back. Jim Beam moved him to its Frankfort distillery in Kentucky to look after more rum and some vodka and told him he’d be there for a year. “About six months in, having to drive nearly an hour and a half each way every day, they said they needed me for two more years.”

But as luck would have it, Potter got a phone call from Heaven Hill a week later asking him to be plant manager and run the distillery. He took the role straight away and, after a year, took on the role of master distiller – the first non-Beam family member to fill the post, which is one of the biggest master distiller jobs in the US.

In 2016 Potter became vice president of operations as well as master distiller. “It was a huge deal and I absolutely loved working there, especially being so close with the Shapira family [Heaven Hill’s owners] and the scope of my responsibility.

“But I think the role of master distiller is just for marketing. We have 20 people at Maker’s who are master distillers in terms of their technical understanding and hands-on approach, but having the title of master distiller gives you weight and it means people listen to me.”

In June 2018 he received a text message from Rob Samuels, third-generation family member of Maker’s Mark. “I just thought it had a project it wanted to work on together, but when I phoned him that night he began to give me the story of Maker’s Mark’s history and I said: ‘Rob, I know this story. What are you getting at?’”

Samuels offered him the job of general manager and master distiller at Maker’s and his first day was on October 1, 2018.

“If somebody had said a year ago I would leave Heaven Hill I’d have laughed in their face. I’m sure some people probably think I’m an idiot for leaving such a phenomenal company, but there’s something about Maker’s Mark that’s special, that you can’t replicate. The culture and operations of this brand are genuinely unique.”

But being in charge of such an operation is nothing compared to looking after and coordinating the active lives of two children. “The kids are both heavily involved with sports so one of my biggest challenges is trying to be a calm spectator, and now that football season is over the blood pressure has dropped a little bit.

“I usually have to sit separate from my wife because she worries so much about safety that it makes me worry.”

Although it’s still early doors, it’s clear Potter intends to be an intrinsic part of Maker’s Mark long into the future.