This new series, Entrepreneurs After Hours, will highlight the quirky, cool and otherwise off-the-wall hobbies some of your favorite enterprising #StartupCincy leaders enjoy. Think yours qualifies? Let us know.
By day, Todd Carnes is a business account executive with Sprint in Cincinnati.
By night, he serves as the co-founder of The Bourbon Society of Greater Cincinnati, a group that attracts whiskey enthusiasts and neophytes alike at its monthly meeting.
The idea for the group started around 2013, when Carnes found himself out of the MMA fight world and transitioning professionally. While his day-to-day was in flux, he realized he did know the local bar scene pretty well, thanks to his past life with MMA. While he considered what he wanted to do next, Carnes decided he'd network with entrepreneurs in the food and drink space.
"I just developed a huge appreciation for whiskey."
As a result, he found himself striking up a fast friendship with Molly Wellman, an entrepreneur who owns a handful of area watering holes, including The Old Kentucky Bourbon Bar.
Through their friendship — and times spent at the bourbon bar — Carnes found himself learning more and more about the drink.
"Molly is just a wealth of knowledge," he said. "I just developed a huge appreciation for whiskey."
Carnes craved an opportunity to share his interest with other like-minded folk, but discovered there wasn't a local group for such a thing. So, he took it upon himself to make one. It was as simple as setting up a Facebook group, planning a double date and ordering a flight at The Old Kentucky Bourbon Bar.
Not long after that fateful night, the quartet grew into a group of 10-20 people, eventually ballooning to a core group of 60 members. Carnes said that monthly meetings average around 100, and nearly 3,400 follow the BSGC's adventures on Facebook.
Members range from those who are "21 all the way to their 70s, people who have been drinking whiskey longer than we have been alive," Carnes said. Gatherings aim to bridge the knowledge gap of attendees, giving them an opportunity to taste something new, engage with a guest speaker and mingle with other participants. If it's a guest's birthday, said member is encouraged to bring a favorite whiskey to share.
"It's an easy ice breaker," Carnes said.
Currently, the BSGC meets at the New Riff Distillery on the second Monday of the month at 6:30 p.m., and they have the designation of the only local group to meet in an active distillery. Bartenders serve the whiskey neat or whip up mixed drinks for those folks who aren't feeling particularly adventurous.
Memberships are free for the first month, with a one-time $125 fee that covers the rest of the year. The group is not-for-profit, with funds from membership fees going to New Riff room rentals, getting guest speakers in and buying drinks and food for meetups.
"It feels like a cocktail hour before a wedding," said Carnes of the networking time before the event officially gets underway. "It's become a family. For some, it's become their one night out drinking without the kids; for others, it’s a social staple of the week."
Carnes added that it truly is a group that represents Greater Cincinnati, with folks coming from the Queen City, the Loveland area and parts of Kentucky. There's even a member who makes a monthly trek from Indianapolis just to hang out and appreciate the spirits.
This enthusiasm, and what he noted as an increased balance of bourbon interest among the genders, has Carnes predicting that mixers like the BSGC will challenge coffee meetups as the professional business gathering of choice.
"I think we'll have another transition with the business meetup and the professional meetup," he said. "These are what are going to be awesome."
Only time will tell if his 9-to-5 and his hobby will ever officially cross paths.
