Perseverance. One word that perfectly describes the Master Distiller at Knox Whiskey Works (KWW). It takes immense determination to become a distiller, but even more tenacity to become a Master Distiller.
Miranda White holds the title of Master Distiller at KWW onW. Jackson Ave. in Downtown Knoxville. Established in 2015, KWW ope
ned as the first legal distillery in Knoxville. As a small batch craft spirit distillery, they use local products to create and also bottle the spirits in-house. KWW is known for making their liquors representative of East Tennessee.
Originally from Waynesville, North Carolina, White studied Fish and Wildlife Management at Haywood Tech* (Haywood Community College).
“[I] still haven’t spent the first day as a Game Warden despite my interest in that profession,” White said. “In the spring, I will be enrolling in a continued education program for Political Economics through Oxford.”
A new distillery (then Popcorn Sutton Distilling, now Sazerac of Tennessee*) was going to open up near where White worked while in school. She was young and under qualified, but thought it would be a fun job so she went for it anyway. White submitted her application and no one paid her any attention.
“I went to that distillery every week for a year to reiterate to them that I really wanted the job before they finally hired me,” White said.
Reluctantly, the owner finally hired her because she was so persistent. She was one of seven applicants that were hired to work packaging. Even though filling bottles all day was not exactly what she deemed fun, she stuck with it. She really wanted to run the still
s and work in the actual making of the spirits.
“I have a good work ethic and ambition for days so I assumed I would climb quickly
,” White said. “I was very wrong.”
Day in and day out, White watched people get hired in and promoted over her. She became the most experienced with the packaging equipment, but still got passed over for promotions within the production department.
“[Hixon’s] resistance [to promote me] kept me pretty upset for the better part of the year,” White said.
White was determined to get a promotion; so, she constantly bothered Travis Hixon to find out why she was not getting promoted.
“It was because I am a woman,” White said. “It wasn’t that he had any sort of prejudice against women, but every woman he had tried to hire into production had folded within a week due to the strenuous nature of the job, and he didn’t have the time to train someone that was going to quit within a few days.”
White remained persistent and eventually he gave her the chance to do the mash cooks*––the part of the job that would usually make people quit. Unlike the other women, White was consistently able to do the mash cooks…not because they were easier for her, but because her ego was too big. At this point, things started to get easier. White became curious about every aspect of the field and her supervisors took notice.
“Within two weeks of my promotion, I was given my own shift to lead and my own people to train…albeit with close supervision from my manager,” White said. “Then within a year after that, I ran two departments––production, research and development––in my own right and had been trained to manage the other three [departments]––packaging, shipping, maintenance––when they needed me to.”
Soon after her promotions and additional training, KWW recruited White to be their Head Distiller.
While working at PSD, White found her mentors. One being the initial Master Distiller at PSD, Hixon. He specializes in start-up distilleries and so he was able to pass that type of knowledge onto White.
“[It] says a lot about his intelligence if you think about the myriad of problems you can expect to face if you’re
building––from the ground up––a massive f
acility to produce one of the most regulated products in the world.”
However, White’s most influential mentor was Head Distiller Ryan Catlett. He was one of her superiors at PSD; but, then became the Head Distiller at KWW––which is the position White took when he left there.
“He probably didn’t hear anything from in the first year that he knew me other than “how” and “why”, he always humored me though,” White said. “There was too many times to count that I bribed him with magic words like “beer” to stay after work, and then I would break out my notebook of questions and interrogate him.”
In additional to Hixon and Catlett, John Lunn also became one of White’s top influencers. Lunn replaced Hixon at PSD as the Master Distiller. Lunn worked as the Master Distiller for George Dickel for 11 years, so his knowledge was quite vast.
“He wasn’t as hands on as [Hixon] had been, but he had a deep pool of knowledge in distilling and was more than willing to share it when I started to pick his brain.”
Unlike with Hixon, White had the availability to ask Lunn more administrative questions that would help her advance in the field. Lunn usually left White to manage the floor and he would take care of all the administrative type work. She was left to her own devices and this helped her learn so much more than she would have otherwise.
“I also had the opportunity to work alongside a few other people who had very impressive backgrounds,” White said. “Such as the gentleman who retired from Wild Turkey on a corporate level––after having been an engineer for MGP. I got to work alongside several of Bacardi’s scientists as well.”
Even though White is the Master Distiller at KWW, she still faces sexism from time to time. Occasionally, vendors will come in and see her and a male coworker and assume he is the one in charge.
“They will see Ryan and me in the back and completely ignore me to give their pitch to Ryan,” White said. “Those vendors, obviously, never get a follow up.”
Other than the doubt she receives from male farmers/truck drivers when driving a forklift, White says that she does not feel like she has any other hindrances because she’s a woman in this field.
“I had a farmer here to get spent grain who insisted I ratchet strap the tote to the forklift before I drove across the parking lot,” White said. “The next time he came, Ryan loaded his truck and he never said a word about ratchet straps.”
White notes that she taught Ryan to drive a forklift. She’s been driving one for five years, compared to Ryan’s month of knowing how to operate one.
Working at KWW has continued to help White grow and become a stronger person. She recalls several moments from her beginning that she wanted to quit, but because of her pride, she preserved. White remains prideful (especially to her mother) when it comes to job. White credits where she is now, to her time at PSD.
“If I hadn’t felt like I was being persecuted due to my gender, there is every possibility that I would’ve quit,” White said. “But, as it were, inner arrogance is one of my character flaws so I set out to prove that I could not only do it, but I could do it better than anyone he wanted to put me in competition with.”
Featured photo by Chelsea Babin
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