[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Page 5747]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO BILL SAMUELS

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, when most people think about Kentucky, 
three things usually spring to mind immediately: horses, college 
basketball, and bourbon. What few people realize, however, is that it 
is only in the past few decades that premium bourbon has had much of a 
presence outside Kentucky at all. Just 30 years ago, bourbon was one of 
the fastest-declining spirits in America. And yet today, the industry 
supports 10,000 jobs in Kentucky; more than 1.5 million people have 
visited the Kentucky Bourbon Trail in the last 5 years; and every 
distiller in the State is adding capacity. So bourbon's come a long 
way, and if you ask folks in Kentucky, most of the credit goes to one 
man, whose 35-year run at the helm of the world's most famous bourbon 
distillery comes to an end this week.
  I am referring, of course, to Mr. Bill Samuels, Jr., the longtime 
president of Makers Mark. Bill's dad may have come up with the formula 
for premium bourbon, but it is because of Bill's vision and tenacity 
that the rest of the world knows about it today.
  The first thing you could say about Bill Samuels is that rarely in 
the history of American commerce has there been a better marriage 
between a man and a product than the one between him and Makers Mark. 
To many Kentuckians, he is an instantly recognizable figure. You could 
say that what Colonel Sanders was to chicken, Bill is to bourbon. And 
so it is appropriate that the first job he ever had, at the age of 16, 
was driving the colonel around. You couldn't ask for a better teacher 
than Harlan Sanders if you wanted to learn how to promote a product, 
and, if that product was bourbon, you couldn't ask for a better 
hometown than Bardstown, KY. Bill's godfather and next-door neighbor 
was Jim Beam, and Bill can trace his family's tradition of bourbon 
making in Bardstown back seven generations to 1844.
  A dramatic change in the family business came in 1953, when Bill's 
father, Bill Samuels, Sr., decided to abandon the old family recipe, 
bought the smallest distillery in the State, just outside of Loretto, 
and got to work on a more premium product. Bill, Sr. never really 
thought of the family business as much more than a hobby, so Bill, Jr. 
went off to college where he studied engineering and earned a law 
degree. But the family business retained a certain attraction, and soon 
the younger of the two Bills had to make a choice: practice law, or 
accept his father's offer to work with him for half the money. The 
other terms of employment weren't much better. Bill's dad told him that 
they did three things and three things only at the family's distillery: 
``We make whiskey, we count money, and we sell whiskey''--and that his 
dad was in charge of the first two.
  Bill knew the family's bourbon had a future beyond its small but 
loyal customer base, and over the next several years he would put 
together the strategy to prove it. Where most businesses focused on 
telling people why they should buy their product, Bill would let the 
people who already liked Makers Mark do the talking. Bill's view was 
that if he focused on maintaining quality, the demand would grow on its 
own, one happy customer at a time. The real turning point came in 1980, 
when a reporter from the Wall Street Journal started making inquiries 
about this distillery outside Loretto, KY, that seemed to be in high 
demand. The front-page story that followed called Makers Mark a model 
of inefficiency by choice. It noted that the Samuels' produced only 19 
barrels of bourbon a day compared to an industry average in the 
hundreds, and described a cadre of loyal fans who liked it so much they 
would pay a premium to get it.
  The response was overwhelming. Bill, Jr. followed up with a series of 
clever ads that underscored just how small the distillery was, and how 
difficult it had become to keep up with demand, which of course only 
increased it. Soon, Makers Mark exploded onto the national and 
international stage as a premium brand, and an entire premium industry 
emerged for Kentucky, which today produces more than 95 percent of all 
bourbon produced in the U.S.
  Bill's genius for marketing and his love for Kentucky has always 
extended well beyond the family business. Over the years, he chaired an 
astonishing 27 different boards, including those at the University of 
Louisville, Bellarmine University, and the Kentucky Chamber of 
Commerce. To the amusement of his friends, he rcently signed up for 
Leadership Kentucky, a program typically reserved for young businessmen 
or women or newcomers to the Sate who want to learn more about 
Kentucky.
  For a guy who is about as well known in Kentucky business as Colonel 
Sanders, it doesn't make much sense. But it makes perfect sense to 
people who know Bill. And whether he is showing up unexpectedly at some 
bar in Dallas or Chicago and buying a round of drinks, greeting 
visitors at the distillery in Loretto, or showing up at an event in a 
12-button suit, Bill is one of those rare businessmen who has always 
been great at getting attention without showing a trace of ego. He has 
done it by focusing on the needs of his community, insisting on 
quality, and sticking to the winning formula that made Makers Mark a 
success. Those who have worked with Bill will tell you he is prone to 
self-deprecation, but this week Kentuckians across the State will have 
an opportunity to commend him on a job well done. And on behalf of all 
who have benefited from the vision and creativity of Bill Samuels, Jr., 
I would like to thank him for his dedicated service to the 
Commonwealth, and to wish him well in all his future endeavors. Knowing 
Bill, he is probably just getting started.

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