I don’t drink bourbon anymore (too sweet, too “perfume-y”, I think I never really liked it but drank it because it was popular among the crowd I ran with), and while I detest that so many brands are now the property of some mega-corp, I still think they make good products. It’s not like Diageo buys up Johnnie Walker or Bulleit, fires everyone, then hires all new personnel and starts using a new recipe-- quite the opposite: they want to keep the brand close to the same quality or else it starts losing value. Obviously, if the same family still runs Bulleit then Diageo isn’t messing with the company too much.
Ironically, I would like Diageo to pressure Bulleit management to change their ways regarding this apparent discrimination, but then I’m being hypocritical because I don’t think the big corporate masters should interfere with the running of the valuable brand (that said, LGBT rights are a separate issue-- it’s not like bourbon made under Jim Crow is going to have better quality simply because “it’s tradition.”)
What’s weirdest about this is that Diageo is well-regarded as a great place for LGBT employment. It’s possible that Bulleit is a hidden backwater within the Diageo corporate structure, it’s also possible this woman is not being completely honest about the situation.
