How CEO Brittany Penny of The IX Bourbon is Smashing the Glass Ceiling

Brittany Penny is Kentucky’s first Black woman CEO of a bourbon brand in the Commonwealth’s history, and that’s not even the most impressive part of her story. Penny created The IX Bourbon (pronounced The Nine) when she wasn’t sleeping because of her newborn first child. Since then, The IX Bourbon has steadily grown within the Louisville, Kentucky market, and a second release is expected in February of 2023. If you are looking for something you can only get in Louisville on your next trip, The IX has you covered. We recently caught up with Penny to learn more about her bourbon journey.

How did you come up with the idea for The IX Bourbon?

Well, let's take you back in time. The time's now 2020. We were in COVID, locked down, and I was pregnant at the time. My husband loves a good bourbon cocktail, he loves it neat, so I was smelling all these different aromas as he was enjoying it, and I just kind of joked with him one day, you know, we should start our own bourbon brand. He said, okay, that sounds cool.

Then the baby came, and we weren't sleeping. And I was like, you know, I'm going to start doing this. I reached out to some people who were willing to help us. I wanted to make something that brought people back together from spending so much time apart, and who doesn't love to drink bourbon, right? We love our bourbon, and it has actually brought people together. People come and they drink our product, and they have great conversations. Great times, good laughs. That's how we came up with it. I decided to do it one day and my husband thought I was crazy, but now here we are.

What was it like taking that idea and turning it into a reality?

It was a lot of work. We started in September of 2020, and we had our first products in an online market in April of 2021. It was a very quick turnaround. It was a lot of learning, a lot of growth, a lot of roadblocks. There was a lot we didn't know because as you well know, bourbon is very regulated. We didn't know what we could do versus what we couldn't do, so it was a bumpy road at first, but once we got the hang of it, it just took off from there.

What are some of the challenges that you faced as a new mom going through this process of bringing a new product to market?

Well, as any new mom knows, it's the unknown. Parents know they always are juggling plates, and here I am being a new mom, and I just added this whole bourbon business plate, so I'm juggling that too now. The biggest challenge I had being a new mom with this business was making time for everything. I'm very Type A, so I had to literally carve out a calendar of time, certain windows when I can work on the business, and then when it's not in that window, I did baby time and family time and things like that. I really had to set those boundaries, very strong boundaries, just to make sure that I could get everything done.

What are some of the unexpected challenges that you've encountered?

The biggest thing that I encountered as a business owner is supply shortage. Who would have thought that the one time I get into bourbon, there would be a shortage on glass, a shortage on corks, a shortage on barrels even!  For Kentucky having the bourbon industry for so long, that stuff we just took for granted. It was a shock because now I have this great product, but do I have enough glassware to put it in? That was our biggest challenge, just to make sure that we had the bottles and corks that we had. We had to pivot because there were some bottles that weren't in stock anymore and some really cool things that we couldn't do because we just had to go with what was there. That was the biggest challenge for us.

What is the distribution?

Right now we are taking things slow and we are trying to conquer bourbon country, Louisville, Kentucky. That is where you can find our product. We are in two stores, Westport Whiskey and Wine, and then we are also at the Kentucky Derby Museum. We are also in some different bars, Dasha Barber’s, Joe's Palm Room, and Club Cedar, just a name a few. We're just trying to take it slow, we want to go and find those niche places to have our bourbon in because we consider ourselves somewhat of a niche bourbon, and we wanted it to be where it actually fits that market.

Do you have any new products on the horizon?

It's funny that you mentioned that Maggie. Yes, actually, yes we do. We have new products coming up, because in case I didn't mention this, I am pregnant again!

New baby, new product? Is that how it works?

Yes, new baby new product, exactly [laughing]. I seem to do my best work when I'm pregnant, so I'm like, let's do this all over again! We are in the process of sourcing new bourbon for our next product, so I'm in the process of smelling things constantly. My husband, as well as our tasting crew is tasting things and loving it. Because I can't taste anything right now, I'm really depending on them, but I have the smell down and I feel like if it smells great then it's probably going to taste great, that has been my rule of thumb.

And when can we expect that one to hit shelves?

Our goal is the hit shelves early 2023. We love a quick turnaround.

You do definitely sound like a type A person! Is there anything else that you want people to know about The IX?

They should know that The IX is more than a bourbon, it is an experience. We want people to enjoy this bourbon. We want our bourbon to actually make you feel something, like, remember that time that we were celebrating with the IX Bourbon? We want you to build memories around our product, it's more than buy it and drink it. We want you to experience it because that's what I made it for. I also made it for women to enjoy. I designed it to have that smooth experience with not a lot of bite on the back end, because women typically don't really like that burn going down, so it is a bourbon for women by a woman.