When it comes to bourbon, roots matter. Lisa Sawyer Derman, the founder of Five Springs, grew up in Kentucky, where bourbon is more than a drink. It’s a passion. And Lisa carried that passion with her as she launched her career in the alcohol beverage industry right out of law school. Her 30 year dedication to the industry led her to senior executive positions for iconic brands such as Absolut, Stoli, and most recently Macallan.
But her passion for bourbon was never far away, and when her youngest child left for college, Lisa decided it was time to return to her roots and pursue her ultimate goal of creating her own brand. And thus, Five Springs Infused Bourbon – a whiskey for the next generation - was created. We caught up with Lisa to learn more about her entrepreneurial leap and the challenges of launching a very traditional product.
What Made You Decide to Launch an Infused Bourbon rather than a Standard Bourbon?
Growing up in Kentucky I always knew that if I ever had a chance to create my own brand, it would have to be a bourbon. Bourbon was a way of life for me – from the drink of choice at celebrations to the ultimate sore throat remedy. My husband Adam and I even served Maker’s Mark at our D.C. wedding when all of our friends were looking for cosmopolitans or gin & tonics. But as much as I love bourbon, I’m not a master distiller and I also felt like I didn’t have the time to create an award-winning 8-10 year aged bourbon. I knew I needed to find a gap in the market to be able to find a place with all of the incredible bourbons currently on the market.
During the summer of 2023 when my Gen Z and Millennial children and their friends were making bourbon cocktails at our lakeside home, a lightbulb went on. I couldn’t believe that these young adults were making bourbon cocktails — much less during the summer. Around the same time, a good friend mentioned that his daughters were drinking Paper Planes at the beach bars, and then I saw a bottle of Honey flavored whiskey on my best friend’s bar. When I asked her about it, she said it was her daughter’s – also in her twenties. I knew then that there was an entire generation of new whiskey drinkers to whom no one was marketing. Also, while there are some flavored whiskeys on the market, there was nothing infused with natural flavors. The Gen Z and Millennial crowd appreciates both natural ingredients and authenticity.
We wanted to meet them where they are. We also wanted to create a bourbon that was approachable to new bourbon drinkers and easy to use in favorite bourbon cocktails. Our infusions were all created with specialty cocktails in mind. Some of our favorites are the Vanilla Maple Espresso Martini, the Bourbon Aperol Spritz made with our Blood Orange, and the very popular Paper Plane made with our Honey Sage. They can also be enjoyed neat or on the rocks — the Vanilla Maple is a crowd pleaser for ski trips and campfires. And there is room for mixologists to develop their own creations knowing they are using real bourbon in doing so.
You have a very Innovative Fresh Packaging for Five Springs. Where did the Name Come From?
I always love this question because the name really goes to my ancestry roots and to my current family’s roots. Five Springs is a community in Kentucky where our current family farm is. My great-grandfather helped build the one room Methodist church in Five Springs and it is still there today. But that is just part of it. There are five of us in the family and this has definitely been a family affair. Our son Jackson was instrumental in developing the flavors. He spent the entire summer experimenting with different ingredients – vanilla, maple syrup (actually tapped by our brother-in-law in Massachusetts), fresh herbs, fruits and berries.
My older daughter Alexa is a playwright in Brooklyn and has helped with our marketing copy. Our daughter Kayla recently graduated from Berkeley with a Masters in Data Science and has taken on the role of Head of Marketing. Her analytic skills as well as her keen insight into our target consumer has been invaluable. And of course, my husband Adam who was the one to encourage me to take this leap... we’re a close knit family of five so you can see that the 5 in Five Springs has meaning.
We also wanted to include “Springs” in the name because of what it signifies. Our brand is a refresh for bourbon -- spring forward, time for spring, fresh as spring, a new awakening. We purposely use the motifs of the outdoors on our packaging to encourage people to explore something new, and even better, to do so while gathering with friends and family.
You Mention that Your Daughter is Working with You. What Advice would You Give Here and other Women New to the Alcohol Industry?
I absolutely love the industry but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that it has been extremely challenging. It is still very much a male dominated industry, both from an infrastructure side and from a brand ownership and marketing side, particularly with respect to spirits. But the challenges also present opportunities. When I entered the workforce there were very few women in leadership positions. The only female executives were in HR or in my case as General Counsel. Marketing started breaking barriers but rarely did you ever see a female executive as President, CFO, COO, or Head of Sales. That isn’t the case today. There are incredible women in the top leadership positions at the largest suppliers in the world and I think that has opened doors to bring in female owned brands and to shift marketing of brown spirits, for example, to women.
My number one piece of advice to young women is to seek out a mentor and to remind yourself every day that you deserve to be where you are. You are not where you are because of a favor; you have earned your place, and your opinions and insights matter.
It has been my greatest joy to be able to work with my daughter Kayla. I learn something new from her every day and her vision for our marketing is spot on. I hope that she can take away from me that it is commonplace for a woman to be a founder of a spirits company. In the beginning, I never thought of this journey as a legacy venture, but now... we said this was a whiskey for the next generation, maybe it can also be a legacy brand for the next generation. Nothing would make me prouder than to see our roots branch out.
Do You have a Perspective for what Your Brand is Doing within the Space?
The bourbon and whiskey space is such an exciting space with so much more room for growth. As I mentioned, we entered this space because of our own personal love of bourbon with the goal of introducing a new generation of whiskey drinkers to the category. We’re currently leaning heavily into restaurants and bars as we continue to see sales in these venues grow as people start returning to pre-Covid habits. What’s been surprising for us is how diverse our venues can be. Our Five Springs Blood Orange makes an easy Old Fashioned for high volume accounts or for at home bars. But we’ve also had success in specialty cocktail and white table cloth venues with our Vanilla Maple Espresso Martini and for those venues looking for ways to eliminate steps as they layer their own specialty recipes onto our base.
We spent a lot of time this summer attending Bourbon festivals throughout Kentucky and we weren’t sure how our reception would be. What we found is that a lot of women and also people who were enjoying the culture of bourbon but not necessarily enthusiastic about the “burn” and the “high proof” associated with a bourbon were seeking us out as an alternative. We sold out at every festival we attended and were so encouraged by the positive feedback we received from both new drinkers and hard core bourbon drinkers who loved the idea of having a bourbon product they could share with friends who thought they would never drink a whiskey.
If Someone is New to Five Springs, Where Should They Get Started?
Jump right in! Our Five Springs Blood Orange and Five Springs Vanilla Maple have been the immediate crowd pleasers with new drinkers, with Honey Sage being the bourbon lovers favorite. We always recommend trying all three flavors neat first to get a real feel for the flavors without dilution from water or other mixers. We suggest starting with Honey Sage, the least sweet, and then Blood Orange, and then ending with Vanilla Maple. While Vanilla Maple does have the sweetest taste profile, it also has the most authentic bourbon flavor as Vanilla and Maple are natural tasting notes in a straight bourbon.
It’s important to remember that all of our infusions are bourbon forward. We like to say that we’re bourbon with a splash of flavor; not flavor with a splash of whiskey. We worked very hard on our formula to ensure that we were honoring our high rye bourbon mashbill and not overpowering the bourbon with too much flavor or sweetness. It’s all about complementing the bourbon and enhancing the taste profile for your favorite cocktails.
Any Closing Thoughts Before You Go?
I hope our story encourages people to try something new – like a bourbon cocktail! But more importantly I hope that in some small way my founder story inspires others to follow a passion. I was very much influenced by someone from my small rural town of Albany, KY. He and his business partner had recently built a state of the art distillery, Southern Kentucky Distillery, on the KY/TN border near our dry home town county. I went to see the distillery and talk to him about their venture and casually mentioned that I had always wanted to start my own brand. He looked me in the eye and said “if there’s one piece of advice I can give you, just do it”. So now I live by the mantra - don’t tell people what you want to do, tell them what you did.
