Drunken Unicorn Whiskey Club
Leavenworth, KS · John & Shauna were there
Where we are.
John and Shauna are teaching the first run of Bourbon Fundamentals: Unlocking the Secrets of America’s Spirit — Class 1 of the three-class Drunken Unicorn curriculum — out of the Leavenworth tasting room.
This is the night the teaching company runs its first class. The curriculum — the founder origin story, the bourbon-defining ABCDEFG mnemonic, the Four S’s sensory framework, the tasting wheel methodology, four hand-selected bourbons walked side by side — is built directly out of the Executive Bourbon Steward credential earned earlier in 2023, adapted for the bourbon-curious adult who wants to find their own Unicorn instead of chasing the magazine’s allocated rare bottle.
This class is the foundation. Everything else — bottle shares, trivia nights, Class 2 (Applied Tasting Techniques), the future Class 3 — descends from this evening.
The detail.
What is Drunken Unicorn?
Drunken Unicorn Productions, LLC is John and Shauna’s bourbon education company, run out of the tasting room at 1326 Delaware Street in Leavenworth, Kansas. Both founders are certified Executive Bourbon Stewards — the Stave & Thief Society credential the company describes as “the Bourbon Industry Sommelier equivalent.”
The mission, in their own words: “Help ordinary people with ordinary budgets discover what their Bourbon Unicorn is.” The Unicorn is the elusive perfect bourbon — but, per the Drunken Unicorn philosophy, it is not necessarily the allocated rare bottle the magazines say to chase. It is the bourbon that matches your palate at your price. The classes teach you how to find it.
The Bourbon Fundamentals series runs three classes. The first is the foundation; the second (Applied Tasting Techniques) deepens the framework; the third closes the arc.
Two pillars of the night.
Bourbon Fundamentals: Unlocking the Secrets of America’s Spirit is built on two pillars — the law that defines bourbon, and the sensory framework that lets you actually drink it.
What Is Bourbon? — The ABCDEFG
In 1964 the U.S. Congress declared bourbon “a distinctive product of the United States.” The standards are strict and easy to remember:
- A · American Made — anywhere in the U.S.
- B · Barrel Aged — new charred American oak
- C · Corn — 51% or more of the mash bill
- D · Distillation — max 160 proof / 80% ABV
- E · Entry into the barrel — max 125 proof / 62.5% ABV
- F · Fill proof to bottle — min 80 proof / 40% ABV
- G · Genuine — no additives, no preservatives, ever
The Four S’s & The Tasting Wheel
The night’s practical framework. The Four S’s structure how you actually drink the four hand-selected bourbons; the tasting wheel gives you a vocabulary for what you find.
- See · what color tells you about age and proof
- Smell · both nose, breathe in and out, sweet vs. spicy
- Sip · first taste calibrates, second taste delivers
- Savor · the third sip with all senses engaged
- The tasting wheel — from five center tastes outward
- Personal vocabulary always wins over critic vocabulary
Find your Unicorn.
The bourbon market sells two stories. One is the rare allocated bottle. The other is the $25 bottle that hits your palate exactly right. Drunken Unicorn teaches the second one.
John and Shauna started the company because the market — even the bourbon community — doesn’t actually teach you how to find your bourbon. It teaches you what other people think is great. The Class 1 night closes with each student naming what their Unicorn might be, based on what they tasted, what they preferred, and what they learned about their own palate. That is the hand-off point: the class equips you to keep hunting on your own.
This first run is the proof of concept that became the whole catalog. Subsequent classes — Class 2 (Applied Tasting Techniques), the bottle shares, the trivia nights — all build on this foundation, with returning students who have started their hunt and want to refine.