Daniel “Danny” Kahn

“The Extreme Master Distiller”

Daniel “Danny” Kahn was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. Growing up, he lived near both a brewery and a bakery, and he always loved the smell of both products. Once he was old enough, it was natural that he started to work in a brewery in Van Nuys, California.

During his college years at the University of California, Davis, while majoring in Fermentation Science, he routinely brewed beer with friends, saving money on personal consumption products, and at the same time learning to love the process of developing flavor during fermentation. A busy student, he was also on the lacrosse team. Also, during those college years, he worked at a number of California wineries.

After college, Danny worked for Anheuser-Busch from 1996 to 2014 and rose to the level of Senior Brewmaster. After leaving Anheuser-Busch, he joined Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. as their Brewery Technical Director from 2014 to 2018. Along the way, he also earned his MBA at the University of Georgia College of Business.

During his life, Danny has been interested in extreme sports, including vertical skateboarding, which he participated in for 14 years, including during the renowned Dogtown days from the popular documentary. He was also heavily into white water kayaking and racing mountain bikes, so along the way, he gathered a fair number of bumps, bruises, breaks, and close calls with danger.

It could be said that all throughout his life and career, Danny has followed his passions. As fate would have it, at some point, he started buying and enjoying bourbon. This led him to his next career move in 2018 when he joined Sazerac as their Master Distiller at the Barton 1792 distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky. He carried the title of Master Distiller until October of 2021, when he became the ‘Master Distiller’ as well as the ‘Distilling and Aging Operations Manager’, which are the positions he still holds. His job in these roles is to oversee and support Barton 1792, Buffalo Trace, as well as the Collingwood, Ontario distilleries.

On podcasts, he is quoted as saying, “Brewers are quitters because, if you distilled it and let it age, you could have turned it into bourbon!” Of course, this is very tongue-in-cheek humor, because he respects his beer-brewing colleagues very much. Also, he is quoted as saying that beer wants to be bourbon when it grows up, illustrating his passion for bourbon and new preference for brown spirits.

Today, Danny leads the distilleries’ building of flavor at every level, and has been instrumental in developing several 1792 special releases, for instance, the Thomas Moore line, including their characteristic finishing processes.

Contributed by Daniel Snyder, Champaign, Illinois