Jim Silliman

Jim Silliman was born August 23, 1944, the day Allied forces formally liberated France from Nazy oppression. His father was a Lieutenant in the United States Army Air Corps serving as an instructor pilot at Smyrna Army Air Force Base, Tennessee. Shortly after the end of WWII, with his mother he joined his father who was assigned to the 492nd Air Service Group in Naples, Italy. As a military dependent, Jim followed his father to various assignments around the world.

After several moves around the world and the United States, Jim ended up in Arlington, Virginia where he graduated from Washington-Lee High School in 1962. Jim completed his undergraduate requirements at a small school in southwest Virginia, Emory and Henry College. He graduated in 1966 with a degree in Latin and U.S history. Upon graduation, he took a job with the public schools in Washington County, Virginia. In 1970 Silliman assumed a principalship where he worked four years. In 1972 he returned to graduate school at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University working toward a degree in school administration and instructional development.

In 1975 Silliman took a position at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia as an instructor in the education department. In 1982 Silliman transferred to Kentucky where he was assigned Assistant Professor of Education at Alice Lloyd College. In 2009 Silliman took a position as Associate Professor of Education at St. Catherine College in Springfield, Kentucky. During his tenure at St. Catherine, he served as Director of Community and Regional Studies. The thrust of the department was to study the relationship between small colleges and small college towns, a program often referred to as “Town/Gown Relations.”

Between 1983 and 1992 Silliman fulfilled a role in the political arena. He served on the  Council for the City of Pippa Passes, Kentucky. Jim served that role until 1989 when he was elected Mayor of the City. His most noteworthy accomplishment was being instrumental in elevating the City’s law enforcement from College Security to a full time Police Department with a staff trained through the Kentucky Police Academy at Eastern Kentucky University. He resigned that position in November 1992 to devote more attention to his teaching duties.

Jim has been a Kentucky artisan for nearly 40 years. His artistic interests are in woodworking and photography. As a woodworker, he specializes in handcrafted pens, Shaker Oval Boxes and Vintage Mountain Dulcimers. As a photographer, he specializes in close-up nature and landscape photography. Although his main interest is large format black and white images, he also enjoys the mobility of 35mm digital imagery. Today, much of his subject matter can be found in the backyard gardens nurtured by his wife, Evelyn.

Jim became seriously interested in photography in his early days as a teacher, printing his first black and white photographs in a make-shift darkroom. Although basically self-taught, he has studied under such influential photographers as Ansel Adams and Marie Cosindas. At one point, Jim taught photography at Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia. Most recently, he taught photography through the Community Education Program at St. Catharine College in Springfield, Kentucky. Up until March 2025, when not in the wood shop or out photographing, Jim could be found at Preservation Distillery where he worked as a part-time tour guide. In March he retired again in order to spend more time with his WU teaching responsibilities and serving as a vender for some of the distilleries in and around Bardstown

Silliman retired from teaching in 2016. Prior to retirement he taught at the college level for thirty years, retiring from St. Catherine College in Springfield, Kentucky. he took a part-time job with Willett Distillery in Bardstown. Willett Distillery is a craft distillery founded in 1935. He served as a tour guide at the distillery. His duties were to guide guests around the property and describe the processes of distilling bourbon. At the conclusion of the tour, guests were lead through a tasting experience. In the tasting session, Silliman would discuss the various types of bourbon, whiskey and rye products along with the respective aromas and flavors guests might encounter.

In 2018 Silliman attended Moonshine University in Louisville. Moonshine University offers technical training and business management education for those looking for careers in the distilling industry. Through classes at MU, Silliman qualified as a Bourbon Steward and later as an Executive Bourbon Steward. As a bourbon steward, he strengthened his understanding of the technical side of bourbon production, its history and relationship to other whiskeys, and the variety of aromas and flavors found in the different expressions.

In 2020, Silliman began working as a tour guide for another distillery in the Bardstown area. Preservation Distillery is a small craft distillery producing 6-8 barrels of product per day. The owner of the distillery has been in the spirits industry since 1985 blending and bottling vintage bourbons and whiskeys. Our first expressions were Very Olde St. Nick and Rare Perfection. In 2017 the distillery put its first distilled product in the barrel. In 2024, Preservation bottled its first bourbon expression, Old Man Winter.

In September of 2022 Silliman was introduced to Whiskey University located in Columbia, Tennessee. Whiskey University is an on-line program that teaches a series of "History and Tasting Classes" on the topics of Bourbon and Whiskey. Since starting the program, Silliman have taken over 115 classes dealing with the history of Bourbon, America’s national spirit, whiskey classification, the science of bourbon/whiskey production and sensory and aroma training.

In the past several months, Silliman has teamed with other WU instructors and taught classes dealing with Willett Distillery, Barton 1792 Distillery, Bardstown Bourbon Company, and Medium and Craft Distilleries in the “Bourbon Capital Region” of Kentucky. Silliman is presently an instructor for the University. As part of the curriculum, he is teaching the “Bourbon Capital Region,” a class that addresses the major and craft distilleries in and around the city of Bardstown, which is known as the “Bourbon Capital of the World.”

In addition to his WU teaching, Silliman serves as Dean of the College of the Bourbon Capital Region. His responsibilities include serving as Associate Dean of Content and overseeing the areas of testing, history and admissions for the Bourbon Capital Region’s curriculum.

Silliman is married to the former Evelyn Thomas of Meadowview, Virginia. Together they have a son, James G. III who is County Engineer in Oldham County and a daughter, Lea Ann who is Administrative Assistant to the Athletic Director at Winthrop University. Jim and Evelyn have four grandchildren. Seamus is a cycling specialist for the REI sports enterprise, Liam is a senior at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, Emma is senior nursing student at Lander University in South Carolina and Evelyn is following in her grandparent’s footsteps as a student in the Education Department at Winthrop University in South Carolina.