Paul & Mary Beth Tomazewski

Paul Tomaszewski didn’t come to western Kentucky chasing a bourbon fantasy. He arrived because the US Army sent him there with orders that placed him at nearby Fort Campbell in 2007. He was born in February of 1981, and raised in the New Orleans area—a place where food and drink are not background culture but everyday language, and he carried that sensibility with him when found himself in the farmland of southern Christian County. There Tomaszewski found himself thinking about an older pipeline between two places he knew: early Kentucky whiskey shipped downriver and sold through New Orleans. That connection between barrels moving south and tastes and habits moving back north, sparked a question that became a personal obsession: What did those early barrels really taste like? He didn’t want a modern, streamlined answer. He wanted something closer to the era before Prohibition, when whiskey-making was smaller, rougher around the edges, and governed more by craft choices than by corporate uniformity. 

He hadn’t been settled in Kentucky long before Paul met Merry Beth Roland. They married, and over time their relationship became a working partnership as well as a family one. Paul and Merry Beth didn’t build a brand around a single founder; they built it around the fact that they were doing it together; planning, financing, licensing, and eventually running a distillery as co-owners. That partnership is literally stamped on everybottle. “MB Roland” isn’t a poetic phrase or a forgotten pioneer’s name, it’s Merry Beth’s name. The distillery’s name uses Merry Beth’s initials (“MB”) and her maiden name (Roland), a decision that also avoided the practical problem that “Tomaszewski” didn’t exactly sound like a name on an old Kentucky bourbon label. 

He hadn’t been settled in Kentucky long before Paul met Merry Beth Roland. They married, and over time their relationship became a working partnership as well as a family one. Paul and Merry Beth didn’t build a brand around a single founder; they built it around the fact that they were doing it together; planning, financing, licensing, and eventually running a distillery as co-owners. That partnership is literally stamped on everybottle. “MB Roland” isn’t a poetic phrase or a forgotten pioneer’s name, it’s Merry Beth’s name. The distillery’s name uses Merry Beth’s initials (“MB”) and her maiden name (Roland), a decision that also avoided the practical problem that “Tomaszewski” didn’t exactly sound like a name on an old Kentucky bourbon label. 

Once Paul left active duty, he and Merry Beth moved quickly. They found their future not in a polished visitor center or a famous bourbon town, but in a working Amish dairy farm near Pembroke. The purchase was a leap in scale, because what began as looking for a few acres turned into owning a much larger farm property, and it forced them to think like builders, not just dreamers. They converted a pole barn into distillery space, and even repurposed the Amish family’s former home into the gift shop. 

MB Roland opened on Veteran’s Day 2009, fitting for a former infantryman starting a new life in a business that rewards patience and stamina. From the beginning, Paul and Merry Beth emphasized a “grain-to-glass” model, making everything on site rather than buying and bottling sourced whiskey. Their choices leaned deliberately “old”:pot distillation, non-chill filtration, and a flavor profile meant to echo older styles rather than modern softness. They also tied the operation tightly to local agriculture, using Kentucky-grown grains and building relationships with nearby suppliers, likely the reason MB Roland has been repeatedly highlighted in local and state tourism features.

What has followed for Paul Tomaszewski, was yet another mission. The Army had trained him to work within systems, respect process, and execute with precision; distilling demanded the same traits. Grain contracts, fermentation logs, barrel inventories, compliance filings are unglamorous, but they are the structure that allows craft to exist. At MB Roland, the copper still may be the visual centerpiece, but the discipline behind it is unmistakable. From Fort Campbell to a former Amish dairy farm, Tomaszewski carried forward a soldier’s steadiness into civilian enterprise, building a distillery whose name bears his wife’s very initials, and whose methods reflect both heritage and order. In that sense, MB Roland is less a departure from his earlier life than a continuation of it; service translated into stewardship, and precision redirected toward whiskey.

Sources

  1. MB Roland Distillery official website, “Our Story”, mbroland.com

  2. WKMS Kentucky Public Radio, “New Kentucky Distillery Makes Whiskey the Old-Fashioned Way”, November 6, 2009, wkms.org 

  3. Moonshine University, “Paul Tomaszewski,”  moonshineuniversity.com 

  4. ClarksvilleNow.com, “Clarksville’s Conversation: Owners of MB Roland Distillery”, April 24, 2019, clarksvillenow.com 

  5. Kentucky Bourbon Trail, “MB Roland Distillery”, kybourbontrail.com 

  6. Christian County Now, “MB Roland Distillery reveals massive mural…”, Daynnah Carmona, Dec. 26, 2023, christiancountynow.com 

  7. Fred Minnick blog, “Maker’s Mark’s First Lady…”, Sept. 12, 2014, fredminnick.com

  8. Drinkhacker, “Review: MB Roland Old 2nd District, Rye, and Corn Whiskey”, Christopher Null, June 29, 2025, drinkhacker.com

  9. BourbonPlus Magazine, “Defining Craft”, Fred Minnick, bourbonplus.com

  10. Legacy.com via Leaf Chronicle (Springfield, TN), “Joyce Roland Obituary (1946–2014)”, legacy.com

Contributed by Tracy McLemore, Fairview, Tennessee