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Award-winning former restaurant critic and beverage columnist for the Louisville Courier-Journal, Susan is a contributing writer to BarleycornDrinks.com and American Whiskey Magazine - for which she also reviews and rates whiskeys.
Other publications in which her bourbon articles have appeared include Bourbon Plus, The Oxford American, Covey Rise, and Saveur.
She has authored or co-authored six whiskey books –
Kentucky Bourbon Country: The Essential Travel Guide
The Kentucky Bourbon Cocktail Book
More Kentucky Bourbon Cocktails
The Bourbon Tasting Notebook,
The American Whiskey Tasting Notebook
Which Fork Do I Use with My Bourbon? – Setting the Table for Tastings,
Food Pairings, Dinner, and Cocktail Parties
Susan is a member of the Order of the Writ, a Senior Examiner and Judge of the Council of Whiskey Masters, a certified Executive Bourbon Steward, and former president of both the Bourbon Women Association and the Kentucky chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier International. She curates private bourbon tastings, has been a frequent presenter at bourbon festivals across the United States, and is a judge for numerous bourbon cocktail and international whiskey competitions, including The Ascot Awards, The Barleycorn Awards, and the World Whisky Awards.
She has been interviewed and quoted about bourbon and other American whiskeys on NPR, in Forbes, The Atlantic, Travel + Leisure, The Guardian, Whiskeywash.com, Vinepair.com, and others.
In 2022 Susan received the Lois Mateus Networking Award from the Kentucky Distillers Association and is currently an adjunct professor of Bourbon, Beer, and Spirits at Eastern Kentucky University. She is a graduate of the University of Oxford (zoology) and Indiana University (music). Her most recent book, Kentucky Bourbon: The Essential Guide to the American Spirit (foreword by Julian Van Winkle, III) about Kentucky bourbon, has been published by W.W. Norton.