Rising Stars: Meet Michael Hinds

Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Hinds.

Hi Michael, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Growing up in Tennessee, when you start drinking, you drink Jack Daniels. I used to go to Lynchburg for all things Jack, the BBQ, the bottle releases, the tours. As I got older, I started drinking and collecting whiskey from all over and started to really fall in love with barrel-proof offerings from Willett and others.

I would go to stores all over and would buy anything I had not tried yet and could not wait to get home to open the new addition and have a pour.

My constant thirst for new whiskey helped me amass a very large collection that became an addiction. I would start having people over and we would do a bottle share and taste different bottles and that became part of my identity. Sharing and pouring my whiskey for others that had not ever tried that specific bottle.

After some people close to me were diagnosed with Cancer, it hit home hard. I started using Whiskey to raise money for different charitable organizations. I, directly and indirectly, have helped raise over 3 million dollars for different charities. It was amazing to see the bourbon community rally around and join the cause and help me raise money.

I was working my “boring” job while I had one foot in the bourbon world and after meeting James Davenport we had an instant bond for the brown water and not long after we launched Nashville Barrel Company.

In 2018, we saw where the market was headed—not enough bourbon supply driving demand through the roof and creating impossible allocations for us and our friends to get the good whiskey that had brought us together. One of our favorite past-times has been traveling all over the country and picking single barrels with our friends, but that memory was vanishing quickly.

So, we decided to do it our way, and invest in our own abilities to select single barrels. We bought our first batch of barrels in 2018, quite honestly, we did it so that we could continue the tradition of picking through good whiskey with our friends.

We recently won 4 Double Gold medals and BEST IN CLASS at the prestigious San Francisco Spirits Competition.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
We launched right when Covid started shutting down everything. We have had supply chain issues. We have had to change glass many times.

Materials are impossible to get or so back ordered that we have to constantly change direction.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am proud of the fundraising that I have done and the lives that I have impacted in a positive way,

I am proud that I was able to put a team together to make big donations to the Kentucky Mayfield Tornado Victims, (you can read about it here – https://www.nashvillescene.com/food_drink/features/nashville-barrel-co-s-michael-hinds-is-making-lots-of-moves/article_7332c3be-93fb-11ec-b2e6-f770f0691489.html.

We constantly work with charities at Nashville Barrel Company and in the last few months we have helps raise money for:

Meek Family (Frugals Security Guard that was murdered)
Special Ops Excursions (Military-based Non-Profit)
Kids Play Free – (Pro Golfer Scott Stallings charity)
Saint Jude
Fallen Officer Fund
Friends Life
LLS and many others.

We use whiskey to help raise money and we do it often!

Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
My favorite childhood memory is my sister and I sitting up all night on Christmas eve and writing “Thank you” notes. We must have written a thousand of them.

We had no idea how many gifts we would get so we kept writing them and writing them. We stayed up all night and when it was time to come out of our rooms to go open presents, we forgot them all in the hustle and bustle.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.NashvilleBarrelCo.com
• Instagram: @nashvillebarrelco
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nashvillebarrelco
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/nashville-barrel-nashville-2