About Campbell Brown
Campbell Brown, a fifth-generation member of the Brown family and executive at Brown-Forman, has spoken extensively about the company's history and his role in overseeing its whiskey brands. He has described the company's founding principle, established by his great-great-grandfather George Garvin Brown, of selling Old Forester exclusively by the bottle with the label "nothing better in the market," which Brown said holds the family and employees accountable for product quality. Brown has discussed the company's investment in a new distillery in Louisville, which he described as a risky but worthwhile project given the brand's history, and noted that the oldest barrels produced there are just over two years old, with no rush to release them. He has also commented on the broader bourbon industry, stating that the growth and innovation in the category are "explosive" and that the presence of new competitors is "great for our industry" as it revives creativity.
In addition to his work at Brown-Forman, Brown has been an advocate for charter schools. In a 2014 speech, he criticized the teachers union for supporting a state law that he said gives tenured teachers protections "no other public employee has," citing an article about teachers who kept their jobs after being found guilty of sexual misconduct. He argued that the issue is about political leadership, stating that "this is a test of who they are" and that "there is no middle ground" when it comes to children's futures. Brown has also participated in public discussions about news and media, having previously worked as a journalist at CNN and NBC News before joining Facebook as head of news partnerships, where he said his team works to "reduce the amount of false news misinformation on the platform while also trying to elevate and get more visibility for reliable sources of news and information."
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Campbell Brown's recent appearances.
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Transcript (2 segments)
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Steve Ay0:05
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Campbell Brown0:31
Everybody, thanks Eric KDA Wally. This is quite a hall. Well done, well played, sir. This is beautiful and thanks for hosting us. And congratulations to all the inductees on today's events. So my history with the Allar family goes a long way. I moved back to Louisville in 1994 and one of the first people I met was Tray Allar. Incidentally, I don't find the Gucci Oni story at all surprising. I'm surprised only you've been there once with your father. But I met the kind of coming off the plane here and was quickly introduced to Chad. And like many of us, I learned about my own family's history and the history of our industry through the writings of Chad Zer. And it has been my great privilege to be able to stand up here today in front of all of you and welcome him into the Urban Hall of Fame. So Chad Zer is a historian, author, he's a patient father, and he's a urban champion. He's a co-founder of Jefferson's Reserve, very old, very small batch Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. So what are the types of achievements we recognize in individuals that can compel us to celebrate and reward lifetime endeavors in this hall? It's about the role we can play in securing the future of an industry that is intimately and forever tied to the great state of Kentucky. For Chad, it's not complicated. At his core, Chad Zer is a champion of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. He's an advocate for consistency and truth in storytelling and myth making. And his steadfast support of those things was enough for he and Trey to roll the dice on a bourbon brand that I believe was a beacon of possibility in the earliest days of the darkest period of bourbon making, as we've all already heard about today. And last year I actually had the chance to go to New York and speak to a bunch of smart industry people where you're not actually supposed to say anything intelligent or give up any sort of secrets, but you have to entertain and be compelling. And I talked about the bourbon boom. I think Trey may have called it a Renaissance. I think it is a Renaissance. A boom is something that happens, it blows up, it falls all over the place, you're cleaning it up for days and weeks and years. This is a Renaissance. And Trey and his father found something in the wreckage of the 1991 excise tax increase that we were all kind of struggling with. And I think because we were sitting on a bunch of really good bourbon that had nowhere to go and nothing to do, we were beginning to see the emergence of curious consumers that were asking questions about where things came from and how they were made and why should I drink it and why are you asking to try your $8 vodka flavored like a licorice stick? It was taking over our shelves and our back bars and it was a disaster. I mean, I was one. I came up with Southern Comfort Fiery Pepper. I hope nobody here has ever had that dream. But that was what our industry was going through at the time. But I think through the wreckage there came a period of innovation and I think Trey and his father were at the forefront of that. They showed us how to represent our brands to consumers visually and through excellent innovation and how we could spotlight unique flavors and attributes of our bourbons to deliver to consumers anywhere in the world. And Chad's passion for history, his commitment to creating a Bible that introduced and reinforced Kentucky bourbon drinkers to a spectacular history of bourbon production and for the families that helped create what we were all part of today, played and continues to play an important role in securing the relevance and authenticity of the state's unmistakable leadership in providing our fine nectar to consumers across the planet. So Chad, congratulations on entering the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame, on being one of the industry's most reliable, the OG influencer. You did it without TikTok, before collabs were fashionable, and you did it with your family. Who does not love that kind of Kentucky? Welcome to the hall, Chad.
