Bourbon Club

How has this idea enhanced your club's operation, etc.?

The FCC Bourbon club - a club within a club.  The Bourbon Club provides members of FCC who enjoy bourbon to join something unique and special.  Since the club was introduced in late 2020, it has gained a membership that has exceeded expectations. Not only has it been a hit with the members that have joined but we have also had FCC members who do not enjoy bourbon, vocalize their opinion that they like the idea of such a club because of what it offers and the uniqueness and popularity of it. Rather than just offering a selection of bourbon to our membership as a whole, we decided to take it a few steps further and make it into a club that provides experiences and inclusion for those that enjoy bourbon, which is why we created and implemented the Bourbon Club.

How was this idea implemented, and what have been the club members' reactions?

Bourbon, over the past 5 years, has increasingly become a well enjoyed and favorited spirit.  Since it has become popular, distilleries have had a harder time being able to keep up with the demand which has caused certain bourbons to become “unattainable” or “hard to find”, which has increased bourbon’s popularity even further.  After starting my position at FCC in 2020, I learned very quickly that we have a larger number of bourbon enthusiasts than we had anticipated.  Each bourbon event we did that first year was sold out in less than 3-4 days, which was unbelievable. It got to the point in which we had to revamp our bourbon offerings, but even that was not enough.  A small group of members and myself sat down and started coming up with ideas in which we could continue events and offerings to the bourbon enthusiasts at FCC.  After multiple discussions and deliberations, we came up with the Bourbon Club.  The Bourbon Club is managed by the Assistant General Manager (myself) and has a three-member committee for ideas and recommendations. Our goal the first year was to reach 40 members, which we reached easily.  We are currently in our second year of the club, and membership continues to increase.  All of the feedback we have received has been great.  The most popular comments have included that the members enjoy the comradery, selections of bourbons and being able to try new bourbons, learning about different bourbons, and the feeling of belonging to something special within FCC. We do have a handful of female members that belong to the Bourbon Club and one of our goals is to continue increasing the number of female members and their involvement in the club. The age range for the club is significant with our oldest member being 84 and our youngest member is 32.