Meet your instructors

Colin Blake is currently the Vice President at Peggy Noe Stevens & Associates, a firm specializing in brand development, experiential design, education, and whiskey services. With over 15 years in the spirits industry, he has been recognized as one of Business First's “40 under 40” and “Top 20 People to Know in Hospitality,” as well as being named to Wine Enthusiast Magazine’s “40 Under 40” list.
Colin then spent 12 years as the Director of Spirits Education at Moonshine University in Louisville, Kentucky. During his tenure, he taught over 300 classes and helped more than 200 distilleries open worldwide. In 2015, he created the Stave & Thief Society, the only industry-backed bourbon certification program. The program, which includes a hands-on distilling experience, is the official education for the Kentucky Bourbon Trail and has over 15,000 members.

Peggy Noe Stevens has spent more than 30 years helping people discover bourbon, from their first tasting to the distillery experience itself. The world’s first female Master Bourbon Taster, she helped shape the original Kentucky Bourbon Trail and founded the Bourbon Women Association in 2011. Her contributions earned her induction into the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame in 2019 and Whisky Magazine’s Hall of Fame in 2020.

Her career spans hospitality, brand development, and whiskey education, including creating consumer experiences for iconic brands such as Woodford Reserve. She’s authored three books, judged spirits for leading competitions, and taught at Moonshine University and sits on the board of the Council of Whiskey Masters. Peggy brings that experience to the glass with an approachable style that helps people trust their palates, understand what they’re tasting, and enjoy the conversation that follows.

Susan Reigler wrote the book on American whiskey. Eight of them, actually. She's the author or co-author of eight books on bourbon and American spirits, an adjunct professor of Beer & Spirits at Eastern Kentucky University, and a working spirits judge, which means she's spent decades doing exactly what this course teaches you to do, at a level most drinkers never reach. She's judged whiskeys against each other by the hundreds, trained hospitality students on the science behind every barrel, and turned some of the industry's driest regulations into stories people actually remember. That's the instructor behind every module in American Whiskey Scholar: someone who has done the tasting, read the fine print, and can tell you, precisely, why your glass tastes the way it does.