Ryan Cecil
“Pursuit”
Ryan Cole Cecil was born on April 28, 1985, and although he grew up in Bardstown, Kentucky, the spiritual center of American whiskey, his path to becoming a whiskey maker was anything but traditional. Instead of beginning in a rickhouse or on a bottling line, he entered the industry through curiosity and conversation. Alongside his friend and eventual business partner Kenny Coleman, Ryan co-created Bourbon Pursuit, a podcast that has since become one of the most respected media platforms in bourbon. The show became their classroom: week after week, year after year, Ryan and Kenny interviewed Master Distillers, blenders, historians, and industry executives.
Their media kit summarizes their education succinctly: they learned “everything about the whiskey business through 10 years of interviews and thousands of hours of candid conversations with industry experts.” Through that immersive, front-row access to the industry, Ryan began to wonder: Why only talk about whiskey when you could make it? So in 2018, the pair made the leap from observers to producers and co-founded Pursuit Spirits. From the start, the brand rejected the traditional model of building a single distillery tied to one mash bill or one terroir. Instead, Ryan leaned into the idea that blending could create something more distinctive. Cecil became Master Blender and CEO, focusing on creative liquid direction while relying on trusted distilling partners for production.
According to the brand’s documentation, Pursuit Spirits now “partners with 4 distilleries across multiple states to create 6 specific mashbills with customized barrel char levels. Barrels age at their respective distillery … then are hand-selected and shipped before being united.” The model emphasizes taste over tradition, and innovation over convention.
The results quickly validated the vision. In May 2023, both Pursuit United Bourbon and Pursuit United Rye earned Double Gold medals at the prestigious San Francisco World Spirits Competition—an achievement that placed Ryan’s blended-whiskey approach in the same echelon as long-established heritage distilleries.
A defining moment arrived in August 2025, when Pursuit Spirits secured a permanent home on Louisville’s historic Whiskey Row. Their two-floor, 7,600-square-foot space at 722 West Main Street includes immersive tasting experiences, retail, and a built-in recording studio for Bourbon Pursuit. Speaking about the revival of that storied part of Louisville, Ryan said, “You look at the history of Louisville, but also the city, then it kind of went away. Just to see it be revived—it’s a beautiful thing.”
Ryan Cecil’s journey is compelling because it reframes the modern whiskey story. He is a Kentucky native who absorbed the culture of bourbon not through inherited mash bills or family distilling history, but through listening, learning, and asking better questions. He turned conversations into collaboration, curiosity into craft, and a podcast into a brand that pushes boundaries by blending across mash bills, distilleries, and geographic regions.
From Bardstown roots to Whiskey Row headquarters, Ryan Cecil has proven that passion paired with persistence and a willingness to learn from others can build something new in a very old industry.
Sources:
Pursuit Spirits website, pursuitspirits.com
American Independent Bottlers Guild, “Pursuit Spirits” profile, americanindy.com/brands/pursuit-spirits/
BeerAlien, “Pursuit United Bourbon and Rye Both Win Double Gold”, May 1, 2023
Whiskey Network, “Pursuit Spirits Offers New Proof Points…”, May 2025
WLKY -TV, “Pursuit Spirits Opens…on Whiskey Row”, Renee Maloney, Aug 21 2025
American Whiskey Magazine, “Pursuit Spirits Unveils Third Expression in Mellwood Legacy Collection”, September 2025
Contributed by Tracy McLemore, Fairview, Tennessee
