IU Southeast toasts new lifelong learning program with bourbon class

17th February 2022

Indiana University Southeast is toasting the region’s signature industry with a new adult learning program as part of their new Lifelong Learning Program.

Bourbon: An Introduction for the Inquisitive Drinker, will introduce participants to bourbon’s history, what makes it a special whiskey style, how it is made and its continuing place in American culture. Each weekly session will include tastings of regional bourbon products and conclude with a tour and session at Kentucky Peerless Distilling Company in Louisville.

The bourbon class is open to those age 21 and older. Classes will be held each Saturday at 11 a.m. from March 12 to April 2 at the Ogle Center’s Stiefler Recital Hall on the campus of IU Southeast and will conclude on April 9 at Kentucky Peerless Distilling Company. Tuition is $320 per person and includes materials and distillery tour fee. Registration is available online at www.ius.edu/bourbon-signup.

The instructor, Susan Reigler, is an award-winning journalist and author who has written seven whiskey books including Kentucky Bourbon Country: The Essential Travel Guide (3rd ed.), The Kentucky Bourbon Cocktail Book, The Bourbon Tasting Notebook (2nd ed.), and The American Whiskey Tasting Notebook.  Her latest, co-authored with Peggy Noe Stevens, is Which Fork Do I Use with My Bourbon? – Setting the Table for Tastings, Food Pairings, Dinner, and Cocktail Parties, was released in 2020.

From 1992 to 2005, Reigler was restaurant critic and beverage columnist for the Louisville Courier-Journal. Currently she is a contributing writer to Bourbon+, American Whiskey Magazine (for which she writes whiskey tasting notes and ratings), LEO Weekly, and is bourbon columnist for Food & Dining and Covey Rise magazines. 

Reigler is past president of the Bourbon Women Association and has hosted tastings and been featured in whiskey festivals throughout the United States, including in Chicago, New Orleans, Savannah, Seattle, Louisville, and Smithfield, Virginia. From 2020 to 2021 she served as president of Kentucky chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier International, an organization of women culinary professionals. She is a Certified Executive Bourbon Steward and a member of the Order of the writ.

The Lifelong Learning Program at IU Southeast offers coursework for elementary school age students through adult education.  Programs are designed to contribute to the personal, intellectual, cultural, and professional development of all ages in the community. 

In addition to the well-established Arts Institute, which offers private instruction in music and theater, and Project Ahead, an educational program designed for gifted and talented students, IU Southeast is expanding its non-credit programs to include classes for all ages.

For questions, contact the Lifelong Learning Program at (812) 941-2436.

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