FORTIFYING A LEGACY With Milam & Greene, two industry giants make waves in the craft sector Written by Rich Manning
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here are two paths you can take when you’ve built a legacy in the spirits industry: You can either rest on past accomplishments or you can choose to
further your story. The former path is easy; all it requires you to do is sit and point at what you’ve done. The latter path isn’t just hard, it can also be risky.
Heather Greene and Marlene Holmes stood firmly at this crossroads in the fall of 2019. The two had more than 50 years in the spirits industry between
Photo by Sarah Baumberger
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them, equipped with resumes that knock down doors. Greene’s curriculum vitae includes a stint at the Scotch Malt Whisky Society in Edinburgh, authoring of Whiskey Distilled, A Populist Guide to the Water of Life, and being a member of Kentucky’s Order of the Writ as a keeper of bourbon whiskey. Holmes landed a distilling gig at Jim Beam in 1990 and spent the next 27 years honing her craft at the legendary Kentucky venue. They couldn’t be blamed had they chosen the easy path. They did not. Instead, they did something audacious. Greene and Holmes migrated to Blanco, Texas, from New York and Kentucky, respectively, and joined forces with Texas entrepreneur Marsha Milam to produce the craft whiskey brand Milam & Greene under the company Milam founded, Provision Spirits. While Holmes became the label’s master distiller, Greene assumed a bigger, more precarious role; in addition to becoming the distillery’s W W W . ARTISANSPIRITMAG . C O M