Illustration by Jonny Ruzzo
Following a 13-year career in meteorology, including a three-year stint at WCPO, Brandon Spinner pivoted into full-time content creation in May 2025 to expand his social media brand, Whiskey Weather. Spinner has garnered more than 140,000 followers across platforms, where he educates viewers on whiskey terminology, conducts bottle reviews, rankings, and tastings, and interviews distillers and high-profile names in the industry including Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Famer Craig Beam and comedian and Fathertime Bourbon founder Jim Gaffigan. We recently sat down with Spinner to learn more about his significant career change, how social media serves his audience, and the meaning of the intersection between whiskey and weather.
Where did your love of whiskey come from?
In college we had whiskey, but it wasn’t good stuff, it was always the well stuff. In 2016, a buddy of mine hit a job bonus goal and he cracked open a bottle of, I think it was Macallan 16. That was the first time I ever tried whiskey that I was like, “Oh, this doesn’t taste like rubbing alcohol.” That’s where that started, and then getting into bourbon a little more, learning about the American history behind that, and then the fact that weather really impacts how it’s made. The science behind all of that is what made me go all in.
Tell me about some of that science.
Without the weather, you don’t have the whiskey in the glass because the weather and the climate really shape how the whiskey matures over time. You can take the same whiskey, same barrel, put one in Kentucky, put one in Minnesota, and they’re going to completely taste different just because of the way that they age due to the weather, the climate, the temperature change, the pressure changes, the humidity levels. That’s what I really geeked out about, is how [the] variable of the weather can really dictate the taste and the profile of certain whiskies.
What are those differences in taste?
It depends. More oaky down in Texas because it’s more hot and you’ve got a lot more of that rapidly aging—the whiskey goes in and out of the barrel a lot faster, and there’s not a dormant period like we would get in Kentucky. Kentucky, you know the smooth moniker. And if you look at Scotland, they’re aging in a climate that doesn’t really change, and they also use different types of barrels. In that stagnant way of the weather, you don’t really have the ebbs and flows within the barrel that you would have in Kentucky, Alabama, Kansas, wherever. That’s why I think some of the best whiskey comes from our area here along the Ohio River. But we’ve got great American whiskeys all over the country.
You had the idea to create Whiskey Weather in 2019. What was the appeal of posting on social media?
One, it was an escape from everyday life. I did weather 24/7, 365, so it was just something else to put my mind and energy to. I wasn’t even really thinking of making it into what it was—it was just a hobby to post about what I was drinking, if anybody cared, or to say, “Hey, this is good.” Then, when I moved [to Cincinnati], I got better access to better stuff and started making videos for fun because I met people through the industry. I didn’t want to be that standard meme account where I’m posting funny things—I want to help people save money and also educate them on how things are made or different terms because there’s so much minutia in the whiskey world that people get lost or overtaken by all the different terms. I want to help break those terms down for people to understand, so when they look at a bottle on the shelf, they know what they’re buying.
How do you summarize your brand?
I’ll do reviews, I’ll do educational breakdowns of what terms actually mean because there’s a lot of miseducation within that. Of course, the primary thing you’ll see on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube shorts are short reviews. I could do a 10-minute review and post it as a long-form video and probably make a little bit more money doing that, but I can crank out more shorts. There are so many more bottles out there that if I can get short reviews to where you’re standing at a liquor store and have a question about a bottle, rather than scrubbing through 11 minutes [of video], you’ve got a two-minute quick Error: Video not found of what this is and what it’s made of, so you’re not spending 20 minutes trying to figure out if this is a bottle you want.
What was the pivot point that made you decide you could do this full time?
There’s no hiding that TV news is dying. If you were to look at ratings and the way people consume their media, it is nowhere near the same as it was 10, 15 years ago. The younger generation is mostly getting their news from their device, and while I love weather, doing the same thing for 13 years, 24/7, always being on call, having a 6-year-old daughter—my schedule was constantly getting changed. Wanting to spend more time with her, it was how could I put myself into a spot where I’m financially stable but I can also have that family time? When I wasn’t at work or with my daughter, I was putting my energy into this. It started growing, people started following me, I started getting recognized in places around town. Then I started to see how much more I could reach outside of just Cincinnati or this area—it’s more of a nationwide thing. I have Patreon members from 47 different states, so I’ve got reach. Through your social media platform, you can really reach the entire world. Not that I don’t love the people of Cincinnati and the surrounding areas, but not everybody here is a whiskey drinker.
You have a Patreon and members-only content. What do you offer paying members?
They’ll normally get first access to videos. I try to put out a monthly forecast, which is what’s going on with the channel that only they get to see, the behind-the-scenes stuff. There’s different tier levels—I have six. They’re all tornado ratings, so EF0, EF1, all the way to EF5, and each level gets a different perk. Barrel picks are huge in whiskey. I’ll go to a distillery and literally buy that barrel, then I sell that through an online distributor. Patreon members get first access to that before it goes to the public. The highest tier gets the first access, and so on. Once it goes through Patreon, then I’ll release it to the public if there’s anything left over. I also have my own rating scale, I call it the lightning counter, which is basically how many lighting bolts does each bottle get? It’s zero to 10, and I have a spreadsheet with every whiskey I’ve ever rated. Certain tiers and higher get access to that spreadsheet. I try to be as open and transparent and honest about anything I drink, because people are gonna be spending their money and I don’t want to say everything is great. If you say everything’s great, then nothing’s great, because it’s all the same.
Can we know what’s at the top of the sheet?
King of Kentucky single barrel from last year. That’s the highest score I’ve ever given out—it’s a 9.6.
What’s special about that bourbon?
It’s called “King of Kentucky” for a reason—it’s the king of bourbons. Super hard to find. Seventeen-year-old single barrel. Single barrels vary from barrel to barrel, but it was just a flavor bomb of vanillas, cherries, oak, some chocolate. It was super rich, viscous. When I rate something, I rate five separate categories: How does it nose? How does it taste? How does the mouth feel? What is the finish like? And then finally, the value, because you can have a bottle that is $50 and you can have a bottle that’s $100. They both are fantastic, but that $50 one I’m more likely to buy because the value of it is 10 times better.
In June, you ranked your top five bottles of the first half of the year. What are you liking so far in the second half?
I just rated one that dropped this past weekend, it’s from EverNorth. It’s also a YouTube channel called the Bourbon Junkies. They have—and that would ultimately be the goal down the road is to maybe have my own whiskey brand—their own brand called EverNorth, and they put out what’s called the Exodus Rye, which has the highest score so far this year. And then 1792 just dropped their oldest bourbon yet: the 15-year-old, which I’m very impressed with. That is right now the top of the list for bourbon.
Who’s on the docket for your interviews?
I’m always looking. I was lucky enough to meet Jim Gaffigan in October last year. He’s got his own whiskey brand called Fathertime, and his cofounder ran into me at Kentucky Bourbon Fest last year and said, “Jim follows you and likes your work, and he would love for you to come to his show.” He did that bourbon show set in Louisville, so we went there. We met him, and they sent me a sample of their latest release. I reached out, and he agreed and gave me an amazing hour and 45 minutes of interview. Then, Craig Beam is also a huge weather nerd, so that’s how we connected. As for future interviews, I have different distilleries that I’d like to interview [someone from]: New Riff Distilling and Still Austin Whiskey Co. out of Texas. I would love to talk to somebody from Buffalo Trace or Jack Daniels down the road. Harlen Wheatley would be a big one from Buffalo Trace. Matthew McConaughey would be a fun one just because of the fact that he was in the whiskey game for a while. Athletes who drink whiskey. I’m a huge baseball fan, so bringing all three into the same umbrella—weather, baseball, bourbon—would be the dream. Maybe talk to a baseball player who’s big into bourbon, like Brooks Raley, Jameson Taillon.
When you’re not at home, where do you like to go for a drink around Greater Cincinnati?
I think the most unique place in America when it comes to whiskey is right in Covington at Revival Vintage Bottle Shop. I had a bottle that was bottled in 1918, so being able to try that history. That’s always the first place I’ll tell somebody to go, because it’s so unique and you’re not going to find that experience anywhere else. Another place I love is Newberry Bros. Prohibition Bar in Newport. The Wiseguy Lounges across the city. They’ve got that huge wall of whiskey. Smoke Justis is a good one. Old Kentucky Bourbon Bar is pretty good too.
