Heaven Hill Distillery Exclusively Sponsors Afrofusion
Heaven Hill Distillery is the exclusive sponsor for three Afrofusion dinner events, cross-cultural experiences that combine American Whiskey and West African food.
Curated by Jack Beguedou, who is known as the Hood Sommelier, the dinner series has already come to Louisville and Omaha, with the next scheduled for Washington D.C. in April.
Since coming to the U.S. 17 years ago, Jack has experimented with combining West African foods with spirits. As this hobby grew into a passion, he found that his palate for French wine enhanced his Bourbon selections. And, when it came to pairing drinks with his home-cooked meals, Togolese moonshine led to some creative whiskey cocktail creations.
While not a trained chef, Jack’s friends loved his paired meals and told him he was onto something special. Through that encouragement, the Hood Sommelier was born.
“People said, ‘You’re like a sommelier but for whiskey,’” he said, recalling his friends’ appreciation of his knowledge of spirits. “At some point, I decided I would become the Hood Sommelier, because I wanted to teach the average person from all walks of life (any hood) to enjoy their spirit like an expert, and also bring food into it.”
Our Whiskey brand team met Jack through Andrea Meriwether, the facilitator for our employee DEI Workshops in 2020, when he came on as a guest speaker. Jack stayed in touch with Area Manager Jason Bradley, who also participated in the culture-series workshops, and approached him with the idea of Afrofusion . When the pitch made its way to the brand team, they knew Jack was passionate about the Afrofusion dinner series and thought it would be an extremely authentic way for our brands to partner.
“Partnering with Jack to bring his vision to life to pair West African Cuisine and Bourbon and introduce it to unique audiences felt like an authentic way to bring diverse content to our platform that made sense for our brands,” said Kelsey Shannon, Associate Brand Manager. “To date, we have sponsored two of the Afrofusion dinner series, but the part that excited me most was that we worked with Jack to bring his story of cross-cultural exchange to life.”
The dinner series features Heaven Hill Distillery products only, and an HHD representative has attended each event. Tickets are made available via Eventbrite in each city.
