About the Author

Tom Maas’s career in the distilled spirits industry dates back to when he was a young man traveling with his father, a world-renowned distilling engineer, who built and worked on distilleries in eight different countries around the world. It was as an 11-year-old that Maas helped make his first batch of whiskey while visiting one of the distilleries his father was constructing in Canada. That moment sparked in him a longing to work in the magical business of distilled spirits.

With close to 50 years in the industry, Maas developed his brand formulation and sales management expertise while working on three of the top selling whiskey brands in the world: Jack Daniel’s, Canadian Club, and Jim Beam.

Following an abrupt firing from his last corporate role at Jim Beam, Maas used a lifetime of learning to create one of the top liqueurs in the world, the award winning RumChata. Since its introduction to the market in 2009, RumChata has seen unprecedented consumer acceptance and accolades that have led to retail sales of over two and a half billion dollars billion, an incredible achievement from a small startup. In 2021, the brand was sold to the E&J Gallo Winery.

Maas is a 1978 graduate of the University of Wisconsin School of Business, and in 1980, while working for the Jack Daniel Distillery, he received his MBA from DePaul University. He is the chairman of Dancing Goat, a craft distillery in Cambridge, Wisconsin, that was created with his youngest son, Nick, to honor his father’s legacy of distilling. He currently resides in Illinois, with his wife and business partner, Susan.