Peerless Distilling Celebrates Close Connection to Swimming Community with UVA Coach Todd DeSorbo
An Olympic coach, a world record holder and a swim team captain walk into a distillery.
It’s not the setup to an (admittedly high-brow) joke. It is the premise for the kind of swim community story that plays well over a glass of bourbon, a quality spirit in a heavy crystal glass to punctuate all the dots connected along the way.
And it has the added benefit of being true.
It was mid-October in Louisville. On Whiskey Row, in a building that in 1889 became home to the 50th distillery licensed by the state of Kentucky, the links in the swimming chain combined to place Todd DeSorbo and Mary T. Meagher in the same place on the same weekend. The connection is through Peerless Distilling, whose executive vice president happens to be Mike Young, a one-time captain and former grad assistant at the University of Kentucky.
With a milestone birthday and a celebration of DeSorbo’s summer leading the U.S. women’s swim team to success at the Paris Olympics, it was a rare chance to toast not just accomplishments in the pool but the connections between people that make that possible.
“It’s definitely very powerful and strong,” DeSorbo told Swimming World of the kind of connections he felt at Peerless. “And it’s often that something like that happens. It’s always something different and something new, of how somebody knows somebody else, or somebody who knew me has their friends and now I’m friends with that person. And it’s kind of wild.
The Coach
Todd DeSorbo’s swimming journey started in North Carolina but owes a sizeable debt to the Bluegrass State. He swam at the University of Kentucky from 1995-98, before a graduate year at UNC Wilmington.
He left the Wildcats with a network of swimming friends from the state and, while not quite a cultivated taste for the state’s signature spirit yet, at least a group that would nudge him in that direction eventually.
One of those friends got DeSorbo deeper into it in the fall of 2023. When his friend came up with the idea of buying a barrel of bourbon, they sought a distillery that could make it happen. The planning became a weekend trip for four couples in Louisville, including Todd and his wife Lauren, coinciding with a fortuitous free weekend for Todd after his University of Virginia team swam at the Tennessee Invitational in Knoxville, about a four-hour drive.
At the distillery, DeSorbo fell in love with the brand’s story. It’s one of the oldest distilleries in Kentucky, tracing its roots to the 1880s. Two generations – founder Henry H. Kraver, then daughter Helene Kraver and husband Roy Taylor – operated the distillery for 40 years until Prohibition in 1917, its founding in 1885 earning it the license number DSP-KY-50, the 50th distillery recognized by the state. The great grandson of Henry Kraver, Corky Taylor, revived the brand in 2015. He runs it as CEO, with son Carson Taylor as the president and fifth-generation shepherd.
DeSorbo and Corky Taylor hit it off during DeSorbo’s first visit. Taylor’s grandkids grew up swimming in California. Taylor’s daughter, Kendi Taylor, played basketball at the University of Georgia, where Virginia’s current athletic director and DeSorbo’s boss Carla Williams was an assistant coach for a team that included Taylor and made the NCAA final in 1996.
“He gave us a great history tour of the bourbon industry and Peerless and his family, and it was awesome,” DeSorbo said. “And ever since then, I’ve been a huge fan. He told me when I left, Hey, if you’re ever in Louisville recruiting and you need a place to work for a few hours or come hang out, just call me.”
It wouldn’t take long for their paths to cross again.
The Captain
Mike Young’s roots at the University of Kentucky go back deeper and are more firmly rooted in the state. They’ve led him back to Louisville after nearly four decades away.
Young is a Louisville native, raised at Lakeside Swim Club under the tutelage of Dennis Pursley. He swam for the Wildcats – about a decade before DeSorbo got there – was a graduate assistant for Kentucky’s women’s team, then coached at Lakeside before embarking on a career in wine and spirits business
Peerless Distillery’s executive vice president spent more than a decade at Brown-Forman, which owns labels like Jack Daniels and Woodford Reserve, then stints at Jim Beam and Republic National Distributing Company. He’s lived in California, Florida, Seattle and Chicago before returning home for a late-career chapter at Peerless. From more than 10,000 employees at RNDC to a head count of 29 at Peerless, all under the same roof where all its alcohol is produced, Young has found comfort at opposite ends of the market-size spectrum.
Photo Courtesy: Peerless Distilling. From Left: Craig Beardsley, 1980 Olympian; Mike Young, Executive Vice President of Kentucky Peerless; Bucky Dent, New York Yankees World Series MVP.
The distillery has won a number of national accolades as a destination for devotees. Its Toasted Bourbon was the only recipient in 2024 of the Gold Outstanding Bourbon Award at International Wine and Spirits’ first Global Judging event for North American whiskeys.
“I’ve literally had a dream my whole career of ending my career back in Kentucky and building a brand that I felt was my home,” Young said. “Helping Corky and Carson Taylor build their brand, it’s been a dream come true. I had high expectations, and it’s exceeding everything that I thought was going to happen, both me enjoying what I’m doing — I’m having more fun than I ever have in my career – and what the brand’s doing.”
One constant for Young has been swimming. He competed in Masters swimming and triathlons for 15 years, often one of the first network of friends he’d develop upon moving for work and some of his most enduring relationships. He still uses sports and swimming in particular as a sorting lens in hiring, for the dedication and commitment they take. And he brings his swimming past to the office regularly.
“No way I would be who I am today if I didn’t swim: The discipline, the work ethic, the teamwork that goes along with it, the dedication,” he said. “… I learned leadership skills and how to lead teams and big groups of people. And I also learned through my coaching.”
Young joined Peerless in the fall of 2023, before DeSorbo’s visit though the two didn’t cross paths. When DeSorbo took Taylor up on his anytime-you’re-in-town offer in February, breezing through on a recruiting trip, Young was tasked with meeting and greeting. It didn’t take long for the two Wildcats to connect over their shared swimming past at lunch.
By that point, DeSorbo had been named the head coach for the U.S. women’s team in Paris. Young followed the team’s progress at the Olympics and afterwards appended a proposal to his note of congratulations once the Games wrapped. Maybe DeSorbo would want to stop by Peerless in the fall to do a special bottle release? They could bottle a barrel of DeSorbo’s choosing, complete with a custom label that DeSorbo could sign ahead of a reception for the coach and friends.
DeSorbo was all over it. His schedule didn’t allow a first visit to Louisville to pick a barrel in person, but Peerless sent him three samples. Todd and Lauren made a day of it at their home near Charlottesville, inviting the same four couples over to vet the options. DeSorbo, who cops to not being a purist, opted for a smoother version with cinnamon notes and a little less of a kick than the others (though he sent Young a note for a heads up for when the others get bottled).
“We had the samples, the tastings, we had the glasses,” he said. “It was really fun, really cool. We sampled all the different barrels and ended up choosing one, and it was just a really fun afternoon.”
Peerless has also supported Swim Across America and Young’s connection with Jimmy Tierney led to an event that raised money for cancer research. Young and Tierney, the head coach at McKendree University, grew up swimming together, and with Tierney serving as a chairperson with Swim Across America-Louisville, it made sense for Peerless Distilling to hold a gathering.
“Jimmy Tierney and I swam together growing up and coached at Lakeside,” Young said. “We have remained lifelong friends. Jimmy is co-chair of SAA Louisville and he asked me if I would help out with the inaugural event this year. I decided to have a volunteer appreciation evening at the distillery the night before the event. Craig Beardsley, national SAA committee member and former world record holder, was in town for the event and came to the distillery for the appreciation night. Though Craig and I swam in the SEC at the same time, we had never met until that event and we hit it off.”
The SAA stop in Louisville was held at the Genesis Blairwood, Tennis, Swim and Fitness Club and raised more than $75,000 for cancer research at the Brown Cancer Center in Louisville. Also present for the event was former New York Yankee Bucky Dent, the 1978 World Series MVP.
The Olympian
Mary T. Meagher is Louisville, through and through. The city’s aquatic center bears her name, as do still a few record boards in the area, the five-time Olympic medalist who held the long-course world records in women’s butterfly for a total of 40 years.
Todd DeSorbo, right, Mary T Meagher, left, and Peerless Distilling’s Nikki Armento; Photo Courtesy: Peerless Distilling
Lakeside was the beachhead from which Meagher launched her assault on butterflying history. She was a 14-year-old when she set her first world record in the 200 fly at the 1979 Pan American Games. No one else would hold that record until 2000. “Madame Butterfly” would set five records in the 200 fly and two in the 100 – those only held from 1980 to 1999 – on the way to three Olympic team berths (including the boycotted 1980 Games), three Olympics Golds and two World Championships.
Life took Meagher to Berkeley for college and to the Atlanta area with her husband, speedskater and Olympic executive Mike Plant. But Louisville would always be home, Meagher returning often, including in the spring of 2024 for Lakeside’s centennial.
Ahead of her 60th birthday on Oct. 27, she reached out to Peerless and found Young, who’d she swum with as a kid, about stopping by on a visit in town. With her daughter and a group of friends, they ended up touring Peerless on Oct. 12 – the same day DeSorbo was busy selling out at his label-signing. It made the distillery the location for a meeting between two important figures in American female swimming.
“I’d never met her,” DeSorbo said. “Obviously I knew who she is. I mean, everybody knows who she is. But I’d never met her, and she doesn’t even live in Louisville anymore. She lives in Atlanta, and she just happened to be there celebrating her 60th birthday, and her daughter and a bunch of friends, they just did a weekend in Louisville. And I happened to be randomly there that weekend too. It was pretty wild.”
For DeSorbo, the entire experience took him back to more than his days in Kentucky, but to what he learned early in his coaching career about the value of relationships. It’s something he still tries to impart to his group at Virginia, in and out of the water.
“One of the best things that I took away from my time coaching at UNC Wilmington with the head coach at the time, Dave Allen, one of the things that he did so well – and it wasn’t something he was trying to do, but it was just who he was – but he was always kind to everybody,” DeSorbo said. “He always talked to everybody and he always took time out of his day, knowing that coaches are busy, to spend a few minutes with this person or that person, even the custodial staff or just random people in the athletic department or lifeguards at the pool. I make it a point now to talk to our lifeguards at the pool at UVA 1) because I’m just curious and it’s always fun to know what year they are, what they’re studying, where they’re from. But I think it’s just good to take an interest in people and be kind and be respectful.
“When you’re a nice person and you work hard, good things are going to happen. And when it comes full circle at some point – and it’s going to – it’s going to be a positive experience.”