Imbibe 75 People to Watch: Sara Ahlgrim and Chad Perkins

As the birthplace of bourbon, Kentucky’s also home to a lot of local fans. But bourbon knowledge doesn’t come at conception, as Sara Ahlgrim realized 10 years ago while working marketing for OBC Kitchen in Lexington alongside Post Time Studios videographer Chad Perkins. “I’m from Kentucky, born and raised, but back then I don’t think I could name 10 different bourbons,” Ahlgrim says. “It was a point of pride as a Kentuckian to expand my bourbon knowledge. And Chad was going through the same thing with his bourbon exploratory phase.”

Working video shoots together led to tasting bourbon together, and before long, the boundaries blurred. In mid-2016, the duo launched their YouTube channel, It’s Bourbon Night, joined two years later by their merchandise and lifestyle company, Whiskey Ambitions. (Bourbon also begat betrothal—Ahlgrim and Perkins wed in 2019.) Today, more than 110,000 subscribers follow the couple’s videos as they taste new releases, conduct blind “flight fights” of similar whiskies, and go hunting for interesting bottles in liquor stores around the state.

And while there’s no shortage of online bourbon enthusiasts, journalists, or influencers these days pontificating about unicorn bottles and high-price-tag expressions, Ahlgrim and Perkins aim to keep their coverage more down to earth. “We want bourbon to be approachable. We don’t want people to be intimidated to try bourbon because they see it as a gate kept interest,” Ahlgrim says. “We’re still on our own bourbon journeys, learning something new every day. We’re enthusiasts just like [the viewers], we’re just recording our experiences while we’re learning, then sharing it so they can learn something, too.”

Click here to read more about some of 2025’s other Imbibe 75 People and Places to Watch.