“A little news, a few reviews, and a lot of booze” is the recipe behind the success of Charleston’s Bourbon Podcast.
Who says becoming a podcasting sensation is hard? Sometimes, it’s just as easy as sipping a well-aged whiskey.
That’s how it was for Ben Salango, Joe Nassif, and Kyle Mork. In the early 2020s, Salango wanted to post occasional photos of his whiskey exploits, and he took the handle “Bourbon Podcast,” just because he noticed the name was available on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Predictably, people soon started asking where they could find the actual podcast.
“I thought, ‘Well, how do you start a podcast?’” says Salango, a Charleston lawyer and county commissioner. “I went on Amazon and ordered equipment, and a friend helped me set it up.” Longtime friends Nassif, an investment banker, and Mork, an energy company CEO, came in on the podcast with him. They launched in 2022. “And the following year, we were No. 1 on Apple Podcasts in the hobbies category,” Salango laughs, still amazed. “It just absolutely blew up.” They now have more than 200,000 followers on their social media platforms, and the podcast has tens of thousands of subscribers. Forbes magazine included Bourbon Podcast among four top whiskey influencers in December 2025.
Salango thinks the podcast’s friend dynamic was the key. “I was the whiskey amateur—I still am—and people thought it was funny: If I thought it was bad, I would say, ‘It tastes like gasoline,’” he says. “Joe is an incredible researcher and has this amazing memory and ability to tell a story, and the only thing that makes whiskey taste better is a good story. And Kyle has a very sophisticated palate. I’m a thumbs up–thumbs down guy, but Kyle can taste the notes that the upper-end whiskey people relate to.”
Even given quick popularity, the trio had to earn their cred. “In the early days, I’d have to beg master distillers and whiskey insiders to come on the podcast,” Salango says. “Now they’re begging us.” Their annual whiskey of the year is picked up by major media and industry outlets. Independence helps them in that regard: “No brand pays for any of that,” he says. “We do it in a blind study. It has a lot of integrity.”
Bourbon Podcast episodes drop every Thursday morning on all of the major platforms. @bourbonpodcast on IG
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