PHOTOS BY CHRISOM BEBEE
Jen & Tommy Brunett — Building Iron Smoke Their Own Way
Some businesses are carefully mapped out from the beginning. Others take on a life of their own. For Jen and Tommy Brunett, Iron Smoke Distillery became something even bigger than the whiskey, music and unmistakable brand they originally envisioned. What began with a simple idea—bringing together great American whiskey, BBQ, music and strong branding—eventually grew into a destination where people gather, celebrate, hear incredible music, make memories and, sometimes, even meet the person they’ll marry.
But behind the bottles, concerts and packed tasting room is a husband-and-wife team whose personalities couldn’t complement each other more perfectly. Tommy is the self-described “What if?” guy—the creative force who keeps turning over rocks looking for the next possibility. Jen is the one who can walk into complete chaos, understand what is actually happening and somehow create structure from it.
When their tasting room opened in 2018, neither expected hundreds of people to show up or imagined that their relaxed, winery-inspired concept would almost overnight become a full bar, concert venue, retail destination and event space. They adapted—and kept going.
Their story, however, is much more interesting than a traditional entrepreneurial success story. It’s funny, messy, unconventional and incredibly human. There have been big ideas, ideas that didn’t work, moments when the numbers didn’t make sense, sacrifices made as a family and plenty of times when quitting would have been easier. Their children, Cash and Jagger, practically grew up inside Iron Smoke while their parents were building the business—riding scooters through the distillery and turning their parents’ workplace into what they now remember as a childhood clubhouse.
Along the way, there have also been those surreal moments that remind Jen and Tommy just how far this crazy idea has traveled—from Jimmy Fallon walking through the doors and eventually playing Tommy’s white Gretsch with him, to unforgettable performances, weddings, birthdays, benefits, memorials and thousands of everyday moments that have made Iron Smoke part of other people’s stories. As Tommy puts it, they may have built the room, but “the community gave it a heartbeat.”
For our latest Rochester Woman Online cover story, we wanted to go beyond the brand and introduce you to Jen and Tommy Brunett—the couple behind the chaos, creativity, whiskey and music. We talk about marriage and entrepreneurship, the decisions that worked and the ones that didn’t, what success really costs, the people they keep close, the wild ideas still waiting in the wings, and the legacy they hope to leave behind.
Because ultimately, Iron Smoke’s story may not be about whiskey at all. It may be about creating a place where people feel like they belong—a place where, as Jen says, “welcome home” actually means something. And long after the last pour of the night, it’s those experiences that remain. Or, in Tommy’s words: “Bottles eventually get emptied. Stories stick around.”
Let’s start somewhere people may not expect: Who are Jen and Tommy Brunett when no one is watching and Iron Smoke isn’t part of the conversation?
Jen: Usually finding an adventure somewhere making bad decisions, lol. If not doing that I’m a big book reader, write as a hobby, I love film and music, I’m kind of boring.
Tommy: I’ve never been very good at sitting still or behaving like a normal adult. There’s always music playing around me; silence is deafening to me. I love people with a few dents in ’em, and a good meal along with a decent cocktail or glass of wine.
What really gets me off is creating and making things that didn’t exist before. Cliché is the devil. I’ve always been more interested in collecting stories and interesting people than collecting stuff.
You’ve built a brand with a very distinct personality. Take us back to the beginning—what did the earliest version of the Iron Smoke dream look like, and how different is it from what exists today?
Jen: Well, this was definitely Tommy’s baby. I didn’t join the ride until we started working with brand reps and opened the tasting room. I can say though that the integrity of the initial dream has stayed intact. He wanted to blend music, whiskey and good ol’ American bbq and he did just that. Throw in the fact that we are both sort of off the beaten path/color outside of the lines kind of people that basically snuck in through the side door in this business, and you have Iron Smoke how it is today.
Tommy: Pretty simple… putting two great American past times together – BBQ and Whiskey with a focus on making outstanding elixirs and experiences that all sit on pillars of strong and focused branding. We didn’t really have a roadmap but I new we had the idea and probably an unreasonable amount of confidence. The rest just unraveled around that.
Tommy, Iron Smoke feels like an extension of your personality—music, whiskey, creativity, and a little rebellion. How much of you is actually embedded in this brand?
Probably an unhealthy amount.
Iron Smoke is basically what would happen if you opened my head, shook everything out onto the floor and somehow got a liquor license for it.
Jen, people may know Tommy as the very visible face of Iron Smoke, but what role have you played behind the scenes that people might be surprised to learn about?
I started with Iron Smoke leading our brand ambassador program in 2016. In 2018 when we opened the tasting room, I was asked to oversee the general operations. I agreed to it because it seemed easy enough…
I didn’t have much experience in the hospitality business, but our goal was to create a similar environment to the wineries in the finger lakes. We envisioned people coming in and doing tastings, maybe trying a cocktail with our products and possibly renting the room for corporate events, etc.
When it was time to open, we were very excited and wanted to throw a couple of big opening parties. We booked some bands, food trucks, got our liquor license and opened our doors. We had NO idea that many people would show up. It was hundreds! Lol!! Afterwards, people kept calling and calling and calling asking about when the next band was playing and which food trucks we would have.
So that’s how I became the general operations manager of a full bar, tasting room, concert venue, retail and event space pretty much overnight. Lolol!!! I’m still at Iron Smoke doing my thing after 8.5 years… I guess I have a bit of a knack for finding the structure inside of chaos. Who knew?!
Building a business is hard. Building one with your spouse can be a completely different adventure. What have you learned about each other through entrepreneurship that you never would have learned simply being married?
Jen: That we shouldn’t work together. Lmaoooooooo! Just kidding. Honestly, I know Tommy as insanely creative, highly intelligent, incredibly hard working. Watching him build this business he also is extremely tenacious, loyal and fair towards his brand–it’s been pretty amazing to watch it all come together from idea to execution through his leadership.
Tommy: First, I’d like the record to show that Jen said we shouldn’t work together before I did. lol
But I’ve learned how incredibly capable and smart she is when everything is coming apart at the seams. I’m usually the guy saying, “What if we did THIS?” and Jen is often the person figuring out how the hell “THIS” is actually going to happen
Building a business together also means you’ve seen each other under every possible condition – exhausted, scared, excited, broke, overwhelmed, triumphant – and sometimes all of those before lunch. You learn pretty quickly what somebody is made of when spending this much time together and Jen is by far and always been one of my favorite collections of stardust.
What is one Iron Smoke decision that one of you initially thought was absolutely crazy—but the other pushed for and ultimately turned out to be brilliant?
Jen: This is an interesting question because, to be honest, we sort of aren’t in the belief that any idea is too crazy. We like weird crap, we like fringe stuff, we like a challenge, so nothing was really off the table in our minds. The crazier the better is a fond motto to have around here. I mean I always thought it would be cool to have a roller derby in the band side of the tasting room but I don’t think that would fly. Maybe some drinks though, now that I think about it. Like our Tijuana Rattler. When I heard two of the ingredients were tequila AND apple pie whiskey I thought you’d need a steel liver and stomach lining. Turns out it’s one of our top drinks that we’ve had on the menu from the start.
Tommy: There have been so many that I don’t even know where the line between crazy and normal is anymore.
Opening the tasting room the way we did is probably the big one. We didn’t say, “Let’s build a concert venue.” We thought we’d have a nice tasting room where people could sip whiskey and maybe listen to some music occasionally.
Then we opened the doors and it morphed into a destination and attraction for people all over the world to come and experience our brand and get a big whiff of fun and whiskey.
And let’s flip that: What idea did you try that absolutely did not work—and what did that failure teach you?
Jen: Well…this is also tough because what constitutes success and failure is subjective, in the grand scheme of things. In the business where we are continuously working on events and entertainment, part of the modus operandi is trying new things. If people don’t show up it’s not a failure, it’s data. So that’s a win for me. (god I sound like such a dork, don’t I) Tommy probably has a story or two, I’m sure, as he deals with the production side of Iron Smoke as well, overseeing the marketing and everything else. I’m personally speaking from the tasting room perspective. So my answer is there’s no such thing as failure, it’s a chance to learn something new.
Tommy: Oh sheez – there’s so many – bands or concepts I thought would pack the place, relying on “sure things” that rarely are, not trusting your gut – those seem to be the center pieces.
So – anyway – If you know me – you know I like swinging at weird pitches and finding the opportunities within the failures. You hit a few into the parking lot and occasionally you get hit in the nutz. Either way, the lesson is pay attention and keep moving.
There are usually moments in entrepreneurship when quitting would be easier than continuing. Was there ever a moment when Iron Smoke came close to not making it, and what kept you moving forward?
Tommy: Wayyyy more than once.
There have been moments where the numbers didn’t make sense, where circumstances changed overnight, where you wondered whether sheer determination was going to be enough.
What kept me going is probably the same thing Jen occasionally wants to strangle me for: I have a very difficult time accepting that something can’t be done.
Jen, what do you think Tommy’s greatest strength is as an entrepreneur—and what is the quality that occasionally makes you want to pull your hair out?
Jen: I am going back and restating what I already said. His tenacity. The man will not give up, ever. He will look at every angle, turn over every rock, probably look in dimensions that don’t exist and if something burns to the ground and there’s a brick left, he’d rebuild. That also makes me want to pull my hair out sometimes when I’ve already checked out on something we’d be working on and he’d be like, “Just a little more.”
Ok, Tommy. A little more…
Tommy, same question about Jen: What is her superpower, and what does she bring to your partnership that you know you couldn’t replicate on your own?
Tommy: Jen can walk into complete chaos and somehow make sense of it all and organize it.
She’s extremely intuitive about people. She can read a room very quickly, and she understands hospitality in a way that can’t really be taught. People feel comfortable around her.
I’m very much a “What if?” person. Jen has always had an ability to look at the same situation and see what’s actually happening in front of us.
Also, she has tolerated approximately 47,000 of my ideas and probably 10 times that amount of people coming through the tasting room doors depending on her team and the experience she has created and instilled in them, which should qualify her for some kind of federal life grant and or hall pass into heaven.
Iron Smoke doesn’t feel like a traditional distillery. It feels like music venue, gathering place, brand, experience, and community all rolled into one. Was creating that sense of belonging intentional from the beginning, or did the community help create what Iron Smoke eventually became?
Jen: It’s definitely all of that and more. Tommy, remember what Lucinda Storms (owner with Richard Storms of Record Archive) said during opening weekend when she was sitting on the couches? She basically said she was sitting there and it felt like the room exhaled. Like it was glad we transformed it into the place that it turned out to be. It’s certainly a group effort. It’s the heart and soul that we put into the place creating and running it, it’s our caring and engaging staff, it’s the community that keeps showing up to hang out with us. The tasting room is like our living room where all are welcome.
Tommy: Both.
We built the room, but the community gave it a heartbeat.
From the beginning I wanted Iron Smoke Distillery to be a destination for fans of the brand as well as a place that guests in general could gather and feel welcome and get a sense of feeling at home.
The greatest compliment isn’t somebody saying, “Nice distillery.” It’s watching someone walk in alone, know half the room twenty minutes later and feel like they’ve been coming there for years.
You’ve had some incredible people walk through your doors. What is one surreal Iron Smoke moment when you looked at each other and thought, “How is this actually our life?”
Jen: I mean it didn’t hurt to have Jimmy Fallon walk in and play Tommy’s guitar at the bar and with him on stage. He loves that white one, what’s it called, Tommy? Lol I mean it’s not just famous people it’s the creatives, the experiences that are hard to recreate. We did an event once for WXXI, they brought in one of the tiny desk concert series winners, Gaelynn Lea, who won in 2016. She has brittle bone disease, is in a wheelchair, is about 3 feet tall and has to hold her violin like a cello. She’s a folk musician and her whole performance was hauntingly beautiful. The whole room was dead silent until she was done. It was memorizing really, I’ll never forget it. The first thing she asked me for when she was done playing was a glass of whiskey.
Tommy: Jimmy Fallon walking into Iron Smoke and eventually ending up playing my white Gretsch with me is certainly on the list. He likes that one. We call it Jimmy’s guitar now. But Jen is right- the moments that stick with you aren’t always celebrity moments. We’ve had world-class musicians, people celebrating weddings, birthdays, memorials, people meeting their future spouses. I’ve looked out from that stage a hundred times and thought, “How the hell did this happen?”
Those are the moments where the business disappears and you realize you’ve actually created something extremely special.
What is an Iron Smoke story that has never—or rarely—been told publicly but still makes the two of you laugh when you think about it?
Jen: There’s a reason why there is a large tasting room logo etched on the glass window next to the front door to the vestibule before you walk in and out of the tasting room itself. (for those of you don’t know, the tasting room is the bar/concert venue/retail space that you may just call Iron Smoke). There used to be no logo on that window when we first opened, and when people would leave, for some reason they would miss the door completely and walk right into the window. They’d just smash their faces right onto the glass. One time someone left a full-on face print. Omg I’m laughing just thinking about this! No one really got hurt but it happened enough to where Tommy was like, “Ok, we should probably put something on the glass so people don’t think it’s an open door.”
Tommy: Right Jen?! We built this beautiful entrance with these giant panes of glass and apparently made them too clean, because people kept trying to walk through them.
After watching enough people leave Iron Smoke and immediately perform a full facial imprint on the glass, I finally thought, “You know, perhaps signage is cheaper than litigation.”
So if anyone wonders why there’s a giant Iron Smoke logo on that window, that’s not branding. That’s public safety. lol
Entrepreneurship often looks glamorous from the outside. What has been the biggest personal sacrifice each of you has made to build this business?
Jen: Oh man… there’s been a lot of sacrifices. Our kids were maybe 10 and 11 when we opened the tasting room at least. At that time, I should have just brought a bed and moved in because I was there a lotttttt. Open to close, open to close, sometimes earlier for events, etc., that required a lot of set up. We didn’t want to leave the kids alone, so they came with us. They practically lived there with us as well, it felt like. They’d bring friends, their scooters, ride around the distillery came up with their own games and everything. I felt bad about it but now they tell me they have a lot of fond memories “growing up” there.
Tommy: Time. Nothing else is even close.
You can make more money. You can make more whiskey. You can’t manufacture another Tuesday when your kids were ten years old.
Cash and Jagger basically grew up inside Iron Smoke for a while. They were riding scooters through a distillery while Mom and Dad were trying to build a company. At the time you worry you’re screwing everything up. Then years later they tell stories about it like it was this magical childhood clubhouse.
That makes me feel better. Mostly.
When business gets stressful, do you have rules about when Iron Smoke conversations stop and husband-and-wife life begins—or does business inevitably follow you home?
Jen: Oh, it definitely comes home with us. It’s more of a lifestyle at this point than just a business.
Tommy: We tried that once in 2022. It lasted eleven minutes. lol
When you build something like Iron Smoke, there isn’t a clean line between work and life. An idea happens at breakfast. Somebody texts at dinner. I wake up at 3:00 in the morning thinking about a label. Jen is my 20,000 foot sounding board and she’s really good at it.
At some point you stop calling it work-life balance and admit you’ve accidentally joined the circus and it’s the only thing you know.
What do the two of you disagree about most when it comes to business, and who usually wins? Be honest!
Jen: I think it’s mostly when we miscommunicate about something or one of us need an answer right away but don’t get that answered because we are usually just too busy and then we forget. We are both constantly juggling a bunch of different tasks. Whoever answers first wins, I guess.
Tommy: Jen would probably say I don’t know when to stop.
We approach problems differently. I’m inclined to keep turning rocks over until I find another possibility. Jen is much better at recognizing when the rock is just a rock with nothing hidden underneath.
Who wins? Hmmm Ask me after this interview. lol
If I asked each of you separately to describe your relationship in three words, what three words would you choose—and why?
Jen: Hmm… Funny? He’s freaking hysterical. Adventurous. We used to live in Tribeca in New York City. We would literally go for groceries on a Sunday at 1pm and then somehow come home at 3 in the morning. Drunk. With no groceries. Lastly maybe… intuitive. We just know each other’s thoughts really well without having to convey them most of the time.
Tommy: Funny because humor has gotten us through just about everything.
Adventurous because Jen’s Tribeca grocery-store story is completely accurate. We’d leave the apartment for milk and somehow end up at a bar in Brooklyn at two in the morning with a bass player named Louie and Bill Murry behind the bar slingin’ drinks.
And complicated because anything meaningful that lasts a long time is complicated. Life changes. People change. Families change. But 30 years gives you an enormous shared history, and I don’t think you can reduce that to some neat sappy little Hallmark-card sentence
Success changes people, relationships, and sometimes entire circles of friends. As Iron Smoke has grown, what have you learned about friendship, loyalty, and the people you choose to keep close?
Jen: I love people but am also a very guarded person. I keep a very small close inner circle of friends. I’m so guarded I can’t even really answer this question. Tommy, any insight?
Tommy: You learn who calls when there’s nothing they need. You learn who is happy for you when something good happens and who quietly disappears when something goes wrong.
I’ve become much less interested in having a hundred friends and much more interested in having ten people who would help me move a piano. The kind of person that doesn’t grab the stool. My circle gets smaller every year it seems.
What is something people assume about your life because of Iron Smoke’s success that couldn’t be further from the truth?
Jen: A lot of people think it’s easy and that the tasting room runs itself. No one sees what it takes to keep it going!
Tommy: That owning a whiskey company means you’re sitting in a leather chair all day drinking bourbon and counting money. I would very much like to meet whoever has that job.
Most entrepreneurship is solving problems nobody sees. Payroll. Distribution. Regulations. Production. Employees. Marketing. Cash flow. Broken equipment. Something that was supposed to arrive Tuesday that’s apparently now in Nebraska.
The Instagram version is holding a whiskey glass without a care in the world. The real version is holding a whiskey glass while answering 137 emails while putting out fires with spit.
You both meet countless people through the distillery. Is there one customer, employee, musician, community member, or stranger whose story unexpectedly stayed with you or changed the way you look at what you’ve created?
Jen: For me, off the top of my head, I can’t think of one story, but people have met at Iron Smoke and ended up getting married, sometimes at Iron Smoke itself. Or at least had their reception there. It’s such a cool thing to be a part of. Like would those people have ever met if it wasn’t for the tasting room? Maybe? Maybe not?
Tommy: It’s less one person for me and more the accumulation of thousands of little stories.
People have met at Iron Smoke and gotten married. Families have celebrated milestones there. We’ve hosted benefits for people going through terrible things. Musicians have played our stage who I’d listened to long before Iron Smoke existed.
That’s when you realize the thing you built doesn’t entirely belong to you anymore. A brand can sell somebody a bottle. A place can become part of somebody’s life.
If money, logistics, and common sense were completely removed from the equation, what is the wildest thing each of you would love to create, host, or build under the Iron Smoke name?
Jen: I always thought we should have a roller derby on the stage side of the tasting room but that’s way too small. I have some other ideas but I’m going to keep them locked up for now. ????
Tommy: That’s dangerous. Common sense is already only loosely involved in our planning process.
I’d create the Iron Smoke tasting room experience in other markets and expand upon the experience here in Faiport.
And apparently Jen wants roller derby, so we’ll put that in there too. I’m not fighting her on this anymore.
Separate from Iron Smoke, what is still on each of your personal bucket lists? What’s something Jen wants to experience that Tommy may not—and vice versa?
Jen: Nothing terribly crazy for me. Travel. I’d love to travel to other countries. Maybe finish writing more books. Win the lotto, lol.
Tommy: I want to keep playing and making music I’m genuinely proud of. I want to travel more, for sure. I have gypsy blood running through my veins and hate standing still. I always felt more comfortable on the road. Grammy and Oscar would be nice… just putting it
If you could sit down with the Jen and Tommy who were just beginning this journey, what would you warn them about—and what would you tell them not to worry so much about?
Jen: Well the funny thing is that in the beginning of this journey we had ZERO idea what we were building. The tasting room side anyway… it was supposed to be pretty chill, like the wineries you visit in the Finger Lakes. Maybe you’d come in to do a tasting or sample a cocktail made with our product. Maybe you’d rent the place out for an event. Well, when we finally opened in 2018 after seven years or so of production, we made it a party. We hired food trucks, had bands play, it was a huge celebration for opening weekend.
Afterwards we got tons of calls and emails, “When’s the next band? Who’s the next food truck?” And that’s how we accidentally also became a concert venue! So there was no time to be nervous we just adapted pretty darn fast.
So present me would probably warn past me to prepare to be mobbed opening weekend, hire more bartenders, train them on speed, and get a door person.
Tommy: I’d tell them, “You have absolutely no idea what you’re getting yourselves into.” Then I wouldn’t tell them anything else because they might not do it.
I’d tell myself not to mistake worry for preparation. I spent a lot of time worrying about things that never happened and not nearly enough worrying about things that came flying through the window sideways.
Twenty years from now, when people talk about Iron Smoke, what do you hope they remember? Is the legacy about the whiskey, the brand, the music, the community—or something much bigger?
Jen: All of those things and that I hope they felt a sense of home when they spent time in our tasting room. We say, “welcome home” a lot when people come in, and we mean it. The goal is to make everyone feel welcome and have a sense of belonging.
Tommy: I hope the whiskey is still being poured. But I hope people remember how the place made them feel. I always say the in a hundred years – I want people to say “those guys did it right and changed things for the better and always did it t their own way.
Maybe somebody says, “That’s where I saw that incredible band.” Or, “That’s where I met my wife.” Or, “That’s where my dad and I used to have a whiskey.” Or simply, “Man, we had some great nights in that place.”
Bottles eventually get emptied. Stories stick around.
Rochester Woman Online is built around the idea of being seen, being heard, and being visible. You’ve both taken risks, put yourselves out there, and built something uniquely your own. For the person reading this who has a crazy idea but keeps waiting for permission, money, confidence, or the “right time”—what would each of you tell them?
Jen: I’d tell them there is never a right time, never enough money, and being courageous doesn’t mean you don’t have to be scared. You can be scared as hell but keep forcing one foot forward until you find your way. Close your eyes, hold your breath and jump in. Like Dory says, “Just keep swimming.”
Tommy: What she said. ????
