Robin Robinson began his entertainment career as a comedian in the 1970s. He convinced a band at the old Portfolio bar in Pittsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood to let him use their microphone for a little stand-up comedy during the set break.
But while he’ll crack plenty of jokes during a March 8 presentation at West Overton Village, there’s nothing funny about the love and respect Robinson has for his topic: whiskey.
Robinson, a Homestead native and author of “The Complete Whiskey Course,” will lead a presentation and whiskey tasting at West Overton, where Abraham Overholt established his American Rye whiskey distillery in the early 1800s. Today, Old Overholt is a rye whiskey owned by Beam Suntory Brands, makers of Jim Beam.
Robinson made his way to whiskey expertise when he was hired to impersonate a Scottish distiller for a dinner pairing event.
“I had to be coached to understand what single-malt Scotch whiskey was back then,” Robinson said. “At the end of the evening, I used some of my pay to buy a bottle.”
Robinson then went to work in the Silicon Valley tech industry as a salesman, but continued to learn about whiskey and even began teaching classes about its history and variety.
“I was evangelizing for whiskey,” he said with a laugh. “I’d started a blog and was hosting tastings at my house. A friend in the liquor industry said I knew more about whiskey than some of the people who worked for him!”
Robinson was convinced to take a new job in the early 2000s as brand ambassador for Compass Box Whisky, which was creating artisanal blended Scotch whiskey, unique at the time.
“I was asked if I could compress the class into sort of a road-show format, and it eventually evolved into this history of whiskey that also includes some of my bad stand-up comedy,” he said.
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Robinson, who lives in New Jersey, was back in the Pittsburgh area for a wedding in 2023, and had always wanted to see the former Overholt distillery on the West Overton grounds, which is also the birthplace of coal coke baron Henry Clay Frick.
“As a kid, I grew up playing in Frick Park, so it’s really interesting to have all of these pieces of my life coming together,” he said.
Robinson met with a local rye whiskey expert and their visit planted the seeds for Robinson’s March 8 presentation.
Tickets for “The Story of Whiskey” are $50 to $75 and are available at Events.humanitix.com/the-story-of-whiskey. The evening includes a sample tasting of five whiskeys and a signed copy of Robinson’s book.
