In mid-2019, as Rabbi Drew Kaplan was working in real estate in Cincinnati, he felt like something was missing. Though he wasn’t working in the Jewish community, he still wanted to engage with rabbinic work.
As Kaplan was trying to figure out an outlet, he listened to a lecture by Gary Vaynerchuk, a famous entrepreneur and marketing influencer (who also happens to be Jewish).
“One of the salient points [Vaynerchuk] had was about just finding a niche and really developing it, and then that could lead to, who knows how many opportunities,” Kaplan said.
When Kaplan thought about his niche, one key interest stood out: Alcohol consumption in Jewish tradition.
So he bought the internet domain jewishdrinking.com and got to work. But after populating the site with blog posts, it still felt incomplete.
That launched Kaplan into producing his own podcast, “The Jewish Drinking Show,” which has now published 164 episodes since 2019. The show features various guests, covering topics ranging from the business of kosher drinks and the historic Jewish alcohol industry, to drunkenness in the Talmud and the dangers of binge drinking.
All, of course, rooted in Jewish text.
“I love pursuing Jewish texts,” Kaplan said. “It’s funny, because even the Jewish drinking thing, the joke my wife likes to say is, ‘Of course, my husband takes something that’s really cool and makes it nerdy.’ But I like putting out content, [and] being able to put out content about Jewish things is an important part of my rabbinate.”
For Kaplan, it all comes down teaching others – a primary driver for why he became a rabbi in the first place.
The journey
Growing up in Columbus, Kaplan was a regular participant in the pluralistic Jewish youth group BBYO. There, he remembers being asked a fundamental question: Do you want to be a leader who is a Jew, or a Jewish leader?
“I was like, I want to be a Jewish leader – and part of that was living Jewishly,” Kaplan said. “So it’s like, okay, well, how does one live Jewishly?”
That led Kaplan to taking on more Jewish observance. Inspired by that philosophical challenge, and his experience at BBYO, Kaplan also decided he wanted to teach others about Jewish life.
“Just as I was exposed to these ideas…as a young person, and I felt that it helped my life, I, too, wanted to be in a position where I could also help improve people’s lives by exposing them to Judaism,” he said.
As Kaplan thought about what to do, he decided to become a quintessential Jewish leader: A rabbi.
He attended Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, a Modern Orthodox rabbinical school, and moved to Southern California to work with Jewish college students and young professionals, and raise a family.
It was during this time that Kaplan really found a passion for alcoholic drinks.
“My drinking journey really began when I was 30, and I came across a really fascinating cocktail book, which inspired me to pursue cocktail making,” he said.
As a result, he did a video project: 30 cocktails in 30 days by a 30 year old. But when he took a Jewish educator gig in Pennsylvania, Kaplan couldn’t find the right supplies for cocktails.
So Kaplan did the math – what was the common denominator for his favorite cocktails? Bourbon. Exploring the whiskey world also led to a passion for beer when he found out the local liquor store was doing Friday beer tastings.
“My first love that year was Belgian style beer…and I remember having my first IPA and thinking it was so disgusting,” Kaplan said. “But by the spring, I was like, ‘I could drink this, this hoppy thing is really fascinating.’”
To Cincinnati
While in Southern California, Kaplan and his family felt a pull back to the Midwest.
“Ohio came into our minds, because every single time we visited my parents in central Ohio, my wife would look at the housing prices and say, ‘Oh, these are affordable houses,’” he said. “And that’s very true compared to Southern California.”
In 2018, Kaplan’s wife, Rachel Kaplan, took the job as executive director of Hillel at the University of Cincinnati, and the family moved here. “I was the trailing spouse,” he joked.
Shortly after kicking off “The Jewish Drinking Show,” the world took a turn. The COVID-19 pandemic shut down much of work and life, and Kaplan found himself with more time on his hands to commit to his podcast.
At the same time, he was serving as the rabbi at Cedar Village, the Jewish-founded nursing home.
“It was very meaningful for me to serve that demographic in the most challenging of times,” Kaplan said. “I will never get as much honor served to me in a job as I received there, and the relationships I had with the residents…it was really great to be able to be there for them.”
Afterward, Kaplan came to work as the campus rabbi at Cincinnati Hillel – starting only a few days before Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
It was another difficult time, and supporting the students through it was hard work for the Hillel team. This year, however, things are looking up with an extremely engaged freshman class, Kaplan said.
“It really took us by pleasant and happy surprise,” he said. “They’re just, even right out the gate, that first week of school and on throughout this first semester…really, really excited and engaged.”
Jewish Drinking
As life and work changed over the past few years, Kaplan kept up his work on “The Jewish Drinking Podcast.”
Alongside the podcast, he also publishes weekly Torah study sheets (which Kaplan hopes to compile into a print volume in 2025) and now does speaking events – often alongside drink tastings.
“Very few people are doing this in person, but also a lot of Jews are interested in this content, but it’s not being offered,” Kaplan said.
“And not only that, but it’s also very engaging, especially since you don’t really need to know [much],” he said. “So whenever a shul or a JCC does an event like this, it’s not like you already need to know [many things about Judaism]. There’s no assumption of prior knowledge here.”
Alcohol tastings are popular and bring out many Jews who otherwise may not come to a Jewish event or institution – a win-win for clergy and Jewish engagement professionals.
But there is a downside: Alcohol also comes with plenty of baggage. Many people struggle with alcohol misuse and addiction, and some Jews see a site and podcast about Jewish drinking as risky.
At one point, Kaplan recalled, he tried to partner with a particular event, and the organizers refused to work with him.
“They got really uncomfortable, and they said, ‘No disrespect, but that’s not the vibe we’re going for,’” Kaplan said. “But that’s one of the radical things that I’m going for…to embrace recovery and really struggle with it. I think that’s an important consideration.”
Since the beginning of the project, Kaplan has had a page on his site about alcohol misuse, and has also done episodes on problems with alcohol.
In his experience, people who enjoy alcohol want little to do with organizations focused on alcohol misuse – and vice versa. But Kaplan hopes to bridge that gap by talking openly about both.
As he continues his work, Kaplan also has another, more local, mission in mind: Getting his Jewish community at Sha’arei Torah Congregation to drink more beer.
“They are bourbon people,” Kaplan said. “I still try, in my own weak ways, to encourage people to drink beer…It’s totally fine. I can do that. It’s what I do. But in my own time, it’s great to connect with fellow craft beer lovers.”
