Jason Fogg grew up in the bar business. So, it’s probably not a big surprise that he is the driving force behind Pops McCann Whiskey, his brainchild and a means of perpetuating family history. Now, Fogg has opened a storefront in Wayne, where patrons can imbibe his whiskeys, and hand-crafted cocktails.
Fogg’s mother, Mary Frances (Frassee), has been a bartender for 45 years, and his father owned a neighborhood bar in Juniata Park, Pat’s Pub. “I think my dad got the bar sometime in the ‘80s, and then, in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s, is when I had a bedroom there, in the basement, maybe four feet from the taps in the cold box. It was a room with a futon, Nintendo, and a TV,” he recalls. “All the aunts and uncles you could possibly want were upstairs, just great people from the neighborhood. Good times.”
While he was a student at Widener, he began working for his father, bartending at 18. Post-college, he pursued dual career paths.
At first, he says, “I was a beer salesman for a local distributor from 2003 to 2008, teaching the craft beer revolution before all the craft beers came out. I was teaching how to drink Sam Adams and Stella and Blue Moon and Guinness, all those beer brands. I left that company and went to Florida. It was another beer job, and I worked with supermarkets down in Florida.”
After that, Fogg pursued another dream, of becoming an actor—a dream he realized. He still acts locally. It is, he says, his true passion.
In pursuit of that acting goal, he traveled cross country to Los Angeles, hitting 10 cities in 13 days, but it was when he arrived in Lexington, Kentucky, the first stop, that Fogg experienced his epiphany.
“After a drive like that, there are two things you want to do,” he says. “You need to go to the bathroom, and you need a stiff drink. I walked into a bar, and there were no windows in this bar. There was a moment when I opened the door and the sunlight shined on all the bottles, and a light bulb went off in my head. I thought, whiskey is next.
“This is 2009, before the big whiskey boom. From what I remember, it was still a time when flavored vodkas were popular. Flavored ‘fruit loop’ vodka. But that’s when I realized I wanted to start my own whiskey company. I just didn’t know how to do it. I didn’t know how to start it. I didn’t know anything about it, and I continued on my journey.”
Turned out California was just a pit stop for Fogg. He’s a Northeast Philly guy, with a regional accent, so he moved back and found acting roles in New York in Philadelphia. But soon he found himself picking up a commission-based job selling tequila in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. And after that came a job as assistant national sales manager for Jacquin’s Prestige Liquors, America’s oldest cordial producer. And that, he says, is where he learned everything.
“I was always trying to work with the owner to make brands or give him ideas, and I kept telling him about whiskey for years, and the guy wouldn’t listen to me,” Fogg recalls. “He just didn’t want to get into the whiskey game. I kept on pushing the needle. I had a lot of conversations with people. I wanted to do my own thing. So, in 2016, I incorporated my company, J.F. McCann Spirits and Co., LLC., and in 2017, I parted ways with Jacquin’s. I was ready, and it was time.”
Fogg raised the capital to start the company, and from that point on there was no stopping him.
So, where does the J.F. McCann come from? Well, it’s a bit of family history. The company—and the whiskey—are named after Fogg’s great-grandfather, coal miner and World War I veteran John Francis “Pops” McCann. Fogg hoped to create an Irish whiskey that had a pre-Prohibition taste profile. Easier said than done, it turns out, but Jason Fogg is nothing if dogged.
Still, Fogg knew nothing of whiskey distilling, so he traveled to Ireland to learn from the masters, the folks at the Teeling Whiskey Distillery in Dublin—John Teeling, in particular. He worked with Teeling to come up with a whiskey that met his expectations of what “Pops” McCann might have consumed.
What he wound up was a smooth-drinking triple-distilled single grain 80 proof whiskey finished in American Oak Bourbon barrels.
Teeling manufactured that first Irish whiskey, and to this day, it is imported from Ireland.
In his company’s early days, you could find Fogg hawking samples of his whiskey out of the back of what he called his “whiskey wagon” at Irish festivals. The new taste caught on. In time, Fogg was able to negotiate agreements with Pennsylvania and New Jersey liquor authorities to sell the whiskey in stores throughout those states. Sales began March 12, 2018.
Since that time, Fogg has expanded his repertoire, adding two new high-proof ryes, two new Bourbons, crafted in Kentucky. More offerings are coming, including a Foggy Dew Gin.
All of Fogg’s exceptional drive and energy are poured into every one of those drinks, but his heart clearly belongs to the original Pops McCann Pre-Prohibition Style Whiskey.
“That is the style of whiskey that would have been on the ships during the Great Hunger,” he says. “It’s a four-season whiskey, the one that everyone can drink. Everyone in the family can raise a toast to the heavens and think about their own loved ones on birthdays or heavenly birthdays. Raise a toast to the ancestors who blazed a trail for them and honor their Irish heritage.”
Now, Fogg is fulfilling yet another dream—a cozy living room-style place in a storefront at 323 West Lancaster Ave. in Wayne, where visitors can sit and sample whiskeys and cocktails at their leisure—and, of course, buy a bottle or two to take home. You can also purchase Pops McCann beverages at a satellite location in the Curtis Center, Seventh and Walnut in Philadelphia.
