“Dirty Jobs” host Mike Rowe has rolled out his very own Tennessee Whiskey named Knobel, complete with a memorable sea shanty that will have you singing along by the end.
The TV host posted a message on his website over the weekend sharing details about the release of the whiskey named after the man he called “Pop,” his grandfather Carl Knobel, and how his little sea shanty came to be.
“What the world needs now is a parody of The Wellerman, the ancient sea shanty that went viral when Nathan Evans turned it into a music video,” Rowe explained. “Or maybe, the world just needs a drink? This (sic) a version of the earworm I first heard during the lockdowns, reimagined to reflect my current frustration with a broken supply chain, a crumbling infrastructure, rising energy costs, and various other obstacles that have complicated the important business of shipping my grandfather’s delicious Knobel Tennessee Whiskey to your doorstep.”
“This is for all of you who have waited, patiently,” he added.
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In a longer message on the whiskey’s website, Rowe talked about how he never planned to have a “career in television” and instead was always planning to “follow in the footsteps” of his “grandfather,” Knobel, a man he said who “worked with his hands, not his voice.”
“A man who went out of his way to avoid the spotlight,” Rowe shared in part. “A man I called pop. “An electrician by trade, he went on to become the kind of indispensable handyman who could fix or fabricate pretty much anything. To me, he was a magician.”
“As his would-be-apprentice, I mimicked Pop’s every move, tagging along on countless construction jobs, trying to absorb all the mechanical knowledge he possessed,” he added, as he explained how he took the shop classes and applied himself but nothing “worked out” the way he planned.
The Discovery Chanel host said one day his grandfather gave him the “best advice” he’d ever received.
“God gave me a toolbox, Mike,” Rowe shared. “He gave you one too. But he didn’t give us the same one. Have a look inside your own toolbox.”
So, the host said that’s exactly what he did that led him to host “Dirty Jobs” where he said he highlighted the “expertise of the workers” profiled, “people like “Pop.” And that he said is for the “same people that Knobel Tennessee Whiskey is dedicated today.”
In the three-minute plus clip shared on YouTube, Rowe sings impressively in his sea shanty about how it’s made in his grandfather’s honor.