Whisky Magazine – August 2019

Whiskey Issues Kentucky

34 Whisky Magazine | Issue 161

few blocks further down Main Street

from Old Forester, was named Global

Craft Producer of the Year by Whisky

Magazine earlier this year, only four

years after opening its doors.

"This award isn't just about the

product,” says Kentucky Peerless co-

founder Carson Taylor. “It's about the

distillery, the people who work here,

how the product is made and where it's

made. We are honoured to receive this

award, we consider it as validation for

taking a nonconventional approach."

“We’re not going to get cocky about it

by any means,” says Kentucky Peerless

co-founder Corky Taylor. “We love that

we have it because we’re a fairly new

distillery – we’ve only had our doors

open for four years – so we want to be

humble by winning this. But we want

to still try to figure out how to make it

better every day.”

“We’ve had the opportunity to meet

people from all over the world,” Corky

Taylor says.

“Our best state is Wisconsin, so it’s

amazing how many people we get from

New York to California and all over

the world. We never knew this would

happen, but we are excited to talk

to these people. It's fun meeting

people from all over the world who

come in here.”

Outside of Louisville, organised

Bourbon tourism is booming

Distilleries have long been welcoming

places to learn about Kentucky and

Bourbon history together, and even in

the tough days the industry understood

the importance of hospitality when

it came to turning casual fans into an

army of ambassadors. During the last

year Castle & Key has finally opened

to the public for tours, while Buffalo

Trace began distillation in its ‘Bourbon

Pompeii’ exhibit, both extremely

exciting occurrences to whiskey geeks.

Now that things are going well, the

industry is redoubling on that effort

to turn every visitor into a Bourbon

evangelist, and state, county, and city

governments and tourism agencies

are working together to achieve the

maximum ROI.

“Bourbon tourism continues to

grow by leaps and bounds in the past

year,” says MeetNKY VP of sales and

marketing, Julie Kirkpatrick. “Our

hotels, bars and restaurants are all

reporting big increases in sales. I feel

like we are more connected to the

Commonwealth than ever and we

have done a solid job defining our

uniqueness as part of the Cincinnati

region, the high spirited part of the

These pages, from

left to right:

Bourbon City

Cruisers, Retail; Castle

& Key Distillery; The

still at James Pepper

Distillery; A column

still; A display at the

Frazier Museum.

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