Smith Journal – January 2019

111 SMITH JOURNAL

the queen of kentucky

IN AN INDUSTRY RULED BY OLD MEN AND EVEN OLDER

RECIPES, BOURBON MASTER DISTILLER MARIANNE EAVES

IS CONCOCTING SOMETHING NEW.

Writer Oliver Pelling Photographer The Malicotes

MCCRACKEN PIKE MIGHT BE THE
MOST KENTUCKY ROAD IN KENTUCKY.
OLD-FA NGLED WEATHERBOARD
HOUSES, PORCHES BIG ENOUGH FOR
THE EXTENDED FAMILY, TRUCKS OUT
FRONT, UNFILLED LETTERBOXES BY
THE ROADSIDE. DRIVING ALONG IT IS
LIKE DRIVING THROUGH A FILM SET
DESIGNED IN KENTUCKY’S IMAGE.

..........................................

But we’re here for something that doesn’t seem
particularly ‘Kentucky’ at all. Because if you
press on down McCracken, your eyeballs will
chance upon an elegant – and entirely out of
place – European-style castle. Where most
castles were built to keep kings and queens
safe from harm, this one was built for
making booze. Lots of it.

Founded in 1887 by Colonel Edmund Haynes
Taylor Jr., a man often referred to as “the
father of the modern bourbon industry”, the
limestone fortress was once the home of the
Old Taylor Distillery Company. At its peak,
the 113-acre distillery produced a thousand
barrels of whisky every day. The grounds also
feature sunken gardens inspired by Windsor
Castle, as well as a now-defunct train station
named after the Colonel himself.

Since 1972, however, Mother Nature had done
everything she could to repossess the land
the distillery stood on. With the first bourbon
boom over, its doors closed and its whisky
all but gone, the building and its grounds
had been left to rot. But nature didn’t work

fast enough. In September 2018, after a

painstaking four-year restoration process, the

distillery was reopened under new ownership

and a new name: Castle & Key Distillery. (The

‘key’ comes from the distillery’s key-shaped

springhouse, from which it draws its water.)

And the feather in the distillery’s cap: one

Marianne Eaves, bourbon’s first female

master distiller since at least Prohibition.*

“It was a beautiful, snowy winter day,” Eaves

remembers of the first time she visited the

Old Taylor Distillery, on December 18, 2014,

the day after her 28th birthday. Driving along

McCracken Pike, its trees sheathed in ice,

she concluded that it was the most beautiful

place she’d ever been. “Then I kept driving, and

the castle just popped up out of nowhere. It

looked like some kind of fairy wonderland

and I thought, ‘No, this is the most beautiful

place I’ve ever been.’” Eaves had been invited

for a tour of the distillery by owners Will

Arvin and Wes Murry. At the time, she was

working at Brown-Forman – one of the largest

American-owned wine and spirit producers

in the country, purveyor of the enormous Jack

Daniel’s and Woodford Reserve brands, to

name just a couple.

Eaves began as an intern at Brown-Forman

in 2009, and worked her way up to the role

of master taster. Thanks to her tenacious

work ethic and background in chemical

engineering, it wasn’t long before she found

herself in the oice of her boss’s boss, fielding

a rather unexpected question: whether she

wanted to be the next Woodford Reserve

master distiller. “I was like a deer in the

headlights,” she remembers. Thankfully,

Eaves caught her breath and gave her answer.

“I was so surprised, because I didn’t see any

other female master distillers. I had no idea

that it was even in the realm of opportunity.”

Her answer, for those playing at home, was yes.

Born in Tennessee, Eaves moved to Louisville,

Kentucky with her family before she turned

two. Of her journey as a distiller, she dispenses

with any romantic foundational stories.

“My parents didn’t really drink around the

house,” she confesses, “so I don’t have that

story about having bourbon in my bottle as

a baby or anything like that.” But as roughly

95 per cent of the world’s bourbon originates

from Kentucky, and there are more barrels

of bourbon in the state than there are

people, it was never far from reach.

The state’s connection to the drink goes back

to the 18th century, though it’s tricky to find a

timeline of much repute. It’s thought that Scots,

Scots-Irish, French, English and other settlers

brought distilling over when they settled the

region in the late 18th century. Elijah Craig, a

Baptist minister, is said to have been the first

to age a spirit in charred oak casks. Others give

credit to one Jacob Spears. Most contend it

was more of an evolution, the work of many

hands over many years, rather than

an invention by a sole pioneer.

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