A Coal Mine-Aged Bourbon Banking on Eastern Kentucky

Brothers Wright Distilling Co., a bourbon brand that will eventually age its whiskeys in underground coal mines, has expanded its footprint in Pike County, Kentucky, with the acquisition of Dueling Barrels Brewery & Distillery in downtown Pikeville. The deal includes not just Dueling Barrels’ production facility—which houses three Vendome pot stills, a 350-gallon moonshine still, 19 stainless steel fermenters, two cypress fermenters, and equipment for brewing beer—but also an on-site 150-seat restaurant, tasting room, gift shop, and event space.

The expansion into downtown Pikeville marks a major shift for Brothers Wright, which has thus far operated in a more rural part of Pike County (Kentucky’s easternmost county, and home to around 55,000 people), and without a public-facing site. Brothers Kendall and Shannon Wright founded the brand in 2021 on a specific premise: coal mine maturation. They had tossed the idea around since 2009—and alongside bourbon legend Lincoln Henderson, a close friend of Kendall’s, no less—but the perfect site and situation didn’t present itself until 2020, when they purchased a 1,200-acre property in Aflex.

Aflex sits on the Tug Fork River, and across the water is West Virginia. It isn’t a town, but, rather an unincorporated community named after coal businessman A. F. Leckie, whose company mined some 23 million tons of coal in the area from 1913 to 1946. When Kendall and Shannon acquired the property, they were intent on turning it into a corporate retreat, but their plans shifted when they discovered they were sitting on a network of forgotten mines that were still accessible and, more importantly, mostly intact. After months of rehabilitation work, the brothers had 1,400 acres of underground mines in which to store barrels—the only thing missing was the whiskey. So Kendall and Shannon purchased hundreds of barrels from unnamed Kentucky sources and debuted Brothers Wright bourbons in 2021.

Thus far, they’ve bottled straight; four-grain single barrel; high-rye; and wheated bourbons. Distilling will soon be in the cards—two years ago, the brothers invested $38 million in Aflex, with a 12,000-square-foot distillery (inclusive of a 14-foot Vendome column still), bottling line, welcome center, coal mining museum, restaurant, and live music venue in the works. Construction is set to be completed by the end of next year. One important change in light of the Dueling Barrels acquisition: the still initially planned for Aflex will now go to the Pikeville distillery, and the 350-gallon moonshine still in Pikeville will go to Aflex, as Brothers Wright establishes Pikeville as its site for all the distillation heavy lifting.

The mines, which reach about 8-10 feet tall (with one section stretching up to 14 feet), remain at a consistent temperature year-round, hovering around 58° F. While some would consider this an ideal environment for maturation, Brothers Wright plans to introduce heat cycling once the distillery is up and running, wherein the mine’s concrete floors will be heated with excess water from the still. Once that’s in place, underground temperatures will fluctuate between 60°F and 90°F, not quite mimicking the temperatures above ground, but enabling exploration of what conditions best suit the whiskey. There is also a more traditional rickhouse at Aflex, where the brand's barrels are currently aging. Once the mines are ready, barrels will rest on stackable racks, which can hold two barrels and be stacked up to three high in most areas.

Eastern Kentucky isn’t the bastion for whiskey making that the western half of the state is. But Brothers Wright isn’t the only one making a whiskey play on Kentucky’s Appalachian side—Kentucky Peerless master distiller Caleb Kilburn and COO Cordell Lawrence left the company in 2023 to build Eastern Light Distilling near the town of Morehead, located 66 miles east of Lexington (and about 100 miles north of Pike County), and a few other, smaller distilleries exist, though none are dedicated solely to Kentucky whiskey. Safe to say, however, that Brothers Wright is the only one making use of the Appalachian region’s rich mining history.