Horse Soldier Farms, The New Home of Horse Soldier Bourbon, Officially Opens

When Horse Soldier Bourbon was founded in 2015 by John Koko and a group of retired Green Berets including Scott Neil, it was a brand without a home. In the early days, Horse Soldier was contract distilled at an undisclosed Ohio distillery, but the goal was always to move production to southern Kentucky—specifically near the Cumberland River, where the founders had conducted a training mission just before their deployment to Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11th attacks. As part of Task Force Dagger, the Green Berets would secretly infiltrate the country on horseback, which is where the brand got its name.

In late 2021, Koko and Neil broke ground on Horse Soldier Farms, a $200-million build-out on a former golf course in the city of Somerset that includes a distillery, visitor and activity centers, outdoor event space, wedding chapel, retail outlets, and more. Nearly five years later, the project has been completed, and now Horse Soldier Farms is open to the public.

Horse Soldier Farms sits on a 240-acre campus overlooking Lake Cumberland in the rolling hills of Kentucky. In terms of production, it uses a custom distillation setup designed by Vendome that includes an undisclosed number of cookers, fermenters, stills, and barrel-filling systems, along with modern grain-handling systems. There’s currently one aging warehouse on the campus, but the brand plans to construct additional ones off-site to support future growth. That might not sound like a lot, but Neil says that the outpost was built to be scalable when the time comes to expand production. When operating at full tilt, Horse Soldier Farms is capable of churning out 100,000 barrels annually. The facility is currently wrapping up its commissioning and startup activities, and it’s expected to officially start production sometime this year.

Horse Soldier Farms was built with tours and visitors in mind. “It was designed as a fully integrated bourbon destination where guests can experience every stage of the whiskey journey: from grain handling and distillation to barrel filling, maturation, blending, and hospitality experiences,” Neil explains. To support that goal, one of the brand’s long-term goals is to eventually construct a separate facility specifically for aging, blending, and innovation, which will serve as the “centerpiece” of the guest experience. Nothing is set in stone just yet, but Neil confirmed that one of the early concepts is to build a small cooperage on-site so guests can experience the barrel-making process, while maintaining another space specifically for barrel finishing—an area of production that has never been a main focus for the brand.

Horse Soldier showed off the new facility at a two-day grand opening event over the July 4th weekend, which seems like a fitting choice considering the brand’s patriotic roots. The event was headlined by a pair of live music events, with IHeartRadio Music and ACM Award-winning singer-songwriter Chris Janson, best known for his hits “Buy Me a Boat” and “Fix a Drink,” playing a show on July 3rd and Nashville country duo LOCASH taking the stage on July 4th. There was also bull riding both days, with the Professional Bull Riders (PBR) league hosting the “American Freedom Invitational” shows that brought prominent riders and bulls to an outdoor arena on the distillery’s grounds. (Last year, Horse Soldier was named the official bourbon of the PBR teams.) The event concluded with a fireworks display on the evening of the 4th.

The grand opening also kicked off Horse Soldier’s tour program, which will be a major part of campus activities going forward. For more information or to book a tour in advance, visit the Horse Soldier Farms website.