Kentucky Artisan Distillery Plans Life Without Jefferson's Bourbon

The sign by the roadside reads, “The Official Home of Jefferson’s Bourbon,” but the place could be mistaken for a general store or a farm stand. It's neither—it’s the home of Kentucky Artisan Distillery in Crestwood, Kentucky, where this contract distiller set up shop in 2012. But the sign will soon need an update: for the past decade, Kentucky Artisan has made most of the liquid for Jefferson’s, but that will change later this year, as Jefferson’s gets ready to open its own distillery about 60 miles down the road in Lebanon, leaving Kentucky Artisan to pursue other projects.

For some contract distillers, losing their biggest client might be cause for despair, but Kentucky Artisan master distiller and COO Jade Peterson looks forward to carving out a new path, one that puts greater focus on the distillery’s own brands. That starts with its Artisan Series, a new line launched in February that’s the distillery’s own brand and plays to its established strengths. “We’re going with the recipes we’ve made the most of along the way,” he says of the new series. “Our wheated bourbon will likely be the most prominent release, and we’ll start that as a 2 year old. Then we’ll have a lot of specialty recipes, one of which will be an American single malt. We’ll also have a grain-to-glass white dog.” Other releases that have joined the Artisan Series since its launch are a straight rye and a high-rye bourbon. For the first year, these bottles will be distillery exclusives, with plans to expand gradually.

In tandem with the debut of the new house brand is a new tasting and visitor space called the Clubhouse, which opened in late January and is located between the distillery and its barrel warehouses. “Visitors are able to go in and pour their own samples of whiskey—you’ll walk up to one of five different barrels, pull your sample, and then work through those with one of our distillers,” Peterson says, adding that there will be five different mashbills available. “They’re all picked out of our warehouse, so it’ll be the same whiskey that’s going into Kentucky Artisan bottles.” Tickets to the Clubhouse Experience start at $30 and include a commemorative glass and samples from all five barrels. Eventually, Peterson would like the model to include a fill-your-own bottle station.

As for losing Jefferson’s, Peterson spotlights some other important clients on Kentucky Artisan’s roster: Cream of Kentucky, a historic bourbon brand revived by master distiller Jim Rutledge back in 2019, and Whiskey Row, another bourbon brand, this one created by the late Kentucky Artisan founder Steve Thompson in 2021 that’s now under the Avalon Spirits umbrella. But Peterson expects Kentucky Artisan’s own brands to take a growing piece of the pie. “I’m looking forward to being able to highlight these whiskeys that we’ve made for years,” Peterson says.