Barrell Bourbon Gets Ready To Build Out Its Own Kentucky Distillery

Barrell Bourbon is one of the more popular non-distilling producers these days, there is no doubt. They regularly release high quality, sourced bottlings in both the bourbon and American whiskey categories. They’ve decided now it is time to add actual distilling to the mix, unveiling plans earlier this month for a new distillery in Louisville, Kentucky.

As part of the build out Barrell Craft Spirits (BCS), the company behind Barrell Bourbon, also named veteran distiller and consultant Tripp Stimson as Master Distiller, responsible for developing the product formulation for BCS as well as leading the distillery building initiative.  Stimson is a former Brown-Forman chemist who started distillery consulting services in 2013 and has served as master distiller to Kentucky Artisan Distillery.  He also built the first malting operation in Kentucky last year.

image via Barrell Bourbon

Joe Beatrice, founder of Barrell Bourbon, enlightened the Whiskey Wash last year about why he preferred bottling over opening a brand new distillery to start his business.  Now that the established, award-winning company is in its fourth year of operation, BCS will begin producing whiskey and bourbon “by the end of 2o17, with the goal of producing 1,000 barrels in the first year of operation and 2,000 in the second year.”  Once appropriately aged, BCS said, the spirits will be included in the product portfolio.

As noted above, the whiskeys related to this company are generally of high quality and well received by both consumers and the industry alike. We’ve reviewed a number of them over time, usually to favorable results. Also, over the past two years, eight different batch entries have won high praise in the Ultimate Spirits Challenge and the San Francisco World Spirits competitions, earning scores between 92-98 and 4 Double Gold medals. High ratings and top recommendations have been given as well in both the Whisky Advocate and the Wine Enthusiast.

– additional reporting by Nino Marchetti