As the whiskey sourcing industry continues to grow and evolve, Whiskey House of Kentucky this week announced that its distillery will begin operations July 1, 2024.
Located on a 176-acre campus in the T.J. Patterson Elizabethtown Hardin County Industrial Park, Whiskey House will invest more than $350 million over the next decade, employing approximately 50 employees in 2024, and expanding to more than 100 employees by 2027.
Founded in 2022 by David Mandell, John Hargrove and Daniel Linde, the team that started and built The Bardstown Bourbon Company, Whiskey House was designed from the ground up to focus solely on large-scale, flexible, contract whiskey production. The business has no brands of its own.
“Whiskey House will reshape the contract whiskey market in the United States,” says Mandell, co-founder and CEO. “As the bourbon market continues to grow, we see the need for additional distilling capacity and more customer focused solutions. We will provide the highest-quality production, guaranteed capacity, and exceptional customer service for our brand partners.”
Whiskey House’s property development plan includes sixteen 41,500-barrel traditional rickhouses, a 50,000-square-foot palatized warehouse, a spent grain processing facility, a bottling facility, a rail system, as well as access to one of the highest yielding hydro stratigraphic limestone aquifers in the region, the company says, which sits 120 feet below the property.
Produced by Vendome Copper & Brass Works, Whiskey House’s distilling and processing equipment is built around a 48-inch custom still and fourteen 33,000-gallon closed-top fermenters. The company will begin operations with more than seven million proof gallons of annual capacity (112,000 barrels), with plans of expanding to more than 14 million proof gallons (224,000 barrels) in 2027.
“Whiskey House sets a high bar for advanced manufacturing in the whiskey industry,” says Hargrove, co-founder and president. “We’re making major investments in the technological capabilities of the distillery that will immediately make Whiskey House the most advanced contract whiskey production facility in the United States.”
Whiskey House has received a Microsoft for Startups Founder’s Hub Grant to accelerate the implementation of AI in all aspects of its manufacturing and distillation process.
“For the first time, our customers will have access to every data-point about their whiskey from start to finish,” says Roger Henley, engineering & technology vice president. “Not only will this information enable brands to create more innovative products and share more compelling stories about their whiskies, but it will also help optimize their businesses with critical financial, inventory, and quality reports.”
Whiskey House construction is led by Bardstown-based Buzick Construction and financed by Truist Bank.
