It was roughly three and a half years ago, when I was rummaging around Louisville with my buddy Joe Heron from Copper & Kings, that I first met Conor O’Driscoll. I wanted to see the new Angel’s Envy Distillery, which at that time wasn’t open to the public.

“I know the distiller,” Joe said to me.

The distiller at that time was Conor, who let us in through a side door and gave us our own private tour. Being that we’re distant relatives, he and I exchanged numbers before we left and continued to keep in touch.

A few years later, I about fell over with excitement when I saw that Heaven Hill had named Conor as its new master distiller. If you’re not familiar with the company, Heaven Hill is a gigantic family-run whiskey business out of Bardstown, KY that makes many of the industry’s best Bourbons and rye whiskies. Elijah Craig, Evan Williams, Rittenhouse Rye, Larceny—the list goes on and on.

While the offices are in Bardstown, Heaven Hill’s Bernheim Distillery is Louisvillle, where Conor lives today. The warehouses are also in Bardstown, but the distillery went up in flames back in 1996 when whole place caught fire. That’s when Heaven Hill transferred its operations to the gigantic Bernheim site, one of the most massive distilleries I’ve ever visited.

I caught up with Conor this last week to say hello and see what was new in his world. Our conversation is below:

David: As you know, I’ve been out of the retail industry for the last two and a half years. I’m trying to play catch up. Tell me: do people still like Bourbon? 

Conor: (laughs) Short answer: yes. Longer answer: yes, yes, yes! We’ve been talking about the boom for ten years, but now it’s a sustained solid growth. We don’t see any signs of it slowing down. COVID hit the on-premise side of our business hard, but the off-premise is still strong. One of our values at Heaven Hill is to be nimble and we’ve really been able to do that. 

David: What are some of the ways you’ve adapted to COVID?

Conor: We put a brand new, high-speed, bottling line in this past Spring and we’ve hired new people at the facility. We’ve also trained more people to help support Evan WIlliams and Elijah Craig as those brands continue to fly off the shelf. Doing all of that while keeping our people healthy and safe has been a challenge. We’re not immune from the impact of COVID—no pun intended—but we have done a good job of keeping people safe and keeping up with demand.

David: How about production?

Conor: At the distillery, it’s been full speed ahead. We are the world’s largest single site Bourbon distillery, and we’re running it as such. We’re finding ways to make more whiskey, while focusing on quality and consistency, while improving our productivity. So those have been some fun challenges. We’re running the place harder and faster than it’s ever been run. 

David: Is it a big change from what you’re used to?

Conor: Most of my career was at Brown Forman, where I worked for 14 years. Then a year and a half at Angel’s Envy. I came here in January of 2019 and it’s been awesome so far. Running the distillery and doing the master distiller stuff has been fun, but working for the Shapria family and Heaven Hill has been the best part.

David: What’s been the best part about working for Heaven Hill thus far?

Conor: The fact that we are independent and family-owned is a real breath of fresh air. The owners of Heaven Hill have a strong connection with the daily business. I speak with Max Shapria about three times a week. If there are answers I need, he’s just a phone call away. There’s not this layer of bureaucracy in between. Max really understands the business too—from the everyday minutia, to the price of corn, all the way to the big picture stuff. It helps drive our nimbleness. When we need answers, it’s quick. In a dynamic business such as this, it makes all the difference.

David: Is the size of Heaven Hill’s distillery a bit overwhelming to run?

Conor: We’ve got the same challenges as any distillery, just on a larger scale. I’ve worked in small, medium, and now extra large distilleries now and I can tell you: this is an efficient distillery. There is a ton of experience and knowledge here. Some people have been here for thirty years and I get to tap into that experience, taking what I know and then adding it to the mix. No matter how much you’re making, it’s the same five steps: milling, mashing, fermentation, distillation, put it in a barrel. We’re milling a million pounds of grain a day. We’re distilling about 500,000 gallons a day. Keeping track of those logistics to drive quality and consistent whiskies is a challenge but it’s a fun challenge. 

David: I knew Bernheim Distillery was big, but I didn’t realize it was that massive in scale.

Conor: We have 17 fermenters. Each one is 124,000 gallons, We fill and therefore have to empty four of those each day. When fermentation is done four days later, we pump that liquid into the stills. We have three stills. We distill four fermenters a day. So that creates enough distillate to fill 1400 barrels a day. We do that 24/7, year round, except for a few weeks in the summer.

David: What about new projects?

Conor: Obviously new product development was going on before I got here, but if you look at what we’ve brought out in the last twelve months, we have Larceny Barrel Proof, the new Parker’s Edition, which is a 10 year old aged in heavily charred barrels. We just brought out a second line extension of Elijah Craig as well, which is a toasted barrel finish. We also brought out the Heaven Hill 7 year BIB. 

David: I obviously missed the Larceny release. Had no idea that existed.

Conor: The Larceny Barrel Proof is absolutely fantastic whiskey and our SRP is around $50. We have thrived for 85 years by producing great whiskies and not gouging our consumers. Look at Henry McKenna 10, which won best whiskey at SF Spirits. We obviously could have charged more after demand went up, but we still sell it for a great price. The secondary market does it’s thing, but our relationship with our consumers doesn’t change: great whiskies at a great price. That’s been part of our DNA from the get go and I think consumers recognize that.

David: Any long-term projects in play?

Conor: At the distillery level, we’re working on a project called grain-to-glass. We have a field across from us in Bardstown about 250 acres where we’ve started growing grains to make whiskey here. We’ve got corn and wheat going, and from that we’ve made a high-rye Bourbon, a high-wheat Bourbon, and a high-rye rye. We’re partnering with local farmers and conservation groups to bring back rye as a Kentucky cash crop and we’ve grabbed the bull by the horns with this movement. Rye was historically grown as a winter crop here, and as a cover crop to hold the soil together. 

David: So you’re investing in local farmers to grow rye locally as well?

Conor: If farmers are planting rye as a cover crop, why not do it as a cash crop too? We’ve got local farmers that can now be profitable producing it and we’re buying it to make whiskey. This will be the third or fourth year we’ve been distilling from local grains. It still has several years to go before it’s on the shelf, but we’ve been playing around with different barrels. Our friends at Independent Stave have huge knowledge on what types of oak are available and how toasting and charring can bring out different flavors. We’ve done different types of Kentucky oak and European oak as experiments. Lots of fun stuff.

David: What’s been the most surprising thing you’ve learned about Heaven Hill?

Conor: Easily the breadth and depth of the portfolio. I have a personal anecdote. When I first started here, the liquor store around the corner from my house had a bottle of what I read as Pikeville Rye, and I was thinking to myself: who is making rye in Pikeville, KY? Turns out it was Pikesville named after the old Maryland brand and it was my company that made it! We have so many different options and so many whiskies in our book. We're not a one trick pony. We’ve got the unicorns that people chase after, but we’ve got great stuff at every price point.

David: What other changes are happening at Heaven Hill?

Conor: We’re in the midst of a huge renovation and expansion of the visitor’s center in Bardstown. Most of that will be coming on line next year: expanded retail space, three new tasting rooms, and there will be a restaurant and bar with an outside deck overlooking the warehouses. You can go into the rooftop and bar and you can see the new warehouse where we’ve put up a new glass wall so you can see the barrels aging as you have a cocktail. It’s pretty spectacular. Also there will be some new deep dive educational opportunities. There are some self guided options where you can come in and look at yeast under the microscope. I haven’t been down in a couple of months due to COVID, but from what I’ve seen it’s pretty spectacular.

David: I have to ask: how is it working out being an Irish whiskey maker in the middle of Bourbon country?

Conor: They love me, how could they not? (laughs) They put an Irishman in charge of the distillery, so not sure if I’m living the dream or living the stereotype. I’m the first master distiller of Heaven Hill that hasn’t lived in Bardstown. And I’m the first Irish distiller. Parker Beam was the MD for 56 years which is longer than I’ve been alive, so his presence still looms pretty large here.

-David Driscoll