Every whiskey fan knows about Col. E.H. Taylor at this point due to the uber-popular label produced by Buffalo Trace.
What many whiskey fans may not know is that Col. E.H. Taylor was not only a popular figure in the Kentucky whiskey industry, he also built his own distillery in the late 1800s that still stands today! Inspired by European architecture, Col. Taylor was a pioneer in whiskey tourism, constructing a fairy tale castle on the grounds, complete with a classical springhouse and sunken garden.
That being said, the distillery had been abandoned for decades when I first started traveling to Kentucky. Back then we would hop the fence and go rummaging through the old buildings, spelunking for remnants of Kentucky Bourbon history.
For example:
Boxes of old records, bills of lading from the late 1960s! It was all just sitting there for anyone to take.
Around 2012, however, with the Bourbon boom heating up, a group of investors began looking into revamping the ancient distillery. Inspired by the history of the location and the current movements within the industry, they eventually purchased the site in 2014 and—not being able to use the Col. Taylor license owned by Buffalo Trace—renamed it Castle & Key.
After hiring Marianne Eaves from Brown-Forman to become Kentucky’s first-ever female master distiller, distillation began once again at the Old Taylor Distillery, both for Castle & Key’s proprietary labels and for contract purchasing. That’s where my friend Sean Josephs comes in.
Knowing he would eventually need to find a permanent home for his American whiskey label Pinhook, Sean and team reached out to Castle & Key about contracting futures of both Bourbon and rye whiskey. The plan was to eventually transition out of MGP distillate and move the entire line over to C&K.
Having started that transition roughly five years ago, Pinhook is now sitting on numerous barrels of 5+ year old, C&K-distilled, Kentucky Bourbon of a custom recipe, three of which just went into a “true” small batch edition that Sean and I put together a few months ago.
That private three-barrel small batch edition is not only the first ever Castle & Key whiskey we’ve seen here at Mission, it will also be dropping into stock very soon!
Join Sean Josephs and me this coming Monday at 3 PM on Instagram Live to find out more!
-David Driscoll