Willett Distillery

Lambert Willett and his son Thompson set up the Willett Distilling Company just outside Bardstown.^1,2,3 On St. Patrick's Day, 17 March 1937, the first barrel went into Warehouse A.^1,2,5 That first batch was 300 bushels, about 30 barrels.^1,2,5 On 8 January 1960 the distillery filled its 100,000th barrel.¹ A gradual downturn in the bourbon market ended bourbon making on the property in 1976.⁴ By 1981 the family had leased its stills to an ethanol producer, which went bankrupt and left the equipment ruined.^2,5,6 The ethanol plan failed when fuel prices fell, and the distilling plant shut down completely in the early 1980s.^2,5,6

On 1 July 1984, Thompson Willett's daughter Martha and her husband, Even Kulsveen, bought the company and the property from him.^1,2,5 They renamed the company Kentucky Bourbon Distillers.^4,5,6 They bottled the old Willett stocks at first, then more and more whiskey bought from other distilleries.^1,5,7 By 1991 almost all of its bourbon, sold in bottles and ceramic decanters, went to export markets, mainly Japan.⁷ Their son Drew joined the business in 2003.^1,4 Their daughter Britt and her husband, Hunter Chavanne, joined in 2005.

After several years of renovations, the family started the distillery again on 21 January 2012, and first used its copper pot still a few days later.^1,4,5 On 27 January 2012, what would have been Thompson Willett's 103rd birthday, the first barrels of new bourbon went into Warehouse A.^1,4 The plant runs 3 stills: a column still, a doubler, and a patented pot still built by Vendome Copper and Brass.^5,6,9 The copper pot still is gnome-shaped.² The whiskey ages in eight warehouses on site.^5,10 In October 2012 the company announced it would go back to Willett Distillery as its main business name.