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DRINK KENTUCKY OWL® RESPONSIBLY. Kentucky Owl® Straight Bourbon Whiskey. 59% Alc./Vol. (118 proof). Kentucky Owl® Straight Rye Whiskey. 55.3% Alc./Vol. (110.6 proof). Stoli Group USA, LLC, New York, NY © 2021. All rights reserved. Kentucky Owl®, the Owl device, THE WISEMAN’s™ bourbon, all taglines or visual properties associated therewith are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPI Group S.à.r.l.

Respect the past Shape the future.

Double Gold Medal and Gold Medal winner at the 2022 San Francisco World Spirits Competition

The Owl® Takes Flight

Kentucky Owl® was founded by Charles Mortimer Dedman in 1879, operating until prohibition became law in 1916. At this point, the government seized some 250,00 gallons of Kentucky Owl®, taking it away for safekeeping.

Up In Smoke

One night, the warehouse where the illicit liquor was stored burned to the ground. Oddly, for a building filled with alcohol, the fire lasted only a matter of hours, leading many to suspect the entire Kentucky Owl® stock had been whisked away by organized crime to fuel their booming speakeasies.

The Owl® Is Reborn

A hundred years later, the great, great-grandson of C.M Dedman revived the family business and set about blending a bourbon worthy of the Kentucky Owl® name. Six years of rigorous research and experimentation lead to the first new whiskey to carry the Kentucky Owl® name and since 2017 a series of unique batches have been produced to much acclaim.

The Next Flight

With the launch of THE WISEMAN™, the next stage of the Kentucky Owl® story takes flight.

Where artful quality meets authenticity

Kentucky Owl (Bardstown, Ky.) Founded in 1879 by C.M. Dedman, Kentucky Owl offers an artfully blended line of craft bourbons and ryes, each bottled at barrel proof for the truest expression of whiskey. Kentucky Owl is for those who appreciate high quality, attention to detail, craftsmanship and authentic heritage.

THE WISEMAN™

Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey, kentucky straight rye whiskey, kentucky owl®, confiscated, mardi gras xo cask, st. patrick’s edition, takumi edition, maighstir edition.

The Night Owl Martini

Wise chai new fashioned, continental collins, owl & soda, ingredients.

• 1.5oz THE WISEMAN™ Bourbon
• 1oz espresso
• 0.75oz coffee liqueur
• 2 dashes of chocolate bitters

Add all ingredients into a shaker with ice, then shake well for 1 minute. Pour into a coupe. Garnish with espresso beans

• 1oz lemon juice
• 0.75oz simple syrup
• 6-8 mint leaves

Add all ingredients into a shaker with ice, then shake well for 1 minute. Double fine strain into a glass with ice. Garnish with mint sprig.

• 0.75oz lemon juice
• 0.5oz simple syrup (or honey)
• 3 blackberries, muddled
• Sprig, rosemary (optional)

Add all ingredients into a shaker with ice, then shake well for 1 minute. Pour into a tall glass, over ice. Top with soda.

• Chilled soda water

Build directly in a tumbler over an ice block or cubes. Stir, then add citrus zest and the botanicals of your choice, such as blueberries.

The Owl™ has landed

See the future of whiskey distilleries.

1250 BOTTLES 118.4 PROOF / 59.2 % ABV Heavily reliant on the Char 5 and Char 6 barrels for a full-flavored, spicy bourbon. Rich in consistency, and a blast of cinnamon on the finish.

1360 BOTTLES 117.2 PROOF / 58.6 % ABV The nose has corn, sweet cedar, and a spicy oak character. Rich and creamy on the front of the palate gives way to spice on the end and a hint of the cinnamon.

206 BOTTLES 107.8 PROOF / 53.9% ABV The nose is light, sweet, and creamy. Notes of oak, slight cinnamon, and hints of barbecue. It initially tastes higher in proof than it actually is, and with a touch of water, becomes mild and rich.

212 BOTTLES 116.8 PROOF / 58.4 % ABV Soft nose that smells of caramel. Light, rich, and creamy. Initial sweetness is very much there but finishes with nice barrel spice

194 BOTTLES 108 PROOF / 54 % ABV Heavy and rich nose. Maple syrup and butterscotch candy is there. A touch of graphite and charred oak. Syrupy and sweet on the front of the palate.

1634 BOTTLES 111.2 PROOF / 55.6 % ABV Nose brings to mind caramel, oak, charred oak. Some deep leather – saddle leather. Some tobacco too – sweet pipe tobacco. Deep molasses notes. Hints of cinnamon-y cobbler crust.

BOTTLES: 2,535 118 PROOF / 59% ABV Nose has notes of caramel toffee, sweet char, crème brulee, cinnamon, vanilla and apple. Bright initial rich caramel sweetness. Finish is lingering spice with deep oak notes.

BOTTLES: 9,051 121 PROOF / 60.5% ABV The nose has apple, cinnamon, warm cobbler crust, nutmeg, caramel, vanilla pudding pop, red pepper, spiced apple cider and cinnamon.

127.6 PROOF / 63.8% ABV Batch #9 has a great complex sweetness of fruit and creamy notes across the front palate, then crawls back to some more significant oak notes in the middle, before the spice of the finish spreads across the back of the palate."

Straight Rye #1

11 YEARS OLD 110.6 PROOF / 55.3% ABV The nose on this rye has elements of sweet pine, honey, nougat, vanilla, cloves and lavender. Oaky undertones, subtle cedar saw dust or fresh split cedar. "

Straight Rye #2

11 YEARS OLD 101.8 PROOF / 50.9% ABV The nose has notes of honey, cinnamon and warm cinnamon rolls from the oven. Strawberry jam. Combination of rich sweetness and baking spices. "

Straight Rye #3

10 YEARS OLD 114 PROOF / 57% ABV Batch #3 is a 114 proof Rye with its major component of the flavor profile being the 10 year old stock. It has a much richer, thicker, syrupy mouthfeel, and really brings the blend forward on the palate.

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Led by Cult Bourbons, Distillers Dream of a ‘Napa-fication’ of Kentucky

By Clay Risen

• Jan. 2, 2019

In September 2014, a bourbon brand called Kentucky Owl began to appear on liquor-store shelves around Louisville. The American whiskey market was booming, and dozens of new bourbons were showing up each year. But Kentucky Owl was different. Released exclusively within the state in tiny quantities and produced by the scion of an old Kentucky whiskey family, it had an undeniable mystique — and a price tag of $170.

To skeptics, Kentucky Owl was proof that the whiskey trend had reached its Tulip Mania moment. At the time, few bourbons commanded even $50 at retail. Plus, the man behind the brand, Dixon Dedman, didn’t even make the whiskey himself; he bought barrels from other distilleries, then blended them. Surely the bubble was about to pop.

It didn’t. Within a few weeks, nearly every bottle of Kentucky Owl had sold out. On the secondary market, flippers were asking — and getting — five times what they had paid in stores. “Before you knew it, before anybody had reviewed it, you had people camping out to buy a bottle of Kentucky Owl,” said Fred Minnick, the editor of Bourbon+ magazine and the author of “Bourbon: The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of an American Whiskey.”

Several factors gave Kentucky Owl a boost. It had heritage: Mr. Dedman, whose family runs a century-old inn popular with bourbon fans, named it after a long-defunct brand created by his great-great-grandfather. Early hype by retailers, along with rumors about the source of the whiskey, also built early interest.

Above all, Kentucky Owl debuted at a moment when whiskey fans, flush with money from a surging heartland economy, were willing to pay extra to get the next hot thing in bourbon. Soon, Kentucky Owl had achieved cult status — and signaled a fundamental change in the American whiskey market.

“People have called us the Screaming Eagle of bourbon,” Mr. Dedman said in August, referring to the $3,000-per-bottle cabernet sauvignon whose debut, in 1995, represented a shift toward stratospheric luxury in the Napa Valley wine industry.

Not that he’s complaining. In January 2017, less than three years after introducing Kentucky Owl, Mr. Dedman and his business partner sold the brand to SPI Group, the Luxembourg-based company best known for making Stolichnaya vodka, for an undisclosed sum rumored to be in the high seven figures. Six months later, the new owners revealed plans for a $150 million “Kentucky Owl Park” in Bardstown, an hour southeast of Louisville, featuring not just a distillery but a convention center, two lakes and, eventually, a luxury hotel. The company broke ground in November 2017, at an event attended by Governor Matt Bevin, and it plans to open the first phase of the site in 2020.

The brand’s rapid ascent took Mr. Dedman by surprise. “I never had a vision for how fast this thing would grow,” he said.

You could say the same thing about the Kentucky whiskey industry itself. Although the bourbon market has been growing for almost two decades, a transformation has taken place in the last five years, a reshaping of the industry’s potential that most people didn’t see coming and are only now starting to grapple with.

Between 2012 and 2017, sales of bourbon whiskey — 95 percent of which is made in Kentucky — soared by more than 50 percent, to $3.3 billion. To keep up with demand, nearly two dozen new distilleries have opened in Kentucky in the last five years, including three around Bardstown, a town of 13,000 that sits in the center of bourbon country. Established companies like Beam Suntory and Brown-Forman are undertaking hundred-million-dollar capital projects, while scores of new rickhouses — the enormous warehouses used to age whiskey — dot the rolling hills around Louisville.

But the changes are about more than money and investment. Americans aren’t just buying more whiskey, and paying more for each bottle. They’re buying into an entire “bourbon experience,” from whiskey-themed boutique hotels in downtown Louisville to trendy restaurants with “curated” whiskey lists to fleets of tour buses carting bachelorette parties and corporate retreats from distillery to distillery.

“It’s unbelievable,” said Trey Zoeller, the founder of Jefferson’s, a bourbon brand based in Louisville that just built a sprawling visitors center and has plans to quintuple the size of its distillery. “Truly, you build it and they will come.”

The most ambitious people in the industry talk about the “Napa-fication” of bourbon, doing for American whiskey what Napa Valley did for American wine: not just make it in huge volumes, but elevate it to a world-class luxury status, built around a region and an image designed to generate billions of dollars in tourism, retail sales and investment. The sort of place where a $170 bottle of Kentucky Owl is actually a pretty good deal, and a far cry from the rural simplicity that bourbon was built on.

“This region has matured with the rise of the bourbon industry the way a stupid underage kid grows up to be a sophisticated adult,” Mr. Dedman said. “I would never in my wildest dreams have imagined that we’d be where we are today.”

‘The wise man’s bourbon’

Dixon Dedman is Kentucky royalty. His great-great-grandfather Charles Dedman founded one of the state’s largest distilleries in the late 19th century, and his family has owned the award-winning, 31-room Beaumont Inn in Harrodsburg, Ky., for over a century. Tall, sandy-haired and soft-spoken at 37, Mr. Dedman exudes the image of a down-home goober — his word — that barely papers over a sharp, analytical mind.

“He plays dumb really well,” said Mr. Minnick, “but he’s really smart.” (Disclosure: I’ve written for Mr. Minnick’s magazine.)

There was never a question that Mr. Dedman would go into the family business. During college, in the early 2000s, he worked at the Beaumont Inn during the summer, and less than a week after graduation he was back washing dishes. Revenues were down, though, and major improvements were being pushed back for lack of money. The inn shut down for four months every winter for lack of visitors. With Mr. Dedman’s father easing into retirement, it was suddenly up to him to save the family legacy.

Part of the problem was location. Even though it is in the middle of bourbon country, just east of Bardstown, Harrodsburg sits in a dry county — which meant the inn couldn’t cater to thirsty tourists visiting nearby distilleries.

“We’d get people coming through after seeing a distillery, and the strongest thing I could serve them in the restaurant was black coffee,” Mr. Dedman said.

That changed in 2003, when the county voted to allow restaurants in Harrodsburg to sell liquor by the glass. Mr. Dedman pounced: He started selling drinks in the Beaumont’s main dining room, and he opened two adjacent taverns, both of which became overnight successes in a town that was dying for a drink. (In 2015, the James Beard Foundation gave the inn an America’s Classics award, which it bestows on distinguished regional restaurants.)

The decision to relax Harrodsburg’s dry laws, and Mr. Dedman’s push to sell liquor, came just as the bourbon industry was beginning to recover from a decades-long slump in consumer demand. In 1969 distillers produced 1.9 million barrels of whiskey, according to the Kentucky Distillers Association; in 1999, the industry’s low point, it made just 455,000.

But in the mid-2000s, a younger generation of drinkers shifted back toward bourbon, drawn as much by its flavors as by its story as an authentic American craft. Like locally sourced food and artisanal furniture, bourbon appealed to consumers tired of flashy luxury and looking for simple, recognizable products. Between 2000 and 2010, revenues for American whiskey distilleries grew by 46 percent, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, and tourists began pouring into Kentucky to see where all that whiskey was made.

That was especially good news for a place like the Beaumont Inn. Not only were locals flocking to its bars, but a mounting number of whiskey tourists, arriving to visit nearby distilleries like Four Roses and Maker’s Mark, were lining up to stay in its guest rooms. By 2005, it was operating year-round.

Mr. Dedman had more on his mind than rescuing the Beaumont Inn. His great-great-grandfather’s distillery, which opened on the banks of the Kentucky River in 1879, had grown rapidly, thanks to the success of its flagship whiskey, Kentucky Owl. Charles Dedman gave it the slogan “the wise man’s bourbon.”

The C.M. Dedman Distillery was forced to close during Prohibition, though, and it never reopened. Mr. Dedman’s father and grandfather had often talked about restarting the brand, but it was idle chatter. In 2008, with the inn back to financial stability despite the looming recession, Mr. Dedman set out to realize their dream.

Instead of opening his own distillery — a costly and time-intensive project — Mr. Dedman decided to “source” whiskey distilled elsewhere, then bottle it under his own label. But sourcing decent whiskey presents its own challenges: Acquiring stocks of bourbon is largely a matter of knowing the right people to open the right doors. Fortunately, Mr. Dedman knew people: Generations of traveling whiskey businessmen had stayed at his family’s hotel.

Among them was Jim Rutledge, the master distiller at Four Roses. Mr. Rutledge, who recently retired after 49 years with the distillery, is widely regarded as one of the greatest whiskey makers of his generation. Starting in 2010, Mr. Dedman would buy barrels of whiskey, then bring samples to Mr. Rutledge’s home for him to assess.

Beating a $30,000 bottle of Scotch

Unfailingly polite but highly opinionated, Mr. Rutledge was not impressed. It turned out that even with access to good barrels, Mr. Dedman had something to learn about picking the right ones. “One day he had five samples, and we met over breakfast,” Mr. Rutledge recalled. “I tried them and thought, ‘How do I tell him not to ever put these in a bottle?’ I told him he might have to blend them” — a laborious process that involves taste-testing endless combinations of barrels.

Undeterred, that’s what Mr. Dedman did. After closing up the inn at night, he would set up dozens of barrel samples at a table in the back of the restaurant and methodically mix them, paying close attention to their age, alcohol level, even where they had been sitting in the warehouse (temperature affects how a whiskey ages, and temperatures vary widely in an unheated warehouse).

It took nearly four years, but he finally settled on a blend he liked. He combined the barrels, paid someone to bottle and label them, and then took them around to local liquor distributors.

Mr. Dedman insists that making a commercially successful whiskey was never his plan. “It’s not like I thought it out, like I said here’s what I’ll do year one, and then what I’ll do year five,” he said. “I never thought, we should do this because bourbon is on the move.” Looking back, he cringes at how amateur the whole operation was — he didn’t have a sales plan, or a marketing strategy.

None of that mattered. By almost all accounts, that first batch of Kentucky Owl was a transcendently beautiful bourbon, reminiscent of whiskey made in the mid-20th century, often considered a golden age of distilling. “When you pick up that bottle, Kentucky Owl just feels like Kentucky,” Mr. Minnick said. “And when you taste the early releases of Owl, it just tastes like old Kentucky bourbon from the 1950s.”

Kentucky Owl got an added boost from social media. Rumors, spread through bourbon chat rooms on Reddit and other sites, claimed that Mr. Dedman had worked closely with Julian Van Winkle III, the owner of the legendary Old Rip Van Winkle whiskey company. The information was false, but it supercharged the hype.

“People just went nuts,” Mr. Minnick said. “Kentucky Owl just has that cool factor you cannot teach.”

Other whiskey brands have begun asking three-figure prices too: A rye whiskey from Kentucky Peerless, a new distillery in Louisville, goes for an average of $120. Chicken Cock, another sourced and “revived” 19th-century brand, sells for $250. Even once-proletarian brands like Wild Turkey and Four Roses now offer limited-edition expressions at $200 or more.

But none has quite matched Kentucky Owl for sheer consumer excitement. That first batch totaled just 1,400 bottles, and never made it out of the state. Subsequent batches were similarly limited, even as demand for the whiskey exploded. Accolades piled up: In late 2014, Garden & Gun magazine named it the best drink in its Made in the South awards, while this summer Whisky Advocate gave Mr. Dedman’s first batch of rye whiskey 95 points, beating out a $30,000 bottle of Bowmore single-malt Scotch.

Whiskey fans and writers talk about Kentucky Owl as the next Pappy Van Winkle, Mr. Van Winkle’s flagship brand, bottles of which often fetch $5,000 or more. Others, betting on Mr. Dedman’s blending skills and the global growth of American whiskey, see it going even higher, to sit in the same category as the Macallan single malt or Château Latour Bordeaux.

“It has the potential to get up and stay among the world-class, luxury brands — it has that kind of cachet,” said Jeff Hopmayer, a strategic adviser in Nashville who has worked closely with several bourbon producers, including Kentucky Owl. “When I bring a bottle to a party, everyone freaks out.”

Building a Napa Valley of whiskey

In early 2017, Mr. Dedman got a call from the office of Yuri Shefler, a Russian businessman. Mr. Shefler, who lives in London, is the sole owner of SPI Group, a global drinks company best known for Stolichnaya vodka, which Mr. Shefler acquired in 1999, two years after the Russian government sold it off.

Moscow, perhaps sensing that it had made a mistake in letting go of such a valuable brand, has sued to win Stolichnaya back. So far SPI Group has defended its most valuable property, but in recent years it has also diversified, buying or starting wineries in Spain and Argentina, a tequila distillery in Mexico and a rum distillery in Louisiana. Now, Mr. Shefler wanted a piece of the bourbon boom.

He wasn’t alone. As American whiskey has demonstrated its staying power, it has attracted investors from around the world. In early 2017 Rémy Cointreau, the French drinks company, bought Westland, a craft distillery in Seattle; a few months later LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton bought the Woodinville Whiskey Company, in Woodinville, Wash. And in September 2018 Edrington, the owner of the Macallan single malt, bought a minority stake in Wyoming Whiskey, based near Jackson Hole.

But Mr. Shefler and SPI Group wanted more than just an investment in a bourbon company — they wanted to control a chunk of the bourbon experience. Kentucky Owl offered a unique opportunity: a prestigious brand with almost no footprint, a blank slate on which SPI Group could write its own bourbon story.

Mr. Dedman and his partner, Mark Carter, closed the deal in early 2017, for an undisclosed sum. (Mr. Carter and his wife, Sherri, who own an inn and a winery in California, left the company; last year they introduced their own whiskey brand, Old Carter, at $250 a bottle.)

As part of the deal, Mr. Dedman is staying on as a corporate ambassador and blender for Kentucky Owl, which will remain the company’s premier brand. Mr. Dedman’s operation will sit within a much larger project, also called Kentucky Owl, which will generate a range of whiskeys at different prices, all produced at a sprawling facility in Bardstown.

That facility, Kentucky Owl Park, represents the full expression of where American whiskey is headed. Built on a 450-acre limestone quarry, the park will be about much more than making whiskey: A visitor might get a distillery tour in the morning, eat a lakeside lunch, see a live-music show in the afternoon and sleep in a boutique hotel room that night, all without leaving the property.

“It’s about creating that overall experience,” said Rudy Costello, the chief executive of Stoli Group USA, which oversees Mr. Shefler’s American holdings. “We see the tourism in that area already, and I don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface.”

Right now, the site of the future Kentucky Owl Park is, literally, a hole in the ground; it takes some imagination to picture it as a nirvana of whiskey. But the plan also fits neatly within the overall trajectory of the Kentucky bourbon industry — a half-dozen distilleries lie within a few minutes’ drive, and all of them are building amenities like restaurants, visitors centers, parks and hotels to cater to a new class of whiskey tourist.

The typical distillery was once a utilitarian industrial plant; now it’s a boozy theme park. The recently opened Castle and Key Distillery outside Frankfort, Ky., which took over a defunct distillery site modeled after a medieval castle, sports a botanical trail and a manicured garden. The centerpiece of the new Bardstown Bourbon Company distillery is Bottle & Bond, a minimalist-chic restaurant run by the former chef at the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia. Upping the ante, SPI Group hired Shigeru Ban, a Pritzker Prize-winning architect, to design the main buildings at Kentucky Owl Park.

For local business leaders, such changes promise to turn the region into something like a Napa Valley of whiskey, a place that combines high-end retailing, resort hotels, fine dining and, flowing through it all, an unending river of tourist dollars.

“We don’t want it to be just an industry; we want it to be a destination,” said Kim Huston, the president of the Bardstown Industrial Development Corporation. Ms. Huston takes the Napa comparison seriously: She travels frequently to Northern California to study how its most famous wine region went from a sleepy agricultural community in the 1980s to being a synonym for high-end living.

“We’re probably where they were 20 years ago,” she said. “Our goal is for Bardstown to play on the world stage of luxury tourism.”

Not everyone in the region is on board with these plans. Kentucky is significantly more traditional and rural than a place like Napa, and even deep-pocketed companies like Beam Suntory can’t easily push around social conservatives who bristle at the thought of turning their towns over to tourists, no matter how much money the visitors bring in.

But the skeptics might not be able to hold out for long. Bourbon fans are already streaming into the state — 1.2 million people visited its distilleries in 2017, a 20 percent jump from 2016 and almost double the number in 2014, according to the Kentucky Distillers Association.

And after years of speculation about a bourbon bubble, distilleries and investors are confident that the expansion is here to stay.

“If you look at the total amount of bourbon sales today, it’s still less than it was in the 1970s, adjusted for inflation,” said Mr. Costello, the Stoli Group USA chief executive. “And there is still tremendous opportunity outside the United States, with some big emerging markets starting to tune into American whiskey.”

For Kentucky, the bourbon industry’s rapid change in fortune — and its transformative effects on the state economy — is something many still find overwhelming, Mr. Dedman included.

For all his business savvy and financial success, he’s still a guy who grew up thinking he’d spend his life running a small hotel in rural Kentucky. “I know what we’re doing is going to have a big footprint and make us a major player,” he said, sighing. “But it’s something I can’t get my head around.”

An earlier version of this article misidentified the location of an SPI Group winery. It is in Argentina, not Chile.

An earlier version of this article misidentified the location of the Woodinville Whiskey Company. It is in Woodinville, Wash., not Portland, Ore.

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Kentucky Owl currently blends barrels of sourced whiskey, but it may soon have a home of its own.

Kentucky Owl Is (Probably) Building A Distillery

September 29, 2017 –––––– Susannah Skiver Barton , , , ,

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Kentucky Owl Takumi Edition

In-depth review.

Classification: Straight Bourbon

Company: Stoli Group

Distillery: Sourced from an undisclosed Kentucky distillery(ies)

Release Date: September 2022

Age: NAS (Company states a blend of 4, 5, 6, and 13 year old bourbons)

Mashbill: Undisclosed blend of bourbons containing corn, rye or wheat, and malted barley

Color: Light Gold

MSRP: $150 (2022)

Official Website

Kentucky Owl Takumi Edition is the second limited edition release from Kentucky Owl in 2022, following Kentucky Owl Bourbon St. Patrick’s Edition which was released in February. Kentucky Owl Takumi Edition is a 25,000 bottle release, more than double the 12,000 bottle St. Patrick’s Day Edition release. ‍ ‍ Kentucky Owl Takumi Edition is a collaboration with John Rhea, Kentucky Owl’s master blender, and Yahisa Yusuke, Japanese whiskey master blender for Nagahama Distillery in Shiga Prefecture, Japan. John Rhea started his career in whiskey at Four Roses Distillery right out of college, eventually working his way up to Chief Operating Officer and then retiring in 2016 after 40 years with the company. Rhea also served on the board of the Kentucky Distillers’ Association for 17 years. He joined Kentucky Owl as master blender in 2021. Yahisa Yusuke is much newer to whiskey blending, but proving to be an up-and-coming blender to watch. ‍ ‍ According to the company’s press release , “ this latest limited edition release blends new and old, showcasing Kentucky bourbon through the eyes of Japanese whisky. Both Kentucky and Japan are home to whiskey lovers who respect tradition and craftsmanship, but who also admire innovation. The Japanese term kaizen — continuous improvement — echoes through this latest project. "Takumi" means "master" [or “artisan”] in Japanese, with the name of the release celebrating the art and craft of modern whisky blending. Rhea and Yahisa worked together to create the resulting Takumi Edition blend, with Rhea selecting four different formulations and sending the samples to Japan. Yahisa evaluated those samples, which represented different ages and mash bills available from Kentucky Owl®. Yahisa then created different blends with those formulations to develop one most reflective of his Japanese whisky style.”

Fresh baked bread, light caramel, and summer fruit greet the senses. Light fennel adds depth, which is complemented by a touch of tobacco leaf and light seasoned oak that add a layer of complexity. If you could describe an aroma as smooth and savory, this would be it. Not at all punchy, it’s a satisfying but even-tempered nose that’s content resting on its laurels.

Rich and full-bodied but never overpowering, flavors of oozy caramel and buttery cinnamon cake are complemented by fresh apple pie crust. Hints of dry leather and light oak layer in, adding a savory dimension. While the sip lacks an immediate WOW factor, it brings waves of complexity and a well-rounded mouthfeel. Like the nose, it trades an in-your-face punch of flavors for balance, taking a “less is more” approach, delivering on it and then some.

Cinnamon spice takes a stronger form, intensifying but once again, never overpowering. Waves of caramel and raisin follow, accented by savory seasoned oak. Balance is on point here, as the finish melds everything together, amplifying spice to a pleasing height, and tapers off nicely. Expected, balanced, and a nice ending to a well-rounded sip.

Kentucky Owl has created a premium name for itself, which led to the company’s sale to Stoli Group in 2017 by the company’s modern founder Dixon Dedman, the great, great, grandson of the original founder, C.M, Dedman. During Dixon Dedman’s tenure and thereafter, some Kentucky Owl whiskeys reached near cult-status, and with the acquisition by Stoli Group, plans for a $150 million “Walt Disney like” Kentucky Owl Park are underway. The collaboration between Rhea and Yusuke worked asynchronously - Rhea formulated four blends representing different ages and mashbills, which were sent to Yusuke to further blend, applying his Japanese whiskey style of blending to the base formulations. Blending a range of whiskeys to create a final product is commonplace in Japanese whiskey - with much of the attention on the blend and each of the components treated more like an ingredient that is intended to be used as a component of a finished product. While bourbon is seeing increased attention to blending, it has been historically different, with a much greater focus on creating products that are intended to be good as-is…possibly as a single barrel but also blended with barrels intended to deliver the same flavor profile. It’s fitting that Four Roses Distillery, Rhea’s former employer, is somewhat of the exception to this, at least as Kentucky major distilleries go. They use two mashbills and five yeast strains to create ten deliberately different bourbon flavor profiles. Their entry-level Four Roses Bourbon uses all ten recipes, with the intent of taking different component parts of each to create a cohesive end result. It’s clear that the intention with Kentucky Owl Takumi Edition was to create a cohesive blend, that was very much bourbon, but also very much influenced by a style of blending that intended to create a well-balanced product. This is where Takumi Edition shines, because it really does succeed in what its makers set out to do. Its balance from start to finish, even-tempered delivery of flavor and potency, and well-rounded mouthfeel are all traits that may not WOW you immediately, but when combined, they stand out and really shine. It’s a final product that I can’t imagine anyone who likes bourbon wouldn’t like, and some might even love. It doesn’t have a unique barrel finish, it’s not a barrel proof monster, and while it does contain bourbons distilled from both rye and wheat focused mashbills, that’s not the point. Takumi Edition is as far away from polarizing as you can get, but at the same time noticeably more cohesive than most bourbons on the market.

While the product is 100% Kentucky straight bourbon, the packaging has a very obvious Japanese feel and style to it. The ages of whiskeys in the blend include 4, 5, 6, and 13-year-old bourbons, but percentages aren’t disclosed. It’s also a fairly large limited release, at 25,000 bottles. At $150, the price isn’t surprising for a Kentucky Owl product, given their pricing for past releases of St. Patrick’s Edition at $135 (2022) and Confiscated at $125 (2019). I always like to see more specific details, but it’s clear Kentucky Owl is telling us as much about the details of this blend as they would like to. Given the infusion of higher end Kentucky-sourced bourbons recently that include a focus on age, blending, or both from Calumet Farms , 15 Stars Bourbon , Lucky Seven , Kentucky Senator , Blue Run , and plenty of others, Takumi Edition lands on the higher side of the price scale when considering just age and proof, and you have to consider the fact that the percentages (by age) in the blend are not disclosed. Applying weight to its overall balance brings it up a notch though, as it’s arguably equal or more balanced than the comparisons. Still, $150 is a bit too high, and as a result we are seeing retailers reduce the price on this slightly to accommodate market demand and what I assume feels like a fairly robust supply in their inventory systems. I think it’s a buy around $125, and would recommend pulling the trigger if you find it at that price and can afford to splurge.

Taking America’s Native Spirit and applying a Japanese style of blending to it, Kentucky Owl Takumi Edition is a masterpiece in artful blending.

As the bourbon and American whiskey market expands, distillers and producers continue to create new products to get consumers’ attention. With the risk of being relegated to merely a gimmick , ultimately the brands have to take a leap of faith, and the market gets to decide. While applying a unique finish or focusing on high age or a unique mashbill (or blend of mashbills), can garner attention and get into new flavor territory, Takumi Edition takes the opposite approach. Focusing on maintaining a traditional bourbon flavor profile and delivering it in an even-tempered manner that’s laser-focused on balance and drinkability, Kentucky Owl Takumi Edition is a bourbon that succeeds in showcasing what focusing on blending and the blenders who create them can produce.

Written By: Nick Beiter

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Kentucky Owl Bourbon and Stoli Unveil 21st Century Design & 3D Rendering of its New Pyramid Shaped Distillery

• Posted on November 17, 2018
• By Distillery Trail

When it comes to making bourbon, there are some strict guidelines that have to be followed to legally be labeled bourbon. When it comes to being labeled a Kentucky bourbon there are a few more steps that have to be followed. The spirits must be made in Kentucky “from grains which are cooked, fermented, and distilled in Kentucky” and “aged in oak barrels for a period of not less than one full year.” To be called ‘Kentucky Straight Bourbon’ it has to be aged at least two years. That’s Kentucky Bourbon 101.

When it comes to a Kentucky distillery experience there are a few things that visitors expect, most importantly a tasting, that’s what it’s all about after all. But, there are a few other things that the 1 million plus people that visited a Kentucky distillery last year count on seeing when they visit a distillery. If we boil it down to the basics, they expect to see mashing of grains, fermentation tanks, copper stills (I know, many are stainless steel but people expect to see copper), and rickhouses filled to the ceiling with dusty oak barrels sitting on their side with a bung pointed toward the Angels.

Throw in a few more recent amenities like a tasting room with a fireplace, a full service bar serving cocktails and maybe even a sit down restaurant. From all this, you kind of get a picture in your mind of what to expect on a visit to a modern distillery.

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Now, take all those pre-conceived notions about what to expect on a visit to a distillery and throw them out the window. Kentucky Owl , The Wiseman’s Bourbon established in 1879 was purchased by Stoli in January 2017 from fifth generation owner Dixon Dedman. Later that year in November, Kentucky Owl officially broke ground on their new distillery location on 420 acres at Cedar Creek Quarry. The quarry, of course it’s a limestone quarry, sits smack dab in the middle of Bardstown, Kentucky, the Bourbon Capital of the World.

At the time, Stoli officially announced a $150 million investment to build a new distillery destination that would include a freshwater lake for fishing and recreation, a gourmet restaurant, a convention center and hotel, a vintage passenger train and a refurbished train station. Not your typical distillery.

Disney World Ain’t Got Nothin’ on Kentucky Owl Park

The company has just announced that they hired world-renowned Shigeru Ban Architects to create a state of the art Kentucky Owl Park. Based on the drawings and animated video the company has released, Kentucky Owl Park will be like no other distillery in the world. Shigeru Ban Architects will design and build out the 420-acre site at the quarry to include rickhouses for aging, a bottling center, a state-of-the-art distillery and offices for the American Whiskey Division of Stoli® Group. The plans include a train station that will allow Bardstown’s vintage dinner train to stop on the property. Kentucky Owl Park will become a must-see destination, connecting to other distilleries along the Kentucky Bourbon Trail and create a tourist experience unlike any other.

Watch this video to take a virtual walk through Bardstown’s first pyramids.

The company says the Kentucky Owl Park will be a collection of one-of-a-kind buildings that are rooted in industrial vernacular design, each of which will be carefully sited within the natural rustic landscape. Shigeru Ban’s vision for the site hearkens back to the 19th century with long-span steel structures that have been reinterpreted with the use of mass timber. Each building will have a distinct structural form that incorporates visual elements of the local bourbon-making process. The existing quarry pits will be turned into beautiful lakes with crystal-clear, limestone-filtered water.

“When evaluating architectural firms for Kentucky Owl Park, it was imperative that the selected group boasted a strong portfolio of work, but also that their plans for this initiative truly pushed the boundaries within the design world and along the Bourbon Trail,” said Yuri Shefler, Owner of SPI Group, the parent company of Stoli Group and the Kentucky Owl brand.

Dean Maltz, Managing Partner of Shigeru Ban Architects, added, “We are honored to have been chosen to build Kentucky Owl Park and are eager to bring the joint vision of Stoli Group and Shigeru Ban to life. This is an opportunity for us to challenge ourselves like never before, as these plans serve as our first Kentucky distillery and incorporate unique highlights and nods to the industry and its history, while prioritizing light and a connection to nature, features the architectural world has come to expect from our firm.”

Shigeru Ban Architects is an international architectural practice founded in 1985 by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Shigeru Ban. The firm has offices in Tokyo, Paris, and New York, and has constructed over 100 projects across six continents.

Construction on the massive project is expected to begin in 2020 and will take a couple of years to complete. Can’t wait!

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Related Stories It’s Official: Stoli Breaks Ground on $150 Million Disney-like Distillery for Kentucky Owl Bourbon Stoli Group Gets its Talons into the US Whiskey Market with Acquisition of Kentucky Owl Bourbon Is Kentucky Owl Bourbon About to Spread Its Wings to Build a $150 Million Distillery?

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Kentucky Owl Maighstir Edition

OVERALL RATING

Whiskey Review: Kentucky Owl Maighstir Edition

• by Jeffrey Nitschke
• November 2, 2023

Tasting Notes:

Editor’s Note: This whiskey was provided to us as a review sample by the party behind it. This in no way, per our editorial policies , influenced the final outcome of this review. It should also be noted that by clicking  the buy link  in this review our site receives a small referral payment which helps to support, but not influence, our editorial and other costs.  

As a young whiskey reviewer, it has been my privilege to learn about the tremendous women working in the spirits industry. From trying some of the best drams Scotch has to offer by Dr. Rachel Barrie , to learning about the investments major distilleries have made to promote careers for women in whiskey, to reviewing whiskey from female led brand Milam & Greene , I have had a small window into the growing equity in a field historically dominated by men. 

This is by no means isolated to whiskey personnel. Currently, women make up around 30% of bourbon/whiskey drinkers, a number which continues to grow at a rapid pace, as exemplified in my good friend Mere Smith of the Austin Scotch club who told me: “I love Scotch!” (expletives omitted).  

It is then my good fortune to review the first whiskey released from Kentucky Owl  by new Master Blender Maureen Robinson, in collaboration with the retiring Master Blender John Rhea: the Kentucky Owl Maighstir Edition. Ms. Robinson is a 45 year veteran of the spirits conglomerate Diageo, and one of the first women to hold the title of Master Blender. Ms. Robinson has blended well known brands such as Johnnie Walker and Singleton and was honored by the Scotch community with the award “Master of the Quaich” in October 2022, one of the highest awards in the industry. 

As a huge fan of Scotch whisky, I was thrilled at the idea of a Scotch Master Blender at the helm of a premium craft bourbon brand, Kentucky Owl. Speaking on the Maighstir Edition, Ms. Robinson noted, “[o]ur latest limited edition release exemplifies the dedication of Kentucky Owl to offer Bourbon enthusiasts a glimpse into the world of Scotch whiskies…” A blend of 4, 5, 8, and 9 year-old bourbons, it “…has the citrus perfumed floral green notes with hints of sweetness and oak reminiscent of a lighter style Scotch but still keeping all the credentials of a bourbon.”

One theme Ms. Robinson hits on is the relatively narrow range of flavors typical bourbons focus on. For a category with tremendous potential for variation in finishing barrels, mash bills, temperature/location of aging barrels, bourbons consistently taste like, well, bourbon. The same cannot be said for Scotch whisky and Irish whiskey, with entries having tremendous variation in flavor, despite having (in most cases) a mash bill of 100% malted barley.

The Kentucky Owl Maighstir edition separates itself from other bourbons, mixing in more grassy and nutty notes than I encounter in most bourbons. Ms. Robinson is off to a great start. 

Tasting Notes: Kentucky Owl Maighstir Edition

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Vital Stats : A blend of 4yr, 5 yr, 8yr, and 9 yr bourbon; 100 Proof (50% ABV); $150/750ml.

Appearance : Pale-orange amber.

Nose : Hints of lemongrass float in-between strong odors of toasted cedar and unroasted coffee beans. If I’m not mistaken, there is a slight medicinal note of surgical spirit, which is a common and welcome note to many Scotch whiskies. 

Palate : A surprisingly light opening of fruit zest gets quickly pushed out by hefty oak and cardamom spice. Cherry blossoms and malt can be noted before the finish flattens out to bitter orange rind, roasted hazelnuts, and almonds, which lingers long after the dram is gone.  

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