Bulleit is getting more firepower. The rising star in Diageo’s portfolio of giants is releasing a higher-proof barrel strength version of the popular premium bourbon. The release has been rumored throughout the world of whiskey bloggers for months, ever since a label was approved by federal authorities. Full story
Bulleit
Diageo outlines plans for finishing up its Bulleit distillery
Officials with Diageo PLC have provided an update on the London-based company’s $115 million distillery project in eastern Shelby County. The Sentinel-News reports that two of the project’s six warehouses have been completed, and the entire project is expected to be finished by the end of this year. Full story
Bulleit distillery on track to make bourbon by the end of 2016
Since a groundbreaking in August 2014 at the $115 million Bulleit distillery in Shelbyville, one warehouse has been completed and another is nearly finished, Diageo representatives said Tuesday.
Already, 40,000 barrels of Kentucky bourbon are being stored there, according to a news release. Full story
We Wanna Be Friends With Bourbon Master, Tom Bulleit
In 1987, Bulleit Bourbon founder Tom Bulleit—a Vietnam veteran and former attorney—recreated his great-great-grandfather’s whiskey recipe with a few tweaks, creating one of the best American bourbons ever produced. Consistently ranked in the top 10th percentile of the world’s best whiskeys, every bottle of Bulleit is aged for at least six years. Full story
‘Craft’ Bourbon Is in the Eye of the Distiller
Craft-spirits distilleries have mushroomed in the U.S. to 588 from 51 over the past decade, according to data from the American Distilling Institute. The trade group predicts craft-spirits makers’ share of the U.S. spirits market could rise to as much as 8% by 2020 from the current 1%, posing a threat to liquor conglomerates such as Diageo PLC and Pernod Ricard SA. Full story
Whiskey maker Templeton Rye reaches settlement in lawsuits
The makers of Templeton Rye have agreed to settle three class-action lawsuits that disputed claims the company made about the origin and production of its whiskey. Under the agreement, the company must change its labeling on its bottles and language on its website, according to documents filed in Polk County District Court. Templeton Rye also must establish a fund that could be used to pay back customers who bought bottles of the drink, The Des Moines Register reported. Full story
Local distillery to celebrate major milestone on Derby Day
The Stitzel-Weller Distillery will mark its 80th anniversary on Derby Day, and a new microdistillery is operating there, as well as Diageo’s Bulleit Frontier Whiskey Experience. On Thursday, Stitzel-Weller barreled its first whiskey in more than 20 years at the Shively site. Full story
Trekking the Bourbon Trail should include distillery tours, sampling
Kentucky’s Bluegrass Country, a scenic expanse of rural agriculture communities between Lexington and Louisville, is most famous for its horse farms with white picket fences surrounding lush green pastureland — and rightly so, with a postcard photo stop around almost every bend in the country road. But growing in many of those farm fields is corn, just the right corn to make a good mash, the precursor to the second most famous attraction in the region: bourbon whiskey. Full story
As competition among bourbon producers heats up, craft distillery added to Bulleit Frontier Whiskey Experience
The friendly rivalry for the hearts and throats of bourbon lovers is about to get more interesting, particularly in Louisville where major distilleries are focusing their tourism efforts. Six months after opening the Bulleit Frontier Whiskey Experience at the historic Stitzel-Weller campus in Shively, Diageo is adding a small still, which will make about a barrel of spirits a week. Full story
Video: Bourbon World Goes Berserk
3rd Annual Farmington Pimento Cheese Social
We’re kicking off Derby week with one of our favorite events, The Pimento Cheese Social. Yes, we love our pimento cheese down here in the “South.” This is a great annual event that includes great pimento cheese focused dishes from local restaurants as well as great bourbon and cocktails. Thanks go out to Tom Bulleit for the great bourbon and rye and to Josh Durr of Hawthorne Beverages for the awesome cocktails.
Diageo targets the booming bourbon market with Bulleit
Five years ago, Bulleit Bourbon moved 40,000 nine-liter cases with a marketing budget of zero dollars. Now Diageo, the world leader of the premium spirits market with 27% share, plans to launch its award-winning Bulleit brand in 14 new markets across the globe and sell one million cases in the near-term. Full story
Diageo Targets the Booming Bourbon Market with Bulleit
Five years ago, Bulleit Bourbon moved 40,000 nine-liter cases with a marketing budget of zero dollars. Now Diageo, the world leader of the premium spirits market with 27% share, plans to launch its award-winning Bulleit brand in 14 new markets across the globe and sell one million cases in the near-term. However, there’s a catch. The company must do this secretly or it risks alienating its most loyal customers: hipsters. Full story
Diageo announces restoration project at Louisville’s historic Stitzel-Weller Distillery
Diageo today announced that it plans to invest an initial $2 million to develop the Stitzel-Weller Visitor Center at Louisville’s legendary distillery. The company will renovate the original administrative building to bring to life the history of the Stitzel-Weller Distillery through artifacts from the site’s archives; a whiskey education section; an homage to the people, land and water of Kentucky; and a celebration of the heritage, brands and people behind Diageo’s award-winning collection of American whiskeys. Read the full press release
Diageo Aims High With Bulleit Bourbon
Tom Bulleit remembers the reaction from executives at Diageo when he offered to help out with marketing the whiskey that bears his family’s name: “Tom, we’d just as soon you sounded like a hick as a marketer.”
It was 2001, and Diageo had just bought the wine-and-spirits portfolio of Seagram Co. for $8.15 billion in a joint bid with France’s Pernod Ricard SA, thereby inheriting Bulleit Bourbon, a little-known Kentucky whiskey with a smattering of devoted drinkers across the U.S. Full story
Bulleit bucks the trend and increases ABV of its UK whiskey
News this week that Diageo’s Bulleit Bourbon would be changing its UK recipe and introducing a higher ABV is counter to what US bourbon and whiskey brands tend to do in the UK market. Full story
The Spirit of Kentucky: Bourbon is more of a commodity than many realize
Say you want to start your own bourbon label. How would you do it?
A contract craft bottler — such as Strong Spirits in Bards town, which bottles Temptation Bourbon, Redemption Rye and High Rye Bourbon, and many others — can help you “source” bourbon. Full story
Why San Francisco is obsessed with Bulleit
For many years, when Tom Bulleit took his annual trip to San Francisco, he only had one gift to share: that familiar orange-label of Bulleit bourbon.
“I can remember sitting in Bourbon & Branch about 10 years ago, a bunch of bartenders are chatting with Tom and they’d say things like ‘Tom, you make this wonderful (what we call rye-forward) bourbon, you ever think about making a rye?’” says Steve Beal, a locally based senior master of whiskey for Diageo and one of only 15 Masters of Whiskey in the world. “Tom would say, ‘Well, I make bourbon,’ but then he’d poke me. ‘You think we ought to make a rye?’ I’d say maybe, but next year the same thing would happen.” Full story
Bourbon PR 