Bardstown Bourbon Company didn't invent the idea of contract distilling, but it did make that model more innovative, more transparent, and more modern than it had ever been—and moved it into the heart of bourbon country. The distillery was founded in 2014 and began distilling by 2016, combining contract distillation, collaborative projects, and its own branded releases at a scale that was unusual at the time. Like much of the whiskey industry, BBC has faced some tough times recently and scaled back its production, but it continues to release some truly innovative and excellent whiskeys.

Dan Callaway joined Bardstown in 2018 and moved into the position of master blender in 2025 (the distillery is now part of parent company Lofted Spirits along with Green River, a distillery that it acquired in 2022). Over that time, he’s become one of the clearest voices in blending, and was even featured in a 60 Minutes segment about the life of a bourbon barrel. As the broader market cools after years of expansion, Bardstown is balancing its in-house brands, large-scale custom distilling, and an expanding portfolio. 

Just this year, the company has released an expression using hard-to-find Garryana oak, along with a collaboration with respected Japanese distillery Mars, while Green River delivered a Honey Finished Bourbon along with their oldest expression yet, the Toasted Double Oak Distillery Select.

Callaway talked to The Unicorn Review about what the market slowdown actually looks like from the inside, how blending functions when supply and demand shift, why Bardstown rethought its visual identity, and how scale changes the creative process.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The Unicorn Review: Bardstown has become a central player in American whiskey in a fairly short time. What stands out most about where the company is now?

Dan Callaway: It started with Peter Loftin, our founder. We started distilling in September of 2016, and we came out of the gate sourcing whiskey, making blends, and doing finishes. And then we slowly started incorporating our liquid. The cool part was putting the distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky. We’ve got all the history and tradition—we’re in the bourbon capital of the world—but we bring a modern take to the industry. Innovation, collaboration, transparency; you'll see that in the building, you'll see it in the bottles, and you’ll see it in the products.

One innovation was treating hospitality as an opportunity to build the brand. Previously, brands looked at bourbon tourism as more of an obligation, a box to check. From day one, we had this amazing restaurant and bar team getting people to stay on site. Whether it's a tour thieving from barrels or cocktail classes, we were building our brand through our hospitality program. 

You mentioned the building. Can you talk about the glass-front rickhouse?

Initially, it was all glass looking into the distillery. In the corner of the warehouse was this little glass pocket. We started taking samples from those barrels, and when the sun hits them, we’d get a day-to-day change, a diurnal shift. Traditionally, in Kentucky spirits, you look at the really cold winters, the really hot summers, and you're getting an annual development from the barrel change and that interaction and wood extraction. 

We loved the flavor of that corner, so we pivoted and did an entire wall of the rickhouse facing the sunset. Every afternoon, those barrels are getting hit with direct heat, and that’s causing more flavor development, and a day-to-day change in the temperature of the liquid. We've had barrels up there for a few years, everything from new make going into the barrel to a finishing project. We’ll keep sampling and see.

Adapting to a Cooling Market

The global whiskey market is in a difficult place right now. From where you sit, what is just hearsay versus what is actually changing on the ground?

The narrative that I often hear, that I don't agree with, is that “the sky is falling.” The excitement around brands has never been higher. Look at bourbon tourism in Kentucky. Just speaking with our VIP coordinator, seeing how busy he is—the people are coming. 

Now, we do have a lot of barrels sitting, so it’s never been a better time to be a consumer, as these things age. The truth of it is, as those barrels age, people will still need younger bourbon for their releases, so the distillation side will pick back up. I think we're in the middle of a correction from overproduction, but it will correct itself over time.

Can you talk a little bit more about how that affects the two sides of Bardstown differently—contract distilling and in-house brands?

We balance both. Bardstown has had tremendous growth as the industry is flat or even a little down. Then we look at our distillation volumes and see what we need to do and what barrels we’re sitting on as our partner brands adjust their inventories. That’s a balancing act that takes the whole team. I think we’re about a year or so away from the new-make demand coming back.

When demand cools or is a bit flat on the distilling side, does that create more room for experimentation on the brand side?

Exactly. We can free up a fermenter, for example, and our team is open to doing that if there's a unique grain or something. Nick Smith, our director of distillation, has some cool projects going, and there's an opportunity to experiment if there's room in the schedule.

Is it fair to say that things are stratifying into a bit of a winner-take-more market?

That’s a good question. The huge success story is RTDs. But in bourbon specifically, you can look year-over-year, and certain brands are just having a really good time right now. Others are a little more flat, and it comes down to the quality of your liquid and the authenticity of your story.

Custom Distillation and Radical Transparency

Bardstown is very transparent about its story, even if the history isn't necessarily long. Do you think that that is a contributing factor to your success?

It’s funny, because I feel like we've been around forever, but we are such a new brand. A lot of people are still learning about Bardstown, and we're seeing that in the sales. As people learn about us, they like what they hear. I think the growth has been organic from the beginning. It’s not like we suddenly hit a switch and did something different. It's just been a slow build.

Bardstown is often described as a contract distiller, but you’ve pushed back on that language. Why?

Before Bardstown, if you wanted a bourbon, you would get the excess or an existing recipe from a big guy. You wouldn't be able to say where you got it, and you wouldn't be able to shape the profile, right? So then you’ve got all these bourbons on the back bar that are the same liquid with different labels.

What Bardstown kicked off, instead of contract distillation, was custom distillation. You pick your yeast, how long you want to ferment, the temperature off the still, the barrel. It's like you're a chef coming in and using our kitchen. That's how Peter Loftin, the founder, wanted it from the beginning.

As you've said, contract distilling used to be something that brands weren’t necessarily willing to talk about. Now there’s more transparency around sourcing and production. How do you think that came to be?

When people were buying from a large distiller, they often didn't want the public to know that was happening, or that it existed. So you weren't allowed to say where you got it from. You could get away with kind of just making up a story and slapping it on a label. And now I think there is a demand for authenticity. 

I also think our partner brands have realized that their fans appreciate the story and connection. If it’s made at Bardstown, fans know that the brand has their own recipe, and they did it their way. If you visit us, every partner brand is on the back bar. We sell our partner brands in retail. It's just a complete pivot and a different way to look at things.

Blending, Stewardship, and Green River

Talk a little bit about your background, and your history with the company.

I was a musician, my whole life. I come from a family of musicians. I was playing French horn down in New Orleans, and I was doing these tours every year that would go to China, and I met my now wife on that tour. She was from Kentucky, so I moved to Kentucky.

I had always been really deep into wine and cocktails, so when I moved I got my sommelier certification, and from there I met the people starting Bardstown. I initially came down because they were building this restaurant and beverage program, and that’s how I got into the company. As we slowly started to add expressions, I started shifting into product development, and then went full-time into blending and finishing. With the acquisition of Green River, I now oversee that for both brands. 

That leads to my next question: where does Green River sit in relation to the company?

To me, it's the perfect juxtaposition to Bardstown. If Bardstown is exploring, innovative, modern, then Green River is everything that's beautiful about classic Kentucky bourbon. It was started in 1885, DSP-KY-10, the tenth registered distillery. It’s accessible, and honestly, it's really fun to blend, because you're making these beautiful traditional profiles. We have the bourbon, the wheated bourbon, the rye, we're now launching a full-proof wheated to go with our full-proof bourbon, and then single barrels. What I'm looking at right now, as we expand Green River, is a lot of distillery-only releases. I think it's a unicorn of a brand, and we've only scratched the surface of what Green River can do.  

From a volume perspective, what would you say is the split between Green River and Bardstown?

They’re pretty much 50-50, if not Bardstown by a hair. And with the price point, I wouldn't be surprised if they kind of go back and forth.

Collaboration and Creativity

Speaking of partners, Bardstown has a huge range of collaborators. What makes a collaboration something that's worth pursuing?

We’re always looking for firsts. That might be Indian whisky barrels with Amrut, or Armagnac barrels; with Chateau de Labaude, they had to cut a hole in the roof to get the barrels out. I get excited when I hear it’s a first. These collaborations are personal relationships. Probably my favorite part of the job is partnerships, because a lot of these aren’t contracts, they’re relationships. Some of them actually start on Instagram: “Hey, do you want to do something cool?”

Do you feel there's something important about being in Kentucky for building these relationships?

Absolutely. To me, it’s the central nervous system, it's where the knowledge is. You're seeing people constantly and connecting with them, and there are so many warehouses and labs and innovation happening here. I always tell people, when they ask, "How do I get into bourbon?" I say move to Kentucky. It’s a welcoming group, too.

Cathedral, Scarcity, and 60 Minutes

When you look at the company now, what stands out to you most about its trajectory?

We're in this unique place as a spirits brand, because we're still a tiny team, and we are able to be agile and make these quick decisions–although we've grown! We now have three stills, and we're producing a large volume of liquid, but at our core, we can shift and pivot on a dime. So whether it's the Cathedral French Oak, a finish featuring rare wood, or distilling from popcorn or rare grains, we're able to innovate and explore and push flavor. 

I also think one thing that people are still finding out about is the quality of our core lineup. The six-year bourbon, the rye, the high wheat, the wheated bottled-in-bond, these are all something I think people are still learning about and discovering. The core is still our driver; that's probably 10 times the volume of the experimental side.

It feels like you can’t find that Cathedral release anywhere.

It is so hard to find, but I mean, the 60 Minutes thing just catapulted it.

What happened there?

60 Minutes was doing a story on the life of a whiskey barrel with a barrel maker, a barrel broker, and then us, since we're known for these creative projects. Someone basically said, "Hey, talk to the Bardstown guys." They were really interested in what we did with India, and then I was talking with their producer and I was telling him about the Cathedral. They were about to air their piece on the reopening of Notre Dame. So it was just this perfect timing and fit, and it was really great to have their team visit. 

Has that been your personal favorite release?

It would be hard not to say the Cathedral, for how cool that was. But I also loved one that was in the same series, the Normandie release. All the releases are different, but the flavor of that one just really resonates with me, and I was proud of the team for creating that.

What flies under the radar for me is our double-barreled rye. It’s true cask-strength rye finished in cherry wood and American oak zebra barrels, going around with alternating staves, and an infrared toast. The flavor is incredible. Every time someone tries one for the first time, they buy a bottle.

Labels and What’s Next

On the topic of bottles, you recently modified your labels. What was the thought process there?

[There was] push on the label redesign to, one, get a little more type up higher, so nothing's buried and so you can see it. Second, underneath Bardstown is a clear way to identify the bottle, whether it's bourbon or bottle-in-bond. And then, with our Collaboration and Discovery offerings, you'll see some revamping there that elevates it as well.

Can you share anything that you have coming up?

Our next distillery-only that's coming soon is Garryana oak, which only grows in the Pacific Northwest [this has been released since the interview took place—ed]. It’s rare, and it has to fall naturally. That oak with bourbon, to me, is just tremendous. We worked with a micro cooperage, Oregon Barrel Works, who do about a thousand barrels a year. We produce about 800 barrels a day, just at Bardstown, so it's been very cool to partner with them. They initially sent us some staves to play around with, and I was really impressed by the character that we were getting. It's not something you see regularly, and I think that could be a really popular one.