03-04-2025
Large, new Kentucky distillery closes amid $2.2 million lawsuit, liens
A large, new Kentucky distillery apparently is sitting idle amid financial difficulties, less than 14 months after filling its first barrel.
Garrard County Distilling Co., which opened in January 2024, was sued for nearly $2.2 million in October in Garrard County Circuit Court by Doss & Horky, the general contractor that built the distillery at 450 Southern Soul Way in Lancaster.
According to the lawsuit, the contractor also has placed a $2.2 million lien against Garrard County Distilling's property with the Garrard County Clerk's office. At least one other lien also has been reported.
The distillery also has furloughed workers for at least two weeks, according to news reports by WLEX 18, which cited Lancaster Mayor Michael Gaffney. Gaffney was not immediately available for comment.
The phone for the distillery appears to be disconnected; the distillery's parent company, Staghorn in Atlanta, did not respond to a request for comment.
Founder Ray Franklin has left the company, according to a spokesman.
'We started building in 2020, and we were able to keep it quiet because of COVID,' Franklin said in a 2024 interview. 'We quietly built one of the largest all-new distilleries in the country.'
According to WLEX, the distillery owes more than $250,000 in unpaid property taxes, due in April.
The distillery is also suing supplier Kentucky Steel Buildings, Panels and Supply for more than $1.2 million over the collapse of a warehouse roof in February 2021, and American Industrial Contractors over the collapse of a crane in November 2022. Both cases are ongoing.
The distillery is one of the largest independent operations in Kentucky, with two 45-foot by 36-inch column stills capable of filling up to 150,000 barrels a year, founder Ray Franklin said in 2024.
The $250 million project by Atlanta-based spirits company Staghorn sits on 210 acres about 30 minutes south of Lexington, with a 50,000-square-foot distillery, 18 fermenters and three rickhouses. The company planned to build up to 24 25,000-barrel warehouses by 2030.
'We're swinging for the fence,' founder Franklin said in a 2024 interview. 'In my opinion, we've caught the golden age of distilling.'
Garrard County Distilling in February 2024 named Lisa Wicker as its first distiller, luring her away from the Lyons Brewing & Distiling Co. in Lexington, owned by Alltech. Wicker left the company just a few months after her hiring.
Garrard County also planned to offer contract distilling to other small labels.
Gov. Andy Beshear welcomed the addition to Kentucky's bourbon landscape in a news release last year, saying, 'Garrard County Distilling Co. is Staghorn's first distillery and the dedication and size at which they are entering the category is a true testament to the worldwide appeal of bourbon from our great commonwealth.
'Staghorn's investment is a welcome addition to the Lancaster and Garrard County communities, as well as to Kentucky tourism. I want to thank the company's leadership for their vision to grow in the commonwealth, contributing to Kentucky's position as the bourbon capital of the world.'
Parent company Staghorn sells All Nations Whiskey bourbon and rye, as well as Prohibition Reserve, a blend of rye and bourbon.
The first releases were produced using barrels sourced from Wilderness Trail Distillery in Danville; last year, Staghorn had about 17,000 barrels of the original whiskey aging on site that they said would continue to be used while Garrard County's whiskey matured.
The name is a nod to a poster that hung in many bars during Carrie Nation's temperance crusade in the late 1800s: 'All Nations Welcome Except Carrie.'
Carrie (or Carry) Nation, a Kentucky native, was born in Garrard County, earning it the nickname 'the birthplace of Prohibition.' A member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union in 1900, Nation gained fame as a hatchet-wielding crusader against alcohol, smashing bars in Kansas and Missouri.
Franklin transported and reconstructed her Kentucky birthplace stone by stone to the distillery site for tourists to visit.
The distillery's shuttering, at least temporarily, comes at a time when some other Kentucky bourbon makers also are pulling back on production amid industry uncertainty.
Global spirits giant Diageo, which makes Bulleit bourbon in Kentucky, paused production at its Lebanon plant from February through June and is closing a bottling line at another facility.
Brown-Forman, which makes Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey and Woodford Reserve Premium Bourbon, in January laid off about 12% of its workforce (about 650 people) and permanently closed its Louisville cooperage.
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