"Tasting Restoration" at Castle & Key in the Old Taylor Distillery

 

Mitch Farr, Trevor Jones and Tim Schouten in front of the Old Taylor Distillery building.

One of the things I love about whiskey is how intertwined it is with history, storytelling, and marketing - all passions of mine. All of these were on full display in the final stop of our Kentucky Bourbon Trail adventure: Castle and Key Distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky. The distillery very graciously showed us around, and we had our guide, Murray all to ourselves. The story Murray told us was a remarkable one of innovation, decline, and ultimately restoration.

Old Crow distillery ruins.

The distillery is housed in the castle-like distillery building once founded by whiskey legend Colonel Edmund Haynes Taylor and given to his son Jacob Swigert Taylor to operate. The elder Taylor had his hands full operating the Old Crow distillery a short distance down the road.  Old Crow was once an industry giant but is now in ruins save for a few warehouses owned by Jim Beam.

The Taylor Distillery's fate was very nearly the same as Old Crow's, but in 2012 Castle & Key co-founder Will Arvin saw photographs of the building, and knowing that a rise in bourbon tourism was already coming along with the bourbon boom, decided to take see the building for himself.

Apparently when Will showed up at the address, the realtor handed him a hard hat and a flashlight and more or less refused to walk around the property with him. What he saw included collapsing roofs and boarded up windows, but also some amazing architecture with a rich history of innovation.  Will, and later his partner, Wes Murray, were convinced they could restore the facility and build a new bourbon brand around it.

The Birthplace of Bourbon Tourism

In the post-prohibition era Margie Samuels of Maker's Mark gets much of the credit for opening up distilleries to the public. While this credit is well deserved, when one goes back to the pre-prohibition era we find that the Taylors did it first, right here at the Old Taylor distillery!

Signs of this are all over the distillery, from the railroad tracks out front that once delivered passengers to the distillery to the pavilion roof over the key shaped springhouse that Taylor designed to show people that the clear limestone filtered water was the "Key" to his excellent quality bourbon. There is also a sunken garden on the side of the property opposite the spring, which Castle & Key has restored and uses to host weddings and other events.

Castle & Key Distillery hosts weddings in the Old Taylor Distillery's restored sunken garden.

Innovation at the Old Taylor Distillery Preserved Alongside Modernization

EH Taylor is well known as the man who modernized and industrialized bourbon production. And there are signs of this innovation everywhere in the distillery, from the use of COR-TEN weathering steel in the manufacture of cooking tanks to ingeniously placed barrel rolling rails. You can also see how train tracks ran both in front (for passengers) and in back (for freight) of the distillery.  At the same time, there are also signs of innovations that didn't work out, like the use of a tobacco farming machine to move barrels around the property. 

In many ways, the best part is that Will Arvin and Wes Murray have preserved as much of this history as they can, while building a modern distillery and tourist destination around it. Perhaps the best example of how history has been preserved alongside modern technology is near the old distillery tanks, where you will see an iPad controlling the cooking process in the modern distillery in the same room as you will find the COR-TEN steel levers that were once used to add grains manually.

At Last!  Tasting some Castle & Key whiskey

You've had more than your usual dose of history on this one, so let's get to some tasting notes, shall we? We first headed down to a rehabilitated rickhouse to draw a sample of a yet-to-be released wheated bourbon directly from the barrel with a copper thief.  

Posted by The Whiskey Mafia on Saturday, September 24, 2022

I clearly got the thief a bit too low in the barrel on this draw, because as you will see from some of my pictures, I got a fair quantity of barrel char in my sample cup.  Next came the delicate task of carrying my sample across the grounds without spilling any, so I could taste it alongside a flight from the distillery's bar that included their small batch bourbon, batch one and batch two of their Restoration Rye, and a Restoration Rye Single Barrel.

Castle & Key Wheated Bourbon Barrel Sample:  Undisclosed mash bill of at least 51% corn with wheat as the primary flavoring grain and malted barley.  Undisclosed proof - cask strength sample.

Nose:  Vanilla, fresh baked bread, caramel

Palate: Caramel, vanilla, leather

Finish: Warming sensation initially in the upper throat and then moving gradually to the upper chest.  Lingering wheat bread notes.  

Castle & Key Small Batch Bourbon: Mash bill of 73% white corn, 10% rye, 17% malted barley. Blended from a batch of 40 barrels with a minimum age of 4 years.  96 proof.

Nose: Vanilla, caramel, citrus, pepper

Palate: Vanilla, black pepper, green apple, baking spice, bread

Finish: Lingering pepper notes and leather.  Moderate warming sensation in the upper throat

Castle & Key Restoration Rye 2022 Batch #1: Mash bill of  63% rye, 17% yellow corn and 20% malted barley.  Blended from a batch of 60 barrels with a minimum age of  3 years. 113 proof.

Nose: Wintergreen, rye bread, vanilla, light floral notes

Palate: Rye bread, black pepper, baking spices, lightly sweet

Finish: Lingering black pepper and sweetness, moderate warmth in starting in the upper throat and moving to the belly

Castle & Key Restoration Rye 2022 Batch #2: Mash bill of  63% rye, 17% yellow corn and 20% malted barley.  Blended from a batch of 60 barrels with a minimum age of  3 years. 105 proof.

Nose: Rye bread, vanilla, light minty notes

Palate: Vanilla, baking spice, black pepper

Finish: Lingering black pepper and sweetness, moderate warmth in starting in the upper throat and chest

Castle & Key Restoration Rye Single Barrel Cask Strength, Barrel #1564: Mash bill of  63% rye, 17% yellow corn and 20% malted barley.  Single barrel with a 4 year age statement.  119.2 proof.

Nose: Vanilla, caramel, light floral and spearmint notes

Palate: Vanilla, caramel, cinnamon, black pepper

Finish: Lingering black pepper and molasses, warming in the upper throat moves gradually through the chest

Closing Thoughts

We enjoyed our visit which was welcoming and gracious from the moment of our arrival. The neat sample flights and the cocktails we tried were delicious, and Murray was both knowledgeable and entertaining as a guide. The only disappointment for us was that we arrived too late in the day to bring home a bottle of the small batch bourbon. Castle & Key only releases 100 bottles per day, and it was gone long before we got there at 3:00. We each brought home a bottle of Restoration Rye, however, and we each had our own favorites between the Batch 1, the Batch 2, and the Single Barrel. The bottle shop is beautiful and definitely worth a stop no matter when you get there.

We'd like to thank Castle & Key and Murray for hosting us and sharing so much information about the history of their distillery and their restoration efforts. It's a truly amazing story of renewal for what had been a lost gem of the pre-prohibition era.  

Cheers!

-Trevor, Mitch, and Tim