Diageo Breaks Ground On New Bulleit Distillery

By Richard Thomas

At a Thursday event featuring Kentucky Governor Steven Beshear, Diageo North American President Larry Schwartz and Tom Bulleit, ground was broken on what will become the new distillery for Bulleit Whiskey in Shelbyville, Kentucky.

Diageo intends to invest $115 million into the new facility, which will produce 1.8 million proof gallons annually and will initially include six aging warehouses. The operation should be running by 2016.

Bulleit has many fans, and the announcement may come as surprise to some of them, since some might believe Bulleit already has a distillery. The company has been accused in the past of deceptive practices intended to create the impression they are a historic distillery when they are not. The Bulleit Bourbon label indicates the whiskey is made in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky by Bulleit, but the actual distillation is done at Four Roses Distillery. The geographic shift from Lawrenceburg to Shelbyville can only serve to highlight that point.

Whiskey insiders are probably not surprised by the move to build Bulleit its own distillery, given the timing and that it seems long overdue. The company’s sales have grown from 35,000 cases several years ago to 600,000 cases today, a volume almost as large as what the new distillery is intended to produce. Furthermore, bourbon insiders like Chuck Cowdery have been speculating that Four Roses either intends to stop or has already stopped providing bourbon for Bulleit. If Bulleit’s supply is drying up, the need to start producing in-house and preserve the brand is paramount.