What’s a lot of bourbon? A whole barrel to be precise. Jim and Bev Taylor — owners of Cork & Barrel, a combined wine and bourbon bar plus retail shop — have a new product on offer: their own barrel of bourbon.
After learning the ropes of the wine store business by opening a franchise, the Taylors have gone on to develop a retail concept built around quality products, educational events and a comfortable atmosphere where their customers can sip, converse and just enjoy themselves. Now they’re adding to their selection, which already includes hundreds of fine wines and an impressive bourbon list: an exclusive bourbon not available anywhere else.
Starting in Lexington
Cork & Barrel
Bev Taylor is a Lexington native, but her career path took her away and back again. After working as a probation officer in Boston, she returned to Lexington working in the same profession. From there she moved to the Fayette County school system as an art teacher then later as a school counselor.
Jim Taylor came to Lexington to attend the University of Kentucky. He graduated business school and got a job with a local industrial electrical contracting firm, quickly becoming general manager before buying the company from the owner. He guided the company into substantial regional growth then sold it to a national cooperative in 2007.
Finding the next adventure
After selling his company, Taylor made a list of 100 possible next pursuits and methodically marked things off.
“It’s not like there was this, ‘quit my day job and go open a wine store,’ ” he said. “For some reason, I had written down ‘wine’ — just the single word. Because in travelling a lot ... I got good exposure to good food and good wine but no context for it.”
After months whittling down the list, he eventually was left with just that single word.
So he researched wine stores, looking at franchises for help getting started. WineStyles was the clear choice with more than 175 franchise locations.
Bev Taylor, having recently retired, initially watched from the sidelines. Then one night she said, “I guess I’m going to be in the wine business, aren’t I?”
The couple flew to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for a WineStyles trade show and were convinced. They signed on the dotted line and, with fresh entrepreneurial fervor, opened shop in just 10 months — opening their first-ever retail venture on Moore Drive in December 2009.
Education and atmosphere
With the WineStyles franchise model as their base, the Taylors expanded their business into a larger concept than the typical wine store.
“I didn’t want to be just selling wine bottles,” Jim Taylor said. “I wanted to be able to sell by the drink. I wanted the opportunity to be a wine bar, where you could come and taste wine and have appetizers and learn about wine.”
Learning and education formed one cornerstone of the business, with a monthly wine club as another, and the two dovetailed perfectly.
“The biggest takeaway [from having a franchise] was the wine club,” Bev Taylor said. “That was the one thing we really got from them. Ironically, it was the one thing that was optional. We use it as an education tool … to try to push and challenge our members to try things that they wouldn’t have come in and pulled off the shelf.”
Combining the wine club with by-the-glass sales creates a singular experience for wine lovers in Lexington. Their monthly ‘pick-up’ party isn’t just grabbing bottles to go. Many wine club members anticipate staying and socializing over a glass or two before carrying their bottles home.
Being able to socialize was part of the vision, too. Without TVs and with the background music kept low, the atmosphere allows customers to enjoy their drinks and the time spent with their companions.
“This is a place where you can come back to the art of conversation,” she says with pride.
Then the Taylors looked at wine events and saw two ends of the spectrum – “splash and dash” wine tastings on one end and formal pairing dinners on the other. They wanted something in the middle, something more focused on education, so they developed their own style of wine tasting event. Typically costing $25-35 and lasting an hour or two, the events feature an expert, often a vintner from out of state, to present while guests enjoy larger pours paired with small bites or appetizer plates.
Going independent
But the franchise was just the beginning.
“Within the first year we were already starting to talk about plan B,” Bev Taylor said. “We had a five-year franchise agreement but … we knew we ultimately wanted to do our thing.”
The “B” here could stand for bourbon.
“We knew we wanted to add bourbon, but it wasn’t going to be a full bar — just a wine and bourbon bar. We didn’t want to be a cocktail bar,” she adds.
When the contract expired, the Taylors closed their WineStyles franchise and opened Cork & Barrel, a concept finally fully their own, a few blocks farther north on Nicholasville Road, across from the Zandale shopping center.
Just add bourbon
With three times the square footage and beautiful wooden bar, the Taylor’s new shop was designed to highlight bourbon alongside the wine offerings. As with the wines, the bourbons are available by the glass, by the bottle, or both. They also added bourbon events, occasionally bringing in master distillers to lead the tasting sessions.
As bourbon connoisseurs know, it’s hard to judge a bourbon by a tiny sip. It takes a half glass or more to really learn a bourbon’s flavor profile. With the opportunity to order a full pour and sit and savor it, their customers can be sure they’ll enjoy a bottle before committing to it.
Buying the barrel
Seeing another opportunity to provide value and education for their customers, the Taylors contacted Buffalo Trace to buy an entire barrel.
“With bourbon being very short supply, particularly limited things, and with the demand being there we thought, here’s a way we can get [our customers] something they couldn’t otherwise get,” Bev Taylor said.
On a Wednesday morning in August the Taylors closed the store for a few hours to personally make the trip out to Frankfort. There they had a private distillery tour with industry legend Freddie Johnson. The tour ended in the barrel warehouse where four full barrels of Buffalo Trace bourbon were presented just for them.
“I’d do it five days a week if I had the chance!” Jim Taylor said. “It’s a really unique experience. To this day we talk about the differences between those four barrels.”
Bev Taylor adds: “And why that individual barrel, that single barrel, is so important in the industry — because it isn’t a blending of everything so that it all becomes consistent. It truly is unique. You’re not going to get anything quite like that one.”
After an hour of intense analysis, the Taylors picked barrel No. 102, which then got rolled to a special holding area to await bottling and shipping the entire contents to their store.
Since each bourbon barrel is different, some bourbon enthusiasts are hesitant to buy a bottle of a single barrel without being able to taste it first. At Cork & Barrel, customers can order a full glass from barrel 102 or even a flight of 102 and the standard Buffalo Trace bourbon for comparison.
Looking to the future, the Taylor say they will be expanding the single-barrel offerings. They’re already scheduled to meet with Master Distiller Chris Morris in December to pick out their own barrel of Woodford Reserve.