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Rendering
Rendering
After a hiatus of nearly 60 years, whiskey is set to again begin flowing at the historic James E. Pepper Distillery under the iconic brand name.
Owner Amir Peay and his Georgetown Trading Co. -- which has owned the Pepper brand since 2008 and produces rye, bourbon and ale under the Pepper name -- announced Wednesday plans to being operating inside the old site. Peay said the targeted opening date is mid- to late 2017.
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Amir Peay
Amir Peay
“This is a momentous day for the Pepper brand,” Peay said to a gathering inside the still-raw space that included Mayor Jim Gray, district developers Barry McNees and Tony Higdon, and others. “This has been a dream project for many years for us.”
Gray framed the announcement as continuing the district’s success and the growing economic development benefits from bourbon’s worldwide growth.
“It’s just a great day to be in the Distillery District in Lexington. It’s an exciting announcement. It has deep roots in our authentic history,” he said. “That’s what we’re here to talk about: The rebirth of the James E. Pepper distillery right here in the heart of Lexington.”
Gray said the distillery would bring new jobs. Peay said that at least initially the operation would employ four to six employees and would operate as a boutique distillery. Peay’s company currently produces rye, bourbon and ale under the Pepper name. He said said Pepper bourbon is produced from spirits made in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, and is bottled in Bardstown, Kentucky. Peay said the company does not employ a master distiller and would not be switching production of it’s current line.
“We are sell a very popular line of whiskies. We sell a whiskey that wins a lot of awards but at a great price,” Peay said. “And we are going to build a small craft distillery here. The scale and the size of production would not allow us to make whiskey here and sell if for the same price as our current product line. So what we are going to do is we will probably start blending in some of the whiskey that’s distilled here into the existing line. We will always continue to work with third parties for the existing line, but we will of course have new whiskies, new product lines just from whiskey distilled here.”
According to the company, the Pepper brand traces its history to the dawn of the republic, when Virginian Elijah Pepper settled and began making whiskey at the site currently occupied by the Brown-Forman-owned Woodford Reserve Distillery. A couple generations later, scion Col. James E. Pepper, credited with the creation of the classic Old Fashioned cocktail, sold the old site and, in 1876, built the James E. Pepper Distillery in Lexington. The site is now a National Historic Landmark.
The brand enjoyed decades of success and even the advent of Prohibition didn’t put the company under, as it was among a handful of distilleries that were allowed to continue production for so-called medicinal purposes. But changing times and tastes did what teetotaling policy couldn’t, and in 1958 the Lexington distiller was shuttered.
In recent years, the entire 27-acre Pepper campus west of downtown has undergone a stunning Rennaisance under the nurturing guidance of developers including McNees and Higdon.
“I was romanced by it,” McNees told Business Lexington last year, referring to the notion of helping return the area to the bustling glory of its heyday. Around 2005, McNees and his associates started working toward creating a bourbon-themed destination zone – seeking public financing, purchasing more parcels, creating partnerships and leading efforts on zoning designations. Over time, McNees said he was encouraged to “think bigger,” and his initial vision soon evolved into a mixed-use arts and entertainment district that would house a variety of residential and commercial spaces.
In the past several years the campus has become a go-to food, drink and entertainment hotspot, home to a growing number of businesses including Ethereal Brewing, Middle Fork Kitchen Bar, Crank and Boom Ice Cream Lounge and The Break Room.
In fact, the reconstituted Pepper Distillery won’t be the first producer of bourbon. That designation belongs to Barrel House Distilling Co.