The fastest way to make money in a slow-return business like distilling is to buy someone else’s aged whiskey, hitch it to a historic brand, market it heavily within a tourism and tasting experience, then grow and groom it for a sale to a larger company.
Problem is, none of that is easy or inexpensive or happens all that quickly in a marketplace rife with competitors bent on similarly ambitious goals. The struggle is real as emerging challengers wage war against established whiskey-making giants flush with cash, mega-budget advertising strategies, dominant shelf presence and distribution.
This is the space into which Jill Bakehorn and Barry Brinegar have entered the hyper-competitive American whiskey market with Wm. Tarr Distillery.
Wm. Tarr Distillery President Barry Brinegar, left, and CEO Jill Bakehorn, right, who also owns 903 Venues, partnered to resurrect the historic brand. Chantel and Mark Stoops, head coach of UK’s football team, are also investors in the venture.
“It is competitive,” said Brinegar, president of the distillery and owner of Lexington Creatives, a marketing firm. “But if you look at the growth and performance of Kentucky bourbons and whiskeys, they’re outperforming every spirit globally. There’s room for us.”
Especially when time is a helpful variable, said Bakehorn.
“Our products have to age anyway,” said Bakehorn, Wm. Tarr’s CEO, and owner of 903 Venues, an event company operating The Grand Reserve, The Speakeasy and Bluegrass Catering Company. “And since our plan for the distillery will happen over many years, time is essentially on our side.”
In creating the brand, Brinegar, a whiskey enthusiast and past board member of the Lexington Bourbon Society, wanted to be part of the bourbon boom rather than remain a mere participant. And as a veteran events manager, Bakehorn was eager to create a tourism experience at 1170 Manchester St., Suite 190, in the historic Pepper Rickhouse.
“We thought this brand in particular just wanted to resurrect itself,” Brinegar said. “William Tarr’s story — the man himself — is really interesting and a little complicated, too. And we all know bourbon drinkers always like good stories.”
“William Tarr’s story — the man himself — is really interesting and a little complicated, too. And we all know bourbon drinkers always like good stories.” —Barry Brinegar
In 1871, Tarr was a wealthy investor and property owner who partnered with Thomas Megibben to buy the Ashland Distillery. Located on Manchester St. at the outskirts of Lexington, Ashland was the first federally registered distillery in the U.S. There, Megibben and Tarr made bourbon and rye under the Wm. Tarr Whiskey and Old Tarr Whiskey brands.
As happened often in the period, a fire destroyed the wood-framed distillery in 1879. Determined to rebuild, Megibben and Tarr got partners to invest in and reopen the distillery a year later under the Wm. Tarr & Company name. The fully modern factory filled what was then an impressive 6,000 barrels a year. (By comparison, that’s five day’s production at Heaven Hill Distillery in 2020.)
Over time, Tarr and his son, Thompson, acquired nearly all the distillery’s shares — an investment that proved financially ruinous for the family. Near the end of the 19th century, the value of William Tarr’s holdings in the Kentucky Union Railroad plummeted, and an ongoing slump in whiskey sales drained his distillery’s reserves. In 1897, Tarr declared bankruptcy and, in hopes of squaring up with his lenders, he liquidated the distillery and its assets, and sold vast tracts of farmland, commercial real estate and gold bonds.
Ultimately, Tarr’s distillery was purchased by the dreaded Whiskey Trust, which made his namesake whiskey brands until Prohibition halted production in 1920. The only evidence of Tarr’s distillery today is a structure known as Bonded Warehouse #1, located at Manchester Music Hall.
A thoroughly modern business model
Watching the industry’s largest players ease into bourbon tourism over many years convinced Bakehorn and Brinegar to move into it quickly. Building brand awareness through customer engagement and tasting is important, they said, to creating fans who’ll buy Tarr bottles repeatedly. Brinegar said that made launching their brand with a high-quality sourced whiskey essential.
“One of our goals was to bring a product to market that consumers are going to taste, say, ‘I want a second bottle,’ and then tell their friends about it,” he said.
Though they wouldn’t reveal the producer of their whiskey, Brinegar and Bakehorn said knowledgeable industry consultants led them to some high-quality Kentucky barrels.
“That means we’re getting whiskey that was made here, placed in a rickhouse and aged in Kentucky’s perfect climate,” Brinegar said.
Currently two whiskeys — Old Wm. Tarr Manchester Reserve Kentucky Straight Whiskey (7 years old), and Old Wm. Tarr Inheritance Bourbon (12 years old) — are being sold on scheduled release dates at its visitor center. When that attraction opens in the 3,400-square-foot space, there will be tours, tastes, cocktails and a gift shop. Future plans include an outdoor patio and special events. When COVID-19 restrictions on public gatherings are lifted, the partners will launch a roadshow to promote their whiskeys.
The partners’ plans include building a sizeable distillery at which they’ll make their own whiskey and create new brands. Looking forward, the goal is to grow sales to 30,000 cases per year — a point at which they say small distilleries prove attractive as takeover targets for liquor conglomerates. Achieving that will take years, they said, and likely more outside investment to speed that growth along.
A current investor in Wm. Tarr is Chantel Stoops, whose enthusiasm for the company has turned her into an unexpected brand ambassador. She and husband Mark Stoops, head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats football team, wanted to put money into opportunities that engaged them, not just those in which they’d be passive shareholders.
“We’re getting into companies we enjoy, and this has been a good way for us to diversify,” Chantel Stoops said. “We’re sort of saying to each other, ‘When you retire, you’ll want to be part of things you like.’”
When Bakehorn learned Stoops was talking up the Tarr brand, she said, “‘You’re doing a good job for us. Would you mind doing more of it?’” Stoops recalled. “I told her I didn’t mind it at all and would. When it’s something you enjoy and it’s a product you like, it’s easy to talk about.