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From left to right, Carlo Coppola, Gregory Hughes, Freddie Noe, Andy Barr, Nancy Cox, Lisa Banner, Fred Noe, Eli Capilouto, Alex Alvarez, and Seth DeBolt cut the ribbon on the new facility.
The James B. Beam Institute for Kentucky Spirits at the University of Kentucky marked its official opening on Monday, August 8th, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony held at the facility, located near the intersection of Nicholasville Road and Cooper Drive.
Established in 2019 with the help of a $5 million gift from Beam Suntory, the parent company of the James B. Beam Distilling Co., the institute functions as a pivotal hub for research and development within the spirits industry, as well as training the next generation of distilling industry employees and entrepreneurs to thrive in one of Kentucky’s signature — and rapidly evolving — industries.
“Today’s ceremony reinforces our commitment to investing in our students and Kentucky’s future,” said UK President Eli Capilouto. “It also reinforces the importance of our essential partnerships that will help us advance Kentucky. This new facility will help leverage transdisciplinary work and show students that the distilling industry needs employees from a vast array of disciplines and majors.”
The new UK campus facilities include a research distillery building, with a 30-foot column still as the centerpiece, and the Independent Stave Company – Boswell Family Barrel Warehouse, which has a capacity of 600 barrels. The maturation facility allows the Beam Institute to experiment with barrel aging spirits produced in its research distillery.
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Seth DeBolt
“This is the largest teaching distillery in the United States and in the world,” said Seth DeBolt, institute director and UK Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment professor. “It will allow us to train the next generation of distillers and researchers, and to conduct cutting-edge research on the science of spirits production.”
The Whiskey Apprentice Program, in conjunction with James B. Beam Distilling Co., delivers a robust curriculum that includes safety, bourbon grains, bourbon engineering, fermentation, public speaking, customer relations, sensory, maturation, and distillery science.
“When Beam Suntory first partnered with the University of Kentucky to create the James B. Beam Institute for Kentucky Spirits, we did so as an investment in the future of bourbon and the future of Kentucky’s workforce,” said Alex Alvarez, chief supply chain officer at Beam Suntory. “The institute has firmly established itself as a forum for continuing education and research, as well as collaboration across the industry to tackle some of our toughest challenges together. We’re proud to be an active partner in this work, pushing our industry toward a bright future.”
The Beam Institute offers engineering, chemistry, business, law, horticulture, forestry, food science, and entomology courses to address spirits industry needs in sustainable agriculture, research, and development and more. DeBolt said students will begin learning in the new facilities this fall.
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