Kentucky Bourbon Trail Part 13: Peerless
- After work on a Saturday there wasn’t any time to do anything except have an early dinner. I drove to downtown Louisville and this sign caught my eye.
I parked in a mostly vacant lot with an old fashioned payment system. It was essentially a giant box with a slot for each parking space. I shoved the posted $2 into my chosen slot and forced it in with the flat tool hanging from a chain.
I was too late for the last formal tour but the young lady behind the counter saw my camera and offered to take me into the still room for a few photos.
She explained that Peerless is an old brand that had not survived Prohibition. Dark times in America. The same family, the fourth and fifth generations, returned to the family profession. They bought this building in 2014 and renovated it into a distillery. They retained the original Kentucky Spirits Production number, DSP-KY-50. In 2015 they filled their first barrel since 1917. Quite a long hiatus.
If you do the math, they can’t have aged any bourbon yet. They have reached the two year mark and have just poured their first rye a few days ago.
The discs above are from inside a still.
Since the rye doesn’t go on sale until May 20, 2017, and the bourbon won’t be ready until 2019, what can they sell? Where is income generated?
Offering tours gets people in. But you have to offer them something. Peerless offers moonshine.
I sampled a couple. The chocolate is pretty tasty, but I’m not really a fruit or sweet drink person.
Looking for a meal, I walked down the street and found a restaurant that, naturally, brewed their own beer.
The beer wasn’t bad, the burger was the hottest I’ve ever had. Really good.
Everybody in Kentucky seems to like making their own adult beverages.
Kentucky Peerless Distilling Company
120 N 10th St
Louisville, KY 40202
Part 14 is here.
~ Freddy
