Diageo Doubles Its Shelby County Footprint

Diageo's Bulleit Distillery - Shelbyville, KY

Louisville Business First reported yesterday that Diageo has doubled its real estate holdings in Kentucky's Shelby County. The company has acquired, for $2.8M, 352 acres of additional land on Vigo Road adjacent to the present Bulleit Distillery property.

The same article reports that Michter's has purchased land near Springfield. It has been reported elsewhere that Maker's Mark is shopping for land near Lebanon. Not very long ago, MGP bought a large plot in northern Kentucky, not far from its Indiana distillery. Most of the major producers have acquired more land in the last few years.

Of the above, only Maker's has immediate plans to build warehouses, but that is what all of them will do eventually.

The Bulleit Distillery has only been open for a year and just half of the twelve 55,000-barrel warehouses planned for that site have been built. The distillery fills about 720 barrels a day.

Originally, Diageo wasn't planning a visitors center at Bulleit, but one is now under construction. That's another $10M. When it opens, will Diageo continue to operate the Bulleit Frontier Whiskey Experience at the Stitzel-Weller Distillery, south of Louisville? Probably. It is already on the official Kentucky Bourbon Trail.

Diageo is a huge company, with more than 200 brands in more than 180 countries. Its biggest brands include Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, Captain Morgan, Bailey's, Tanqueray and Guinness. Relative to its dominance in most other segments, Diageo is a pipsqueak in American whiskey, especially in terms of actual distilling. Its big bourbon, Bulleit (which also has a rye), is entirely sourced. The new distillery in Shelby County is years away from putting anything in bottles. Diageo does make George Dickel Tennessee Whisky at the recently-renamed Cascade Hollow Distilling Company in Tullahoma. It also owns distilleries in Canada, where it makes Crown Royal and other Canadian whiskies.

Shelbyville is about 30 miles east of Louisville, on the way to Frankfort, Versailles, Lawrenceburg, and Lexington. It already has the Jeptha Creed Distillery. Creed is new and small, but visible from the highway and clearly anxious to welcome visitors. When in Shelbyville, be sure to dine at the Claudia Sanders Dinner House. Claudia was the wife of Colonel Harland Sanders, who started Kentucky Fried Chicken. It doesn't get more Kentucky than that.