Country music singer/songwriter Chris Stapleton of Johnson County swooshed his palate numerous times with various blends of whiskey, all in the name of work. He was sampling spirits with Buffalo Trace Master Distiller Harlen Wheatley in Frankfort. The two finally arrived at the premium-blended whiskey last March. It is now known as Traveller Whiskey.
The Grammy–winning star said of the collaboration, “Partnering with Buffalo Trace Distillery and Harlen Wheatley feels like a bucket-list scenario for me. Some things just make total sense—and this is definitely one of those things.”
Later this year or early next year, in Henry County near the rural community of DeFoe and an Amish grocery store that makes humongous deli sandwiches, a new distillery named Heaven’s Door is expected to open. It has the backing of legendary musician Bob Dylan.
On the evening of March 27, in its new distillery at Greyline Station in downtown Lexington, Bespoken Spirits—an innovative California bourbon maker known for its pioneering approach to aging bourbon—held its grand opening of a new distillery. About 1,800 people attended.
Famed Southern rock group Lynyrd Skynyrd was the star attraction of the event, playing an acoustic set. The band has partnered with Bespoken Spirits to launch its Hell House whiskey label. Band members eagerly signed the bottles of liveliness for consumers.
More and more celebrities—from musicians to sports figures to film and TV actors—are adding their names to liquor brands.
“It’s a big trend in the liquor industry,” said Carla Carlton, who goes by “The Bourbon Babe.” “For many of the escalating number of distilleries, a celebrity added to its name is a great marketing tool.”
Carlton, of Louisville, wrote the book Barrel Strength Bourbon: The Explosive Growth of America’s Whiskey, which was released in 2017. She still keeps a close eye on the industry.
When Carlton got interested in the industry about 15 years ago, she said there were around 18 state-licensed distilleries in Kentucky. The state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board says 114 distinct locations in Kentucky have an active distiller’s license today.
“Adding a celebrity’s name to your brand can cause more interest in the product. It often is also a win for the celebrity,” Carlton said.
The rise of social media has helped smaller distilleries compete with larger, well-known family operations, said Carlton. “Slap a celebrity’s name on your product, put that on social media, and you are likely to get more attention for your brand,” she said.
The idea of linking a well-known personality to a liquor is not new, said Carlton. For example, she said that Old Forester Straight Bourbon Whisky, manufactured by Brown-Forman in Louisville, was introduced in 1870 as the first bourbon sold exclusively in sealed bottles.
It initially was bottled and marketed by the former pharmaceutical salesman-turned-bourbon merchant George Garvin Brown, the founder of the prominent Brown-Forman Corporation.
The product was reported to have been named after a popular physician, Dr. William Forrester, who endorsed it for medicinal purposes. The product’s name was changed to Forester to avoid direct reference with the doctor’s name. “So, one of our first bourbons was named, in a way, after a celebrity,” Carlton said.
The boom in celebrity spirit brands exploded in 2017, when Kentucky native George Clooney sold his tequila brand, Casamigos, to alcoholic beverage giant Diageo for $1 billion.
So many liquors today vie for attention today that it’s sometimes difficult to determine which concoction is worth a shot (pun intended).
It’s hard to pinpoint how many celebrities have partnered with alcohol brands, said Ed Escott of Lexington, owner of Bourbon Obsessed LLC, a website featuring bourbon reviews, distillery reviews and other information about bourbon.
“Some of the celebrities just simply put their name on a brand and don’t pay all that much attention to what goes into it or to promoting,” Escott said. “Whereas, others are actually true bourbon [or other spirits] fans and have done a lot of work to help actually pick and blend their products.”
He includes Stapleton, Dylan and Lynyrd Skynyrd in the latter category.
Traveller Whiskey: The Singer and the Distiller
Stapleton and Buffalo Trace like to say that Traveller Whiskey represents a first-of-its-kind collaboration of collective artistry.
Blended and bottled at the world’s most award-winning distillery under Wheatley’s supervision, Traveller is the result of countless hours of testing, tasting, dedication and craftsmanship by Wheatley and Stapleton.
“Bottles from barrels that Harlen has cared for have been with us for every note we’ve ever recorded, backstage before shows, and in all the moments we’ve celebrated along the way,” Stapleton said. “What we’ve achieved with Traveller Whiskey not only represents our shared history but also a common artistic vision and uncompromising standards of taste. I couldn’t be prouder of what we’ve made.”
“When making art—and we really do think that both Chris’ music and the whiskey we make at Buffalo Trace are art—you experiment, test, adjust and don’t give up until you’ve got it right,” Wheatley said. “That’s why we experimented with more than 50 blends before agreeing that Blend No. 40 would be it for Traveller.”
Bottled at 90 proof, Traveller Whiskey is characterized by notes of oak, sweet maple, tart currant and leather. Complex aromas of vanilla, aged fruit and buttery shortbread are rounded off by caramel and a touch of oak. The flavor profile also showcases a touch of sweetness, followed by spice, toasted nut and oak flavors, closing with a robust finish.
Traveller is a combination of whiskeys hand-selected from the award-winning distilleries of the Sazerac Company, Buffalo Trace’s parent company.
The title of the whiskey comes from Stapleton’s debut solo album, Traveller, released in May 2015.
At Heaven’s Door in the Bluegrass State
Heaven’s Door Spirits, the whiskey brand Dylan founded, is building a new distillery in eastern Henry County on a 160-acre site of rolling hills astride Six Mile Creek. The property once was owned by Squire Boone, Daniel’s brother.
Quietly under development since 2017, the distillery has been producing small batches of liquor on a still since 2018. It also is working on The Last Refuge, a boutique restaurant bar in Louisville that had a soft opening earlier this year, with a grand opening planned for fall.
The businesses, owned by Spirits Investment Partners in Chicago, said the whiskey “embodies the uncompromising passion and restless spirit of Bob Dylan.” It notes that each bottle label showcases Dylan’s distinctive welded iron gates he created in his studio, Black Buffalo Ironworks.
The distillery’s name comes from the Dylan song “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.”
“I wanted to create a collection of American whiskeys that, in their own way, tell a story,” Dylan said. “I’ve been traveling for decades, and I’ve been able to try some of the best whiskey spirits that the world has to offer. This is great whiskey.”
One of the most-often-asked questions about the distillery, said Heaven’s Door quality and distilling manager Alex Lucky, is: “Will Dylan visit?”
“Yes, eventually. Date is unknown,” Lucky said.
Will Hell House Whiskey Become a Classic Like “Free Bird?”
Bespoken Spirits, a California bourbon maker known for its pioneering approach to bourbon aging, held the grand opening of its new headquarters in Lexington in late March.
Gov. Andy Beshear praised the move. “Kentucky’s signature bourbon industry continues to see historic momentum,” he said. “This growth is not possible without quality companies like Bespoken Spirits believing in Kentucky and the business-friendly environment we have established.”
Jared Bickel, director of customer relations and marketing for Bespoken Spirits, said it has several investors, including Major League Baseball Hall of Famer Derek Jeter.
The business has partnered with Lynyrd Skynyrd through events and relationships and created a one-of-a-kind whiskey, Hell House, that encapsulates the band’s essence, Bickel said.
That essence may be found in its signature song, “Free Bird,” written in 1973 by then-lead vocalist Ronnie Van Zant that can play more than 14 minutes. Van Zant, who was killed in a 1977 plane crash in rural Mississippi at age 29, said the song was about “what it means to be free, in that a bird can fly wherever he wants to go.”
Today, Ronnie’s younger brother, Johnny Van Zant, heads Lynyrd Skynyrd as the lead singer and songwriter, along with guitarist Rickey Medlocke. Both were on hand to sign bottles of Hell House at Bespoken Spirits’ grand opening, where Johnny told Lexington’s FOX 56: “Years ago, we used to say, ‘We need our own whiskey!’ because we drank enough of it in our young days.”