Wilderness Trail Distillery in Danville to Release First 10-year Bourbon on December 8

The etched rustic box that will house the Bourbon. (Emily Toadvine Photo)

It’s still hard for me to believe that it has been 10 years since Wilderness Trail Distillery set up shop in Danville and began barreling bourbon in 2013. However, it really has been 10 years and the distillery will celebrate its first 10-year release Dec. 8  with bottle sales in the morning and a party that evening.

Emily Toadvine, Wilderness Trail Visitor Center manager, says bottle sales start at 10 a.m. Dec. 8 at the distillery (4095 Lebanon Road, Danville, 40422, 859-402-8707).

It’s all part of Wilderness Trail’s Holiday Open House that day where customers can select one item at the gift shop and purchase a second item of equal or lesser value for 50 percent off, excluding alcohol.

Need a Christmas gift? The Trail Mix, which features 50 ml bottles of each of the three mashbills, will be on sale for $15 instead of the usual $19.99.

Bourbon cocktails will be $10 Dec. 8 and 9 as a nod to the 10-year anniversary and there will be music by Kings of Freon and food sales by Dunn’s BBQ — which is a treat — from 6-9 p.m. Dec. 8 during the holiday open house at the Visitor Center.

Fermentation experts Shane Baker and Pat Heist, co-founders of Wilderness Trail Distillery, worked on a pot still when they started the distillery. Producing one barrel required a 12-hour day. Their Bourbon was the first known sweet mash, bottled-in-bond wheated Bourbon made in the state since Prohibition.

The barreling of this special barrel – the distillery’s second barrel ever made – coincided with the 80th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition. Ten years later, the release commemorates the 90th anniversary of the repeal. In keeping with this theme, the 10-year bottle is housed in a rustic cedar box inspired by the smugglers’ crates of the Prohibition era.

The flagship wheated Bourbon’s mashbill is 64% corn, 24% wheat and 12% malted barley. The cost of the bottle and cedar box engraved with Wilderness Trail is $280 plus tax and the barrel will yield about 115 bottles. Sales will be on a first-come, first-serve basis.

In addition to the 10-year barrel, the distillery will offer a 6-year expression of its high-rye Bourbon at 113 proof. Bottles will be $69.