Heaven Hill opens new $200 million bourbon distillery in Bardstown
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- Heaven Hill opened a $200 million distillery in Bardstown in September 2025.
- New facility will double production capacity and expand in 150,000-barrel phases.
- Distillery waste will be converted to energy, with byproducts sold as animal feed.
Heaven Hill, the largest privately held distillery in the world, has welcomed a new $200 million jewel to its crown.
The Heaven Hill Springs Distillery opened Sept. 4 to visitors, including bourbon industry VIPs and politicians. The new, state-of-the-art facility filled its first barrel in April, marking a milestone for whiskey fans and the distillery’s owners, the Shapira family.
Heaven Hill was the scene of a devastating fire in 1996 that destroyed the distillery and seven rickhouses, along with almost 100,000 barrels of whiskey. Since 1999, their Evan Williams and other bourbons have been made at the Bernheim Distillery in Louisville.
Now, with the new distillery off U.S. 245, they are bringing things home.
Bardstown Mayor Dick Heaton presented Max Shapira, executive chairman of Heaven Hill, with a key to the city at Thursday’s ceremony.
“On behalf of the city of Bardstown, I thank Heaven Hill for believing in us and for investing with us. We welcome your return to Bardstown to begin making your bourbons right here where it all started,” Heaton said. “Welcome home, Heaven Hill.”
Kate Latts, president of Heaven Hill, said the distillery “is a $200 million investment, but more than that, it’s a promise. It’s a promise to continue leading as an independent family-owned company. A promise to keep quality, sustainability and community at the center of everything we do. ... With this distillery, Heaven Hill cements its position as the largest, independent bourbon producer in the world.”
Construction started in 2022 on the new distillery, which was originally supposed to cost $135 million but ended up being more than $200 million. The whiskey produced in the new distillery will be moved by tanker trucks to the cistern room to fill barrels that will be distributed to more than 70 warehouses on eight campuses, currently aging more than 2.1 million barrels.
The new distillery has its own water pre-treatment plant that converts waste into energy and prepares “spent grains” (the leftovers after whiskey is made) into distillers’ dried grains that will be sold for animal feed.
The new distillery will open in three stages and is designed to expand in 150,000-barrel increments until it reaches the 450,000-barrel capacity of Bernheim and doubles Heaven Hill’s output.
Both distilleries will make the same six mashbills, which become such popular brands as Evan Williams, Elijah Craig, Heaven Hill, Henry McKenna, Bernheim Original, Larceny, Rittenhouse Rye, Old Fitzgerald, the Parker’s Heritage Collection and Mellow Corn.
The project indicates Heaven Hill isn’t worried about the current slowdown in alcohol consumption across the U.S.
“One of the reasons we spent $200 million on a new facility was to future-proof our business,” said master distiller Conor O’Driscoll in an interview in April.
“This is one of the great things about being an independently owned and operated company,” O’Driscoll said. “We are very, very bullish on the future of bourbon and American whiskey, our own portfolio for sure. We see huge opportunities not just in the U.S. but overseas as well. ... We’ve been in business 90 years by being patient, having perseverance and reacting smartly to changes in the market, and we have no plans to change that.”
This story was originally published September 4, 2025 at 11:57 AM.
