Kentucky distillery sent to court-ordered auction. What comes next
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Garrard County Distillery likely will be placed for sale within 90 days.
- Judge Hunter Daughterty awarded nearly $28 million judgment to Tom Collins Distilling.
- Auction includes the distillery, equipment, five land parcels totaling about 220 acres.
A Kentucky distillery that has been shuttered for more than a year will be put up for a court-ordered master commissioner’s auction.
Garrard County Distilling Co. in Lancaster will be placed up for sale, likely sometime in the next 90 days.
Garrard Circuit Court Judge Hunter Daugherty ordered the sale on May 14 after granting default and summary judgment for nearly $28 million to Tom Collins Distilling, an entity owned by Sazerac.
The sale was ordered to pay off the outstanding debt. In March, the Sazerac affiliate purchased the distillery’s mortgage and other debts from Truist Bank. Tom Collins intends to bid on the property, according to the court documents. If Tom Collins is the winning bidder, it gets title to the distillery; if someone else outbids, Sazerac is paid off first.
If the sale does not satisfy the debt, the original borrowers still owe the balance.
Sazerac has not commented on what it plans to do with the distillery if it retains it.
The property to be auctioned after appraisal includes the distillery and all equipment including two 36-inch Vendome copper column stills, five parcels of land totaling about 220 acres, as well as all barrels and bottles of product.
The county master commissioner will advertise the description with time, terms and place of sale within 21 days.
History of Garrard County Distillery
The sale will end more than a year in flux for new craft distillery at 440 Southern Soul Way in Lancaster.
Garrard County Distilling opened in January 2024 on 210 acres in Lancaster, about 30 minutes south of Lexington. It had a 50,000-square-foot distillery, 18 fermenters and three rickhouses.
It closed in March 2025 after only about 14 months in business. Under the management of founder Ray Franklin, the distillery had racked up millions in liens on top of the original $26 million Truist Bank loan debt.
Franklin left the company at the end of 2024 and took a post as chief revenue officer for Spirits Capital, an Arizona-based online barrel exchange platform. But Spirits Capital appears to have gone out of business as well now.
Truist Bank sued Garrard County Distilling parent company and requested a receiver to preserve its assets. The distillery had sold bourbon and whiskey under the label All Nations.
A receiver was appointed with the agreement of the chairman of All Nations Investors, Shashi Reddy. Reddy, an entrepreneur and philanthropist, is the former CEO of Case-Mate and lives in Atlanta.
