Castle & Key Distillery

Castle & Key occupies the bones of Colonel E.H. Taylor Jr.'s 1887 Old Taylor Distillery on McCracken Pike in Frankfort — the same Taylor who ran Buffalo Trace down the road and who designed Old Taylor as a destination distillery with a stone castle, a sunken garden, and a colonnaded springhouse over a limestone-water source. The property went dark in 1972 and sat abandoned for forty-two years. In 2014, Will Arvin and Wes Murry bought it and put roughly $20 million into restoration over four years. Doors opened to the public in September 2018. The other name on the founding story: Marianne Eaves, recruited from Brown-Forman to become the first female master distiller in Kentucky since Prohibition. She set the recipes, laid down the first barrels, and was largely the face of the brand to media until she announced her departure in May 2019 "to pursue other endeavors" — leaving Castle & Key with stock she'd distilled but no successor yet announced. The current title-holder is Brett Connors, credited as "Whiskey Wizard" — head blender, product strategy, hospitality. The distinction matters when people ask whose juice they're tasting, and the answer for the early bourbons is: Eaves's grain bill, aged through Connors's blending decisions. ## What people say about the bottles Because the bourbon needed years in the rickhouse, Castle & Key sold gin, vodka, and rye first. Sacred Spring Gin and Restoration Rye Whiskey carried the brand for the first four years. Their own bourbon — Ca…