Limestone Branch Distillery

Limestone Branch Distillery is the Lebanon, Kentucky operation that put two seventh-generation Beam family descendants — Steve and Paul Beam — back into Kentucky distilling and gave the long-dormant Yellowstone bourbon brand its modern revival. Steve and Paul are direct descendants of both the Beam family (Jacob Beam's line, with all the obvious bourbon-industry lineage that implies) and the Dant family (J.W. Dant Distillery, Yellowstone Distillery, T.W. Samuels Distillery). The Beam brothers founded Limestone Branch in 2010, opening Lebanon's first new distillery since Prohibition and resurrecting Yellowstone — a heritage brand originally launched in 1872 to commemorate Yellowstone National Park's establishment.

The Yellowstone line is the brand's commercial anchor: Yellowstone Select (small-batch bourbon, blend of 4-year and 7-year stock), Yellowstone Limited Edition (an annual release with rotating finishes — sherry, French oak, marsala), and the rare American Single Malt Yellowstone releases. The Minor Case Rye line — named after Steve and Paul's great-grandfather Minor Case Beam — is the rye expression, finished in sherry casks and bottled at 90 proof. Limestone Branch also produces an extensive moonshine range (Limestone Branch Moonshine, several flavored variants) that predates the bourbon focus and supports cash flow through the long aging timelines that bourbon requires.

The distillery was acquired by Luxco in 2017, then folded into MGP Ingredients when Luxco merged with MGP in 2021. Steve and Paul Beam remained on as operators and brand ambassadors, and the production identity has not visibly changed under corporate ownership — the same family team continues to run the Lebanon site, develop new mash bills, and oversee the Yellowstone limited releases that have become collector items.

The Lebanon visitor experience is genuinely small-distillery scale: the Beam brothers often lead tours personally, tastings happen in the production room rather than a separate tasting bar, and the size of the operation means visitors get unusually direct access to the people making the decisions. Lebanon sits roughly halfway between Bardstown and Springfield, making Limestone Branch a natural stop on the route between the southern Bardstown cluster and the Maker's Mark / Heaven Hill destinations to the south and west.