Stephen Thompson
Stephen Thompson has had a distinguished and fulfilling career in the distilling and spirits industry. He was a bourbon enthusiast, an incredible resource, and knew his craft. Distilling was his life and passion. Stephen was a creative thinker, innovator, and pioneer who holds multiple degrees from Cal-Poly, Stanford, and the University of Hartford.
Stephen’s multi-faceted career began as President of Brown-Forman Distilling from 1987 to 1995, where he was responsible for production as well as research and development for the Jack Daniels brand, Early Times, Canadian Mist, and Southern Comfort. His crowning achievement was reacquiring and leading the construction of the Labrot & Graham distillery in Versailles, Kentucky, now known as Woodford Reserve Distillery.
Upon retiring from Brown-Forman in 1995, Stephen started RF Industries, a railroad and food industries company that creates pumps, filters, and steel fabrications. In 2007, Steven retired to Hawaii to found Hawaii Island Spirits, producing rum, vodka, and Okolehao-Hawaiian whisky. Throughout his career, Steve Thompson consulted with many distilleries and brands to help educate owners on how to be successful. Co-Founder of Kentucky Artisan, Chris Miller, met Thompson in 2005 when both were working at Brown-Forman, and in 2010, the two of them, along with third founder, Mike Loring, began seriously discussing opening their own distillery. Upon returning to Kentucky in 2012, the trio established Kentucky Co-Operative Distillery, later re-named Kentucky Artisan Distillery.
The original plan for what would become Kentucky Artisan Distillery was to create and open a distillery that would specialize in helping other people pursue their own dreams of opening a small distillery or a bourbon brand themselves.
Kentucky Artisan Distillery visitor’s center
Kentucky Artisan Distillery (KAD) is located in Crestwood, Kentucky, in the former Kentucky Ice Cream Distributors building. KAD can be described as a ‘Swiss Army Knife’ of distilleries. They offer a wide range of operations, from contract distilling, farm-to-bottle, as well as barrel storage – the first of its kind in Kentucky. Additionally, their brands include Whiskey Row Bourbon and Billy Goat Strut Whisky. KAD is also home to Jefferson’s and Jefferson’s Reserve Bourbon. Whiskey Row bourbon was named after Main Street (Whiskey Row) in Louisville, Kentucky, where the bourbon industry got its start.
Stephen has been nicknamed “The Dr. Frankenstein of Distillation”. He earned this moniker because he was often seen wandering around Vendome Copper and Brass Works looking for items for his new distillery. This included collecting pipes, tanks, equipment, and anything he could get his hands on, always snatching random parts. Somehow, he would always make it work. This often led to his distillery’s stills, mash tub cooker and fermenters being out of sync.
Thompson was said to be able to tell if a brand would thrive or fail before even leaving the drawing board, Miller said, and he’d always give people an honest critique of it, regardless of whether it was what they wanted to hear. It could hurt people’s feelings sometimes, but it saved them a lot of money and hassle in the long run.
Kentucky Artisan Distillers joined the Kentucky Distillers’ Association as its 18th member in 2013. Their sweet spot was to “produce its own brands and serve as a cooperative for guest distillers,” says Thompson. Furthermore, “our dream is to create opportunities, offering everything for people to distill their own unique spirit without great expense,” according to Thompson.
Unfortunately, Stephen Thompson, founder of the Kentucky Artisan Distillery, passed away at 79 years old on September 6, 2021, and was posthumously awarded the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame Parker Beam Lifetime Achievement Award in August of 2022.
Contributed by: Joe Grimoldi, Memphis, Tennessee
SOURCES:
https://kentuckyartisandistillery.com/about-us/
