LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Brough Brothers Distillery is planning its second location in Louisville in a building on River Road close to Waterfront Park.
The Louisville-based bourbon and spirits maker intends to start manufacturing operations by the end of the year and open a tasting room, bar and outdoor games space by next March, co-owner and CEO Victor Yarbrough said.
Brough Brothers, which also includes Victor Yarbrough’s brothers Chris and Bryson, runs a distillery off Dixie Highway in the Park Hill neighborhood.
“We wanted to have more of a consumer experience in a location that we felt had heavy foot traffic,” Victor Yarbrough said. “So when we came upon this location, we had checked all the boxes."
Brough Brothers is leasing 1250 River Road from the Waterfront Development Corp. The public agency manages Waterfront Park and pushed for land-use changes this year to allow distilleries and other uses in a roughly 300-acre zoning district that includes much of the park and some adjoining properties.
Metro Council approved the request in September. At the time, Deborah Bilitksi, the waterfront corporation's president and executive director, would only say that officials were “actively working to lease” the building.
Bilitski said Friday that park officials are “very excited” about the new tenant.
“We are honored to have the first African American distillery in Kentucky call our waterfront home,” she said. “Waterfront Park continues to be a major catalyst of economic development and tourism, and the announcement of Brough Brothers serves as yet another example of the park attracting world-class, diverse businesses to our area.”
Brough Brothers opened its Dixie Highway distillery in 2020 and added public tours last year. Yarbrough said the company produces “sourced” bourbon and also is currently aging bourbon, and plans to add vodka and gin production at the River Road site.
“It's going phenomenally--so that's the reason why we had to expand,” he said.
Yarbrough declined to say how much is being investing in the River Road project.
The building is not far from a proposed barbecue restaurant inside the park. Big Beach of Brooklyn said last November that it would open by spring 2022, but that plan has been delayed by supply chain issues, a company official told WDRB News in August.
Pig Beach has not announced a new planned opening date.
“They’re working,” Bilitski said Friday, “but I don’t have an update.”
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