LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Heaven Hill Distillery unveiled its first bottled bourbon Wednesday from the artisanal distillery at Evan Williams Bourbon Experience on Main Street.
The High Rye Bourbon is called Square 6. It was aged for five years and bottled at 95 proof.
“This is a labor of love," said Jodie Filiatreau, the artisanal distiller at Evan Williams Bourbon Experience. "We’ve been doing this since 2013. We had a lot of long days putting this together, so we’re really excited and proud.”
The mashbill consists of 52% corn, 35% rye, and 13% malted barley, which is a new recipe under the Heaven Hill Distillery portfolio.
A team of bourbonism and tourism leaders celebrated the occasion by rolling a commemorative barrel down Main Street and into the Evan Williams Experience downtown. It’s a sight that would’ve been common in 1783, when Evan Williams established the first commercial distillery in Kentucky in that same spot. The distillery was on a plot of land called “square six” downtown, hence the bourbon’s name Square 6.
“We’re here today to honor the legacy of Evan Williams, who started it all,” Max Shapira, president of Heaven Hill Distillery, told the crowd inside the Evan Williams lobby.
Shapira said Square 6 marks another milestone in the Evan Williams Experience, and it shows off Heaven Hill’s patient commitment to quality and attention to detail. Shapira, along with tourism agency leaders, believes the new bourbon will be an added draw to downtown.
"We feel like that we're part of the city of Louisville, part of the rebirth of downtown and the tourism business that we have experienced over the years,” Shapira said.
Cleo Battle, the incoming president and CEO of Louisville tourism, applauded the release of Square 6 as part of National Travel and Tourism Week.
“If you think about the urban bourbon experience and bourbonism in our community today, we now enjoy over a dozen bourbon attractions follow the lead of Evan Williams building this facility in 2013,” Battle said.
Since opening in 2013, Filiatreau and his team have been handling one barrel a day with a copper pot still, compared to Heaven Hill’s main distillery handling 1,300 barrels a day. Square 6 is the first bottled culmination of all the work that started eight years ago, and the artisanal distiller said it will not be the last.
“Right now, we’re working on the next release,” FIliatreau said. “We’re trying to figure out what our next release will be. But we do everything here by hand. So when I say this is hand-crafted bourbon, that’s exactly what it is. It’s bourbonism at its best.”
Shapira said new releases are expected over the coming months and years ahead.
A 750 ml bottle of Square 6 can be purchased at select Kentucky retailers and at the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience gift shop at 528 W. Main St. for $89.99.
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