Willett Fills First Barrel at New Springfield Distillery, Marking One of the Most Significant Expansions in Its Nearly 90-Year History
On June 18, 2026, a single barrel of new-make whiskey rolled into a rickhouse on a 150-acre stretch of Washington County farmland in Springfield, Kentucky, and with it, one of the most storied family names in American bourbon quietly opened a new chapter. Willett Distillery officially began distilling operations at its new Springfield, Kentucky production facility, filling the first barrel on June 18. The moment was not chosen arbitrarily. Willett says the date carries personal significance, as it coincides with the birthday of the late Martha Kulsveen, whose family helped shape the modern era of the historic bourbon producer. For a distillery where family is not a marketing slogan but a lived inheritance stretching back generations, that kind of intentionality is entirely on brand.
"This first barrel represents an important moment for our family, our team and the future of Willett Distillery," said Drew Kulsveen, master distiller at Willett. "Beginning production in Springfield allows us to grow while continuing to honor the people, places and traditions that have made Willett what it is today." The new facility represents a significant investment in the bourbon category. When a family that has been distilling in Kentucky for the better part of a century speaks in those terms, it is worth slowing down to understand exactly what that growth means — and what it took to get here.
A $93 Million Bet on Bourbon's Future
The Springfield project did not materialize overnight. The seeds were planted in December 2022, when Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear announced that Willett Distillery would invest nearly $93 million to build warehouses and other production facilities and create 35 new jobs in Springfield, Kentucky. At the time, bourbon's post-pandemic momentum was near its peak, and Willett — a brand that had built a near-mythical collector following despite its comparatively small output — was facing a straightforward problem: not enough barrels to meet demand.
To meet the growing demand of the Willett collection of brands, the company is investing nearly $93 million to support projects that include the construction of a new distillery operation, barrel storage warehouses, and a water storage area for fire prevention. The project, located at 1170 Mackville Road in Springfield, will see the construction of a 70,000-square-foot facility on 150 acres. For a company that, as recently as a few years ago, was producing whiskey in rickhouses that held just 5,000 to 6,000 barrels each on a hillside in Bardstown, the scale of the Springfield undertaking is staggering.
Then-Governor Beshear framed the announcement in the context of a statewide boom. "Kentucky's bourbon industry is experiencing incredible momentum throughout the entire state," Beshear said. "The demand for our bourbon is stronger than ever, and that's a testament to the companies and distillers we have in the commonwealth who produce high-quality, world-class bourbon." The Springfield project fit squarely into that larger surge. Willett Distillery's investment adds to the commonwealth's booming bourbon sector, which is a nearly $9 billion signature industry in Kentucky generating more than 22,500 jobs with an annual payroll exceeding $1.23 billion. Since the start of the Beshear administration, more than 60 spirits-related announcements have generated roughly $2.5 billion in new investment, creating more than 1,300 full-time jobs for Kentuckians.
Local officials in Washington County welcomed the announcement with matching enthusiasm. "This is outstanding for our community from a jobs and investment standpoint, but also because Willett has such a rich history in the distilling industry, and an outstanding reputation for quality and community," said Springfield Mayor Debbie Wakefield. "The world's finest spirits are made and aged right here in Central Kentucky, and Willett has established themselves as an iconic brand, known for their commitment to quality," said Daniel Carney, executive director of the Springfield-Washington County Economic Development Authority.
What the New Campus Actually Looks Like
The Springfield facility is substantial by any measure — and by the standards of a family-owned independent distillery, it represents a generational leap in physical scale. The new Springfield campus, situated on 150 acres, includes a 70,000-square-foot distillery, barrel warehouses, and future tourism infrastructure, with the project expected to create 35 full-time jobs as operations ramp up. For comparison, Willett's original Bardstown estate operates eight rickhouses, seven of which have a capacity of approximately 5,000 barrels each, including Rickhouse A, the first built at the distillery and renovated in 2011. The remaining warehouses were built between the 1930s and 1960s, save for a new addition built in 2020 that boasts a 25,000-barrel capacity. Springfield represents a decisive push well beyond the capacity constraints that defined the Bardstown hilltop operation for decades.
The Springfield facility, just 18 miles from Bardstown, spans 150 acres and is slated to offer 35 full-time jobs, according to a press release. That proximity is meaningful. The two campuses are close enough that production and logistics can be closely coordinated, yet the new site provides the land and infrastructure necessary to store far greater barrel inventories than the historic Nelson County home ever could. Some barrels have already begun to be transferred to Willett's new, complementary facility, which lies fifteen minutes away in Springfield, Kentucky.
Construction Still Underway — But the Distilling Has Begun
The milestone of filling that first barrel is significant precisely because production kicked off before the campus was fully finished. While distilling has now begun, construction on the broader campus remains ongoing. That sequencing — start filling barrels now, finish the rest later — reflects a fundamental truth about bourbon production: the whiskey that goes into barrels today won't be ready for market for years. Every day of delay in filling barrels is a day of aging time lost. Willett clearly understood that getting liquid into wood was the priority, with the visitor amenities to follow.
Future phases will include a visitor experience center and tourism amenities, positioning the facility as a future destination along the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. Though production has begun, construction at the new facility is not yet finished. Willett plans to build amenities for visitors "in the following years" and for the Springfield location to join the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. Once that visitor infrastructure is complete, the Springfield address will represent another stop along one of American tourism's most lucrative and devoted circuits.
Bardstown Isn't Going Anywhere
One of the more important clarifications in Willett's announcement is what Springfield is not: it is not a replacement for Bardstown. The Springfield project expands Willett's production footprint but does not replace its historic Bardstown operations. The company confirmed that bottling, warehousing, visitor experiences, tastings, and dining operations will remain in Nelson County. The Bardstown campus, with its copper pot still, intimate progressive tasting tours, and the legendary rickhouses that have stored single-barrel releases coveted by collectors across the country, retains all of the character-driven visitor experience that built Willett's reputation.
"Our Bardstown roots remain at the heart of who we are," Kulsveen said. "Springfield gives us room to grow while allowing us to continue building on the legacy, craftsmanship and hospitality that have always defined Willett. We are proud to invest in Washington County and grateful for the support we have received from the local community." That framing — growth without abandonment — is central to understanding the Kulsveen family's philosophy. Every major decision they have made over the past four decades has been oriented around preservation of something essential while finding space to evolve.
The Family Behind the Barrels: A History Worth Knowing
To fully appreciate the weight of what happened in Springfield on June 18, you need to understand how long and how hard the Willett-Kulsveen family has fought to keep this distillery alive. The Willett family's role in American distilling is a long and well-documented one, finding its first Kentucky touchstone in 1792 when William Willett, Jr. moved from Maryland to Nelson County — the same year that Kentucky became a state. By the mid-1800s, his son John David Willett was a partner in Moore, Willett, & Frenke Distillery, and would serve as a master distiller at four other distilleries in his lifetime.
Two generations of family distillers later, in 1936, Thompson Willett became the founder and president of Willett Distillery, which was erected on the family farm in Bardstown shortly after Prohibition's repeal. The construction of the Willett Distilling Company began in the spring of 1936, and the company produced its first batch of 300 bushels — about 30 barrels — on March 17, 1937. That date, St. Patrick's Day 1937, when the first barrel was rolled into Warehouse A, is as foundational to Willett lore as the founding of Bardstown itself. Now, nearly nine decades later, the family has done it again in Springfield.
The Dark Years and the Kulsveen Revival
The story between that 1937 founding and today is not a straight line of success. The distillery ran into serious trouble in the 1970s. During the 1970s energy crisis, the company switched from producing whiskey to producing ethanol for gasohol fuel. This strategy soon failed when fuel prices returned to lower levels, and the distilling facilities were completely shut down in the early 1980s. The Willett name, once synonymous with Bardstown craftsmanship, went quiet.
What saved it was a marriage and a Norwegian immigrant with an extraordinary work ethic. Even Kulsveen and his wife purchased the company and the property on July 1, 1984, and renamed the company to Kentucky Bourbon Distillers (KBD), Ltd. Even Kulsveen and his wife, Martha Willett Kulsveen, took ownership of the property in 1984, just as American tastes for premium whiskey were on the decline. Though the distillery ceased production during this time, Even and Martha pushed on with the family legacy, changing the name of the distillery to Kentucky Bourbon Distillers Ltd and releasing the estate's remaining stocks.
Once those stocks were gone, the Kulsveens did something that, in hindsight, proved to be an act of accidental genius. Once the Willett rickhouses ran dry, the Kulsveens pivoted to sourcing whiskeys from other Kentucky distilleries, acquiring the best of bourbon's surplus supply. It was during this era, in the 1990s, that the family debuted its Small Batch Boutique Bourbon Collection under the KBD label, which included Rowan's Creek, Noah's Mill, Kentucky Vintage, and Pure Kentucky — all independently bottled and reflecting the sourcing of fine whiskey stocks that could never be obtained today. Those sourced single barrels would eventually become some of the most sought-after bottles in the secondary market, building a collector culture that persists to this day.
The modern Willett brand was revived in the 1970s by the late Even Kulsveen, who later became a member of the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame. His legacy is not a small thing to carry. The next generation of the family, particularly their son E.A. "Drew" Kulsveen and his wife Janelle, their daughter Kristin Martha-Britt "Britt" Kulsveen and her husband Hunter Chavanne, have since taken over the primary roles at the company. Drew Kulsveen is the current master distiller and manages production, Janelle Kulsveen runs the gift shop and tasting room, and Britt Kulsveen runs day-to-day operations.
Drew Kulsveen and the Return to Distilling
The most pivotal recent moment in Willett's history before Springfield was the restoration of in-house distilling. KBD started refurbishing and enhancing its prior distillery plant and began limited test distilling on January 21, 2012. In 2012, the company reintroduced Willett Distillery as its primary operating name. In January 2012, Drew restarted distillation — the first whiskey production at the site in decades. The first barrels were filled on January 27, 2012. Drew is now the fifth-generation master distiller.
That 2012 restart was the beginning of the estate-distilled era — the Willett Pot Still Reserve and Family Estate single-barrel expressions that now command serious attention from enthusiasts nationwide. The pot still is the inspiration for Willett's iconic Pot Still Reserve bottle, which was designed from the still's original blueprints. The whiskey enters 53-gallon, char #4 barrels from Independent Stave Company's Kentucky cooperage, and aging takes place in a combination of eight rickhouses on the estate. The house aesthetic — intimate, detail-oriented, deeply personal — has always been the counterweight to the industrial scale that defines bourbon's biggest players. Springfield will amplify volume while the Bardstown original remains the soul of the brand.
The Date Was No Accident: Honoring Martha Kulsveen
Of all the details surrounding the Springfield first-fill, the choice of June 18 stands apart as a reminder of how thoroughly this family weaves personal history into its professional milestones. The first barrel was filled on June 18, marking the launch of production at the new Washington County campus. Willett says the date carries personal significance, as it coincides with the birthday of the late Martha Kulsveen, whose family helped shape the modern era of the historic bourbon producer.
Martha Willett Kulsveen was the direct link between the founding Willett family and the current Kulsveen generation — the daughter of Thompson Willett himself, and the woman who, alongside her husband Even, kept the property from being sold off entirely during the darkest stretch of bourbon's commercial decline. Her birthday as the anchor date for the Springfield first fill is not a PR move. It is the kind of tribute that makes sense only within a family that genuinely understands what it owes to those who came before. Drew Kulsveen's words at this milestone carry that weight: "This first barrel represents an important moment for our family, our team and the future of Willett Distillery. Beginning production in Springfield allows us to grow while continuing to honor the people, places and traditions that have made Willett what it is today."
What This Means for the Brand — and for Bourbon Collectors
For the legions of bourbon enthusiasts who have hunted Willett Family Estate single barrels, chased aged Pot Still Reserve releases, and paid secondary-market premiums for bottles of Noah's Mill and Rowan's Creek, the Springfield expansion raises obvious and important questions about what happens to the brand's character at scale.
The reassurance from Willett's leadership is consistent: Springfield adds capacity, but Bardstown controls character. Approaching its 90th anniversary, Willett continues to produce Kentucky Bourbon and Kentucky Rye whiskeys. The company remains independent and family-owned and operated. That independence matters enormously in a category where private equity and multinational spirits conglomerates have absorbed one family distillery after another. Willett is, as of today, still run by the grandchildren of the man who built it — and their actions suggest they intend to keep it that way.
Over the last several decades, Willett has grown gradually, methodically and responsibly, incorporating the family values of southern hospitality, craftsmanship and compassion in their products and services through the years. Over the last five years, the Willett employee base has nearly doubled. The company employs 67 people who host more than 80,000 guests annually and distill, barrel and bottle 11 brands that are distributed in 40 states. The Springfield investment is the next step in that deliberate, decade-by-decade expansion — not a pivot, not a sale, not a pivot to investor return. Just more room to make more whiskey on their own terms.
The practical implication for collectors and enthusiasts is that the pipeline of estate-distilled Willett whiskey is going to get deeper over time. Barrels filled in Springfield in 2026 won't see bottles for several years at minimum, but when they do, they will represent not only a new era of production but a direct lineage to everything this family has built since Thompson Willett broke ground on the Nelson County hilltop 90 years ago. Willett Distillery, founded in 1936 and revived in the 1970s, remains one of Kentucky's few independent, family-owned distilleries, with the first barrel filled in Springfield symbolizing a new chapter for the company as it seeks additional production capacity while upholding its family-owned identity and Bardstown heritage.
Springfield in the Context of Kentucky's Bourbon Expansion Wave
Willett's move to Springfield does not exist in a vacuum. It is part of a broader wave of Kentucky distillery investment that has reshaped the state's production landscape over the past several years. Willett's neighbors in this expansion push include some of bourbon's biggest names committing to serious capital outlays. Heaven Hill, for instance, is another example of an existing distillery looking to add production capacity, investing $135 million in a state-of-the-art distillery located near their existing Bardstown campus. Heaven Hill's distilling has been done exclusively at their Bernheim Distillery in Louisville since a fire in 1996 destroyed their original Bardstown distillery. That context makes Willett's $93 million commitment particularly notable — it is a family-owned independent competing at investment levels normally associated with corporate giants.
Willett's investment adds to the commonwealth's booming bourbon sector, which is a nearly $9 billion signature industry in Kentucky generating more than 22,500 jobs with an annual payroll exceeding $1.23 billion. Washington County, historically a quieter corner of Kentucky's bourbon geography, stands to benefit significantly from Willett's arrival. "We are located in the heart of the bourbon trail, and this project will add good-paying jobs and investment to our county," said Washington County Judge/Executive Timothy Graves when the project was first announced. That promise is now beginning to materialize in concrete form.
Kentucky Bourbon Trail Ambitions
The longer-term vision for Springfield extends beyond production. Construction on the full campus is not yet complete. Future expansion will include a visitor experience, adding to the site's role in Kentucky's bourbon tourism economy on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail once finished. For the Kentucky Bourbon Trail — a driving circuit that draws hundreds of thousands of visitors annually and generates significant tourism revenue for the communities along its route — the addition of a Willett stop in Washington County would be a genuine draw. The brand's reputation for intimate, curated experiences at its Bardstown home sets a high bar for whatever Springfield eventually offers visitors.
The progressive tasting tour at Bardstown is limited to 14 guests — genuinely intimate. Unlike standard distillery tours where all tasting happens at the end, Willett conducts tastings throughout the tour at multiple stations. Guests receive a Glencairn glass to keep and sample 5 to 6 different expressions as they progress through the experience. Whether the Springfield visitor experience will eventually match that level of personal attention or take on a different character suited to its larger scale remains to be seen — but given the family's track record, betting against that level of craft would be unwise.
A New Barrel, the Same Story
There is something almost poetic about the way Willett marks its milestones. The first batch of whiskey at the original Bardstown distillery was filled on St. Patrick's Day 1937. The restart of in-house distilling in 2012 was celebrated with a first barrel fill in January of that year. And now, the Springfield first fill lands on the birthday of the woman who kept the whole enterprise from disappearing entirely. Each of these moments is not just an operational milestone but a deliberate act of remembrance — a reminder that bourbon, at its best, is made by people who understand that what goes into the barrel is inseparable from the people and stories that surround it.
"Our Bardstown roots remain at the heart of who we are," Kulsveen said. "Springfield gives us room to grow while allowing us to continue building on the legacy, craftsmanship and hospitality that have always defined Willett. We are proud to invest in Washington County and grateful for the support we have received from the local community." Approaching its 90th anniversary, Willett continues to produce Kentucky Bourbon and Kentucky Rye whiskeys, and the company remains independent and family-owned and operated. The first barrel at Springfield is, in the end, exactly what Drew Kulsveen says it is: a moment for the family, for the team, and for the future. But it is also a moment for every bourbon drinker who has ever cracked the wax on a bottle bearing the Willett name — confirmation that this family is not done making whiskey. Not by a long shot.
