America's Oldest Distillery West of the Mississippi Is About to Turn 170 — And It's Just Getting Started
There are distilleries that talk about heritage, and then there are places where heritage is so embedded in the soil, the water, and the stone walls that no marketing department could ever fabricate it. Holladay Distillery in Weston, Missouri, belongs firmly to the second category. As Holladay Distillery approaches its 170th anniversary later this year, the historic Missouri distillery is marking the occasion with a series of major milestones that reflect both its enduring legacy and continued investment in the future. That combination — deep roots and genuine forward momentum — is exactly what makes this anniversary more than a press release. It's the story of American bourbon in microcosm: tenacious, place-specific, and built on the kind of patience that most modern businesses simply can't afford.
Founded in 1856, Holladay Distillery remains the oldest business in the greater Kansas City area and the oldest distillery west of the Mississippi still operating at its original location. That is a distinction that no amount of capital or rebranding can manufacture. On December 5, 2026, the distillery will officially celebrate 170 years of continuous operation, a rare milestone few American distilleries can claim. To put that in proper context: when the Holladay brothers fired up their first still, Abraham Lincoln was still a prairie lawyer, the transcontinental railroad was a fever dream, and the American West was barely charted territory.
Before There Was Bourbon, There Was a Limestone Spring
Every great bourbon story starts with water, and Holladay's story starts with some of the most historically significant water in the country. Over fifty years before founder Ben Holladay acquired the land, Lewis and Clark passed through in 1804 during their famed expedition to the West, discovering and charting the limestone springs that run abundantly throughout the property. That detail isn't just a tourism talking point — limestone-filtered water is fundamentally different from surface water, naturally stripped of iron and enriched with minerals that help yeast thrive during fermentation and soften the finished spirit. The Corps of Discovery stumbled onto something extraordinary without ever knowing it would one day define a bourbon.
It wasn't until 1837 that the town of Weston was officially established, earning its name by virtue of being the "farthermost town west in trade" of that era. It was a small town of fewer than 300 people, but it was the second-largest port on the Missouri River at the time, surpassing both Kansas City and St. Joseph. The strategic importance of the site cannot be overstated. Weston sat at the edge of American civilization, a launching point for westward commerce, and its river access made it a natural hub for trade — including spirits.
Ben Holladay purchased the land in 1849. The site consisted of several acres of land and a stone building that had served as a meatpacking house. What followed was one of those pivotal entrepreneurial decisions that changed the character of an entire region. The brothers looked at a limestone spring, a rough stone building, and a town hungry for commerce, and they saw a distillery. The Holladay Brothers distilled their first batch of bourbon under the label Blue Springs Distillery, and the barrels were stored in an ancient cave on-site that had previously been used for meat curing and preservation. To this day, the same cave is intact and continues to be a fan favorite along the tour route of the facility.
The Man Behind the Barrel: Ben Holladay, America's Forgotten Titan
If bourbon were the only thing Ben Holladay ever did, his name would still deserve a footnote in American commercial history. But whiskey was arguably the least remarkable chapter of his life — a staggering fact given that the distillery has outlasted everything else he built. Ben Holladay is one of the greatest unknown figures in American history. Born in Kentucky, he moved to Weston, Missouri, as a teenager to seek his fame and fortune. He became the original transportation tycoon, famed as the "Stagecoach King" for creating the Overland Express stagecoach lines that were ultimately sold to Wells Fargo, just one piece of a transportation portfolio that also included steamships, streetcars, and a railroad.
He even owned the Pony Express for part of its brief history. With everything from silver mines to saloons also under his domain, he was the largest individual employer in the US in the late 1800s and kept close counsel with everyone from President Lincoln to Brigham Young. Consider the scope of that for a moment: a Kentucky teenager who moved to the Missouri frontier and eventually became the country's single largest employer, an intimate of presidents and religious leaders, a man who essentially built the commercial arteries of the American West. And yet he built an empire that spanned the entire country, and this distillery is the only piece left standing. Little did he know that whiskey would be the lasting legacy that carried the Holladay name well into the future.
Ben eventually handed the reins to his brother. Shortly after founding, Ben transferred ownership of the distillery to his brother, Major David Holladay. The business stayed in the Holladay family through the end of the 1800s, passing from David Holladay to his son and son-in-law to become Barton & Holladay in 1894. Over the next century, the distillery changed hands only three more times — purchased by George H. Shawhan in 1900, Isadore Singer in 1936, and Cloud L. Cray in 1950 — before being acquired by the current ownership group in 1993. The relative stability of that ownership chain across 170 years speaks to the enduring commercial logic of the site itself: the limestone spring, the rolling terrain, the regional grain supply, the proximity to what would eventually become Kansas City.
The Long Road Back: Bourbon Revival After a 30-Year Silence
The 20th century was not entirely kind to Holladay. The Holladay Distillery evolved as the decades passed, changing ownership and names a number of times before ultimately becoming known as McCormick Distilling Company in 1942. Then came the quiet decades. Production of bourbon stopped in 1985 but was revived 30 years later in 2015. That three-decade gap matters enormously when you understand the economics of aged bourbon. Stopping production isn't just a business decision — it's a generational one. The barrels that would have been quietly aging in the rickhouses through the 1980s and 1990s never existed. When the revival came, the team had to start from scratch and wait, because serious bourbon cannot be rushed.
Acquired in 1993 by Ed Pechar, Mike Griesser, and a small group of private investors, the distillery has since grown in size and expanded its portfolio of products. McCormick Distilling Co. was acquired by a group of private investors led by spirits industry veterans Michael S. Griesser and Edward A. Pechar, and the development of a premium brands portfolio became a priority, paving the way for innovative new brand concepts. It still took more than two decades before the flagship bourbon would be ready to release — a testament to how seriously this team approaches age statements and product integrity.
The distillery underwent a $10 million renovation of the original stillhouse and began distilling bourbon on-site for the first time in 30 years, resurrecting the Holladay Distillery name in honor of the original founders. When master distiller Kyle Merklein and the team decided what mash bill to use, the answer was straightforward. "It was that ratio, the 73 per cent corn, 15 per cent rye, and 12 per cent malted barley, I know specifically we did that post-Prohibition, because I have all those TTB records and all of those documents going back to that," Merklein says. That kind of archival fidelity is rare in the modern spirits industry. Most distilleries launching a "heritage" product are working from approximations and marketing copy. Merklein was working from actual government records.
In 2016, the distillery commemorated 160 years of rich history and paid homage to its founders by going back to its bourbon-making roots and bearing the proud name of Holladay Distillery, operated by McCormick Distilling Company. The rebranding wasn't cosmetic — it was a declaration of intent, a commitment to seeing through a six-year investment in aging before putting a single bottle on the market.
The Bottled-in-Bond Bet
When the time came to release, the team didn't reach for an easy, young product. In 2022, Ben Holladay Bourbon was finally released as a six-year-old bottled-in-bond. The bottled-in-bond designation carries real weight — it is a federal certification established by the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897 requiring that the spirit be the product of one distillation season at one distillery, aged at least four years in a federally bonded warehouse, and bottled at exactly 100 proof. It is among the most rigorous quality standards in American whiskey, and Holladay not only met it but exceeded it with six years of aging.
One of the most notable details was the amount of information on the label — not just the usual information like proof, state, and style of whiskey, but also the rickhouse detail right down to what percentage of barrels came from which floor in the rickhouse. Floor placement in a rickhouse determines aging character in a significant way — upper floors run hotter and produce more extraction from the wood, while lower floors age more gently. Putting that information directly on the label gave consumers something almost unheard of in mass-market bourbon: genuine transparency about how the liquid inside was made. The location of the bourbon is listed on the label of each bottle, an excellent touch — look for the floor a bottle was distilled on, and it will indicate how much oak flavoring to expect.
Rickhouse D: Building for the Next Generation
The most tangible expression of Holladay's confidence in its own future is a structure that most visitors will never see from the inside: Rickhouse D. Among the most visible of the distillery's investments is the completion of Rickhouse D, the newest addition to the distillery's growing bourbon campus in Weston, Missouri. Now fully operational, with barrels moved in and final site work complete, the new ironclad rickhouse represents another significant step in the continued growth of Holladay Bourbon.
Constructed in the traditional rickhouse style that defines the Holladay Bourbon aging program, Rickhouse D expands the distillery's barrel capacity while reinforcing the company's long-term commitment to authentic Missouri bourbon production. This is not a casual expenditure. Building a rickhouse is a capital commitment that pays back slowly, over years of aging, and it signals that the people running the operation believe deeply in what they're producing and where they're headed. Holladay broke ground in early 2025 on the new rickhouse to increase its barrel storage capacity.
The design of the rickhouses themselves reflects deliberate craft philosophy. The rickhouses are all clad in white-painted metal, which allows for gentler heating in the summer than a black metal-clad warehouse. There is no heat cycling, which many distilleries use to speed or alter maturation. Instead, natural hot and cold cycles are used to highlight seasonal differentiation, enhancing personality and dimension in the bourbon. This approach stands in direct contrast to the industrial heating systems deployed by some large-scale producers to accelerate the aging process. Holladay's position is clear: patience is part of the product.
Patrick Fee, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Holladay, captured the spirit of the investment succinctly. "Every new rickhouse represents a belief in the future," said Fee. "This project is about honoring traditional bourbon-making while continuing to invest in the next generation of Holladay Distillery."
Honoring Ed Pechar: The Man Who Bet on Weston
The anniversary celebrations extend beyond concrete and lumber. As part of the year's commemorative efforts, Holladay Distillery also announced the dedication of the newly renamed Ed Pechar Event Center, honoring longtime McCormick Distilling Co. Chairman Edward A. Pechar for his lasting impact on the company's modern evolution. The naming of an event center after a living benefactor is a serious gesture in the spirits world, and it reflects how central Pechar's vision was to everything the distillery has become in recent decades.
Pechar was part of the ownership group that acquired McCormick Distilling Co. and helped shape its renewed focus on premium spirits and long-term investment in the future. That renewed focus produced not just the bourbon revival, but the $10 million stillhouse renovation, the expansion of the campus, and the cultivation of a brand identity rooted in historical authenticity rather than craft-spirits-era novelty. Pechar and his partners made bets that take years to pay off, and the 170th anniversary is in many ways a validation of those decisions.
A Portfolio Built on Genuine Missouri Terroir
Holladay's modern portfolio is compact by industry standards, but each expression carries meaningful differentiation. As the oldest distillery west of the Mississippi River, Holladay's legacy endures through its Ben Holladay 1856 Original, Holladay Soft Red Wheat, and the Rickhouse Proof bourbon expressions. The 1856 Original represents the direct line back to the founding mash bill. The Soft Red Wheat expressions represent a different grain philosophy — softer, rounder, and tailored to the increasingly sophisticated palates of American whiskey drinkers.
Competition results have validated what the distillery is producing. The Soft Red Wheat Bottled-in-Bond earned Platinum at the 2026 Ascot Awards and secured a Platinum medal at the LA Spirits Awards — its highest honor — highlighting its refined, approachable profile. Meanwhile, the Soft Red Wheat Rickhouse Proof took Double Platinum at the Ascot Awards, further underscoring the depth and complexity of the expression at higher proof. Double Platinum at the Ascot Awards is not a courtesy ribbon — it represents scores that put a whiskey in elite company regardless of geography or brand heritage.
Together, these accolades reinforce the Soft Red Wheat series as one of Holladay's most celebrated and fast-rising bourbon offerings. For a distillery that only released its flagship bottled-in-bond product in 2022, the competitive recognition has arrived quickly. Following a 2025 limited release of the Ben Holladay One Barrel 8-Year, the story continues with a 10-Year expression on the horizon. That pipeline represents exactly what patient investment in aging infrastructure enables — the ability to offer increasingly mature expressions as the years of production stack up.
The Missouri Bourbon Standard
It's worth understanding what "Real Missouri Bourbon" actually means in legal terms, because the designation carries standards even stricter than federal requirements. According to House Bill 266, signed on July 11, 2019, any whiskey labeled as Missouri bourbon must not only meet the federal standards for bourbon but also be mashed, fermented, distilled, aged, and bottled in the state; aged in oak barrels manufactured in the state; and — beginning January 1, 2020 — made with corn exclusively grown in the state. The law went into effect on August 28, 2019.
Holladay leans into that standard rather than treating it as a burden. The barrels Holladay uses are made in Lebanon, Missouri, satisfying the state's oak barrel requirement while keeping the supply chain regional. The grain sourcing follows suit. This degree of local integration isn't just regulatory compliance — it ties the final flavor of the bourbon to a specific geography in a way that genuinely matters to the liquid in the glass.
What the 170th Anniversary Means for the Broader Industry
Holladay's anniversary lands at an interesting moment in American bourbon culture. Kentucky's dominance of the bourbon narrative has always been overstated — if you ask any bourbon fan, chances are at least half of them will say bourbon has to be made in Kentucky, but that has never been the case, and in fact there has been bourbon made outside of Kentucky as long as it has been called bourbon. Two brothers from Nicholas County, Kentucky, founded a distillery in Weston, Missouri, in the mid-19th century — one that still crafts bourbon with the same care and character today.
As the craft bourbon movement has matured, consumers have grown genuinely curious about regional expressions and the terroir of American whiskey. Holladay's position as a 170-year-old Missouri institution gives it credibility that no startup distillery — however talented — can replicate. Age statements, provenance, and documented production history have never mattered more to serious whiskey drinkers, and Holladay has all three. Master distiller Kyle Merklein put the production philosophy plainly: "We have this history that dates back to 1856 with Ben and David Holladay starting our facility after coming up from Kentucky. Everything that they did was the traditional bourbon methods at the time. So, we are rooted in that traditional bourbon style."
While the distillery reflects on nearly two centuries of history, the Holladay Bourbon portfolio is simultaneously approaching an important milestone of its own — ten years since the beginning of its modern bourbon revival. That convergence of timelines — 170 years of institutional history alongside a decade of product maturation — gives the distillery a genuinely unusual story to tell. The bourbon now entering barrels for future release will be aged inside a rickhouse complex that has grown to four structures, operated by a team that has spent a decade refining its craft and earning accolades on the national and international competition circuit.
Fee put the gravity of the moment in straightforward terms: "This anniversary is incredibly meaningful for our team. One hundred seventy years is a testament to the people who built this place and believed in its future across generations. We're excited to celebrate where we've been, and where we're headed."
Weston, Missouri: The Destination Worth the Drive
For anyone who has spent time on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, the idea of making a dedicated trip to a Missouri distillery might require some adjustment. It shouldn't. Located in the heart of Weston, Missouri — just 30 minutes north of Kansas City — Holladay Distillery welcomes visitors from across the country to experience nearly 170 years of bourbon history. Scenic rickhouses, guided distillery tours, bourbon tastings, and a limestone spring once chartered by Lewis and Clark make Holladay one of Missouri's most unique day-trip destinations.
The experience is layered in ways that reward curiosity. Visitors peer into the limestone spring first discovered by Lewis and Clark in 1804 and step inside the stillhouse that dates back to the mid-1800s when Ben Holladay first started using limestone water to make bourbon. A short video is shown inside the Ancient Cave, where bourbon barrels were aged when the distillery was first founded. These aren't reconstructed sets or themed experiences — they are the actual physical spaces where American bourbon history unfolded.
Holladay is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the grounds reflect that designation. The rolling hills, original stone structures, and growing line of ironclad rickhouses form a campus that feels more like a working piece of American history than a spirits attraction. For the bourbon enthusiast who has already done Louisville and Bardstown, Weston offers something different: a distillery where the story is just as rich and the whiskey is just as serious, without the crowds or the commercialization that has begun to define parts of the Kentucky trail.
170 Years In, and the Barrels Are Just Getting Fuller
The symmetry of what Holladay is doing in 2026 is not accidental. Building Rickhouse D in the year of the 170th anniversary is a statement about confidence — confidence in the product, the market, and the geography. Every barrel being rolled into that new ironclad structure represents a minimum six-year commitment, meaning the distillery is already planning for what Holladay bourbon looks and tastes like in the early 2030s.
Today, Holladay Distillery continues to build on nearly 170 years of distilling heritage through a growing portfolio of award-winning bourbons and premium spirits, while preserving the authenticity and craftsmanship that have defined the distillery since 1856. That sentence reads like a mission statement, but at Holladay it reads more like a fact — one backed by limestone spring water, original production records, a federally listed historic site, and a growing stack of competition medals.
The story of American bourbon is usually told from Louisville looking south and east. Holladay Distillery, sitting on a limestone ridge thirty minutes north of Kansas City, offers a reminder that the spirit's roots spread much further than that — and that some of its most authentic chapters are still being written, one barrel at a time, in a state most whiskey tourists haven't thought to visit yet. The 170th anniversary isn't just a number. It's an argument for paying attention.
