Willett Distillery

The Willett family's role in American distilling dates to 1792 — the year Kentucky became a state — when William Willett Jr. moved from Maryland to Nelson County. By the mid-nineteenth century his son John David Willett was a master distiller at four Kentucky distilleries. Thompson Willett established the Willett Distillery on the family farm in Bardstown in 1936, shortly after Prohibition's repeal. The first bourbon under the family's own brand was Old Bardstown Bourbon in the 1940s; Johnny Drum followed in the 1960s as a secondary expression.

Even Kulsveen and his wife Martha Willett Kulsveen (Thompson's daughter) acquired the property in 1984. Production was suspended for a period; the operation was renamed Kentucky Bourbon Distillers Ltd and focused on releasing the estate's existing stocks plus contracted production. In the 1990s the family launched the Small Batch Boutique Bourbon Collection under the KBD label — Rowan's Creek, Noah's Mill, Kentucky Vintage, and Pure Kentucky — independently bottled, reflecting selected stocks from across Kentucky. Estate distillation has been restored in recent years with the Willett Family Estate single-barrel releases.