Q&A: Founder Lee Kennedy Talks 10 Years of Leiper’s Fork Distillery, Upcoming Nashville Location and Staying Inefficient by Design

(Photos: Leiper’s Fork Distillery)

Leiper’s Fork Distillery turned 10 in October, and The Daily Pour sat down with founder and master distiller Lee Kennedy to mark the anniversary. We asked about the point the distillery stopped feeling like a startup, the plan for its Nashville Yards location, what he’d tell himself in the early days and more.

Ten years in, is there a moment that felt like a turning point for Leiper’s Fork, where it stopped feeling like a startup and started feeling like it was going to make it?

Lee Kennedy: I would say about five or six years in it began to not feel like a startup. That said, as far as distilleries go, I feel like we are still in our infancy. We have been laying down good whiskey from grain to glass and doing things the hard way. We are grinding to grow the brand every day and feel like we still have a lot of things to accomplish. Ten years is a great milestone, and I feel like we’ve laid a good foundation for carrying the brand forward.

What is your biggest goal over the next 10 years?

Kennedy: Our biggest goal over the next 10 years is to concentrate on continuing to produce authentic quality whiskey and to continue to grow the brand. Our brand growth has been organic, leaning into the connoisseur community and that has given us a good foundation for reaching a broader market and telling our story.

Leiper’s Fork prides itself on its inefficiencies by design. How have you managed to maintain these inefficiencies in a slowing market?

Kennedy: One thing we have never compromised on is our ethos and philosophy when it comes to making whiskey. We use local non-GMO grains, old-school techniques and attention to detail. That will never change. We want to be known for the quality of our whiskey first and not a flashy brand. We feel like we are distillers first and foremost and try to view everything through the lens of doing what’s right for the whiskey. To start compromising that and cutting corners for the sake of profits would diminish my passion for what we are doing every day. I view whiskey as a consumable art form and that drives our decision-making processes.

What made you want to take the leap to open a location in Nashville Yards?

Kennedy: Honestly, what drove that decision for us is access to market. We are a family-owned small-batch brand and can’t compete dollar for dollar in the marketplace with corporate-owned or institutional equity-backed brands. Distributors are very apathetic when it comes to supporting small brands. Opening Nashville puts our brand organically in the path of a lot of people traveling to Middle Tennessee. Nashville sees roughly 16 million visitors per year. Our two biggest cultural exports from Tennessee are music and whiskey. People visiting here are looking for those two experiences. We are hoping the Nashville location will help expose our brand to a lot of people and gives us control over our own story. Hopefully they travel home and ask for us on their local market. We will also be making 250 barrels per year at the new location, so it helps us from a capacity standpoint.

With regard to the upcoming Nashville Yards location plans, what are you most excited/proud about?

Kennedy: Like the previous question, I’m excited about what I hope it does for brand exposure. We are setting the location up as a whiskey experience. It will be a homage to whiskey and Leiper’s Fork Distillery. Being able to tell our story, from our own mouths, to visitors gives us a unique opportunity. We have a unique and authentic story and it will give us a bigger pulpit to preach that message. It will also have a food and beverage concept and we use our same philosophy for the food as we do our whiskey production: authentic, local and quality. The food items will have an Appalachian flair and be organic to Tennessee.

If you could go back and tell yourself one thing in the early days of Leiper’s Fork, what would it be?

Kennedy: I would probably remind myself that starting a distillery, producing and aging whiskey, and growing a brand takes patience and perseverance. Without an unquenchable passion those things are hard. This is not an industry to make a quick buck. A lot of folks have done that in the last ten years, but most have not. I would also remind myself to be a contrarian. In a world filled with mass-production and corporate fads, stick to what you know to be true when it comes to producing an authentic and quality product. Passion combined with dogged determination is, in my opinion, the best recipe for long-term authenticity and long-term success. A little luck and a lot of faith helps as well.

What’s your favorite Leiper’s Fork release to sip on an average day? Do you have a favorite cocktail to make with Leiper’s Fork?

Kennedy: My favorite pour of Leiper’s Fork is a 50/50 blend of our Bottled in Bond Bourbon and Tennessee Whiskey. We don’t have this as a standard offering, but I blend it at home myself. If you have a bottle of each, try it. I also like any of our Single Barrel expressions. They are our oldest whiskeys and are very complex and robust. We do them at cask strength and perform no filtration other than for debris. It’s a very simple and unadulterated expression. For a cocktail, I like an Old Fashioned made with our Tennessee Whiskey. The rye component in it really shines through.