What we’re drinking: Bardstown Bourbon Company Cathedral French Oak
Where it’s from: Named 2023 Worldwide Whiskey Producer of the Year by IWSC and Brand Innovator and Distiller of the Year at the 2025 Icons of Whisky, Bardstown Bourbon Company is part of a newly-reorganized Lofted Spirits parent company (which also includes Green River Distilling Co. and Lofted Custom Spirits, a custom whiskey production business). It is based in Bardstown, KY.
Why we’re drinking this: Bardstown is one of the more innovative and modern whiskey brands I’ve encountered (they also contract distill for up to 30 distilleries), so I was thrilled to meet up with Dan Callaway, head of new product development for Bardstown Bourbon Co., to discuss the inaugural entry in their new Distillery Reserve line.
“In my office, there are a lot of projects aging with all kinds of wood finishing experiments, and we’ve carved out some of them for the Distillery Reserve releases,” says Callaway, one of the nicest (and tallest) people in the whiskey biz. “It can start with me messaging a cooperage and saying, ‘What do you have?’”
And the first release is quite a story. Cathedral French Oak Finish is a blend of extra-aged bourbon rested for an additional 14 months in barrels made of 300-year-old French oak trees — the same trees that were harvested to restore the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris following the fire of 2019.
For Whiskey Geeks, “Sourced” Is No Longer a Dirty Word
Bardstown Bourbon Company makes some of the best American whiskey — for itself and many other brands“There were some trees left over from the restoration,” Callaway says. “So I wanted to match this rare oak from one of France’s oldest barrel makers with our rarest liquid.”
Let’s try this spiritual spirit (and feel free to take the distillery’s “Saint or Sinner” quiz while you’re sipping; for the sake of transparency, I was a “saint”).
How it tastes: Cathedral French Oak is a blend of Kentucky bourbons aged nine to 18 years and finished for 14 months in barrels from the Bercé Forest in the Loire Valley. It comes in at 110.1 proof (55.05% ABV). I find bourbon rarely has a strong nose, but that’s not the case here, as I’m picking up a lot of maple and caramelized sugar. On the palate, it’s a classic bourbon — caramel, vanilla, cherry, a hint of orange zest, a bit of citrus, slightly nutty — with some strong cedar and toasted oak influence. It has additional notes of leather, tobacco and cloves. For being so barrel-forward, it’s actually quite bright and complex.
Fun fact: One of the unique features of Bardstown is their campus’s glass rickhouses. “It’s somewhat intentional and somewhat not,” Callaway says. “Our core tenant is transparency, so that’s what led to the glass. It was just aesthetic (at first), but it turns out when you have glass, your warehouses are now getting day-to-day shifts, like diurnal temperature swings, as well as season-to-season. You’re getting some rapid development.” The glass (on one side of the rickhouses) was also intentionally built to hit the sunset.
Where to buy: You can buy Bardstown products online or in stores, but the Cathedral French Oak release is only available at the distillery’s gift shops in Bardstown and Louisville. For something a bit easier to find, we highly suggest a bottle from their Origin Series, which is some of the distillery’s first grain-to-glass releases (aka not sourced). The rye is particularly delicious.
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