Formerly: Elijah Pepper Distillery · Oscar Pepper Distillery · Old Oscar Pepper Distillery · Labrot & Graham Distillery
Versailles, Kentucky · Founded 1812 · Building: 1838 (Oscar Pepper limestone distillery; later complex additions and modern restoration)
An 1812 Glenn's Creek distilling site anchored by an 1838 limestone distillery where James C. Crow helped shape modern bourbon practice.
Woodford Reserve Distillery occupies a Glenn's Creek site in Woodford County where Elijah Pepper established a farm distillery in 1812. His son Oscar built the surviving limestone commercial distillery in 1838, and James C. Crow worked there during the mid-nineteenth century on techniques that helped define modern bourbon production. Brown-Forman restored the long-closed Labrot & Graham site after repurchasing it in 1993, introduced Woodford Reserve bourbon in 1996, and changed the distillery's name to Woodford Reserve in 2003.
Elijah Pepper established a 350-acre farm on Glenn's Creek that included a grist mill and a farm-distilling operation. The National Historic Landmark nomination identifies this as the first documented distilling operation on the present Woodford Reserve property.
Source: National Park Service, National Historic Landmark Nomination for Labrot & Graham's Old Oscar Pepper Distillery; Woodford Reserve historical materials
Oscar Pepper employed Scottish-born distiller and chemist James C. Crow, whose work at the distillery continued, with a reported two-year interruption, through 1855.
Source: National Park Service, National Historic Landmark Nomination for Labrot & Graham's Old Oscar Pepper Distillery; Brian Haara, "How Woodford Reserve got to keep the (old) name of its distillery," August 8, 2013
Oscar Pepper built the limestone commercial distillery on Glenn's Creek, transforming the earlier farm operation into the facility later known as the Old Oscar Pepper Distillery.
Source: National Park Service, National Historic Landmark Nomination for Labrot & Graham's Old Oscar Pepper Distillery; Whisky Advocate, "Woodford Reserve Opens the Pepper House," August 9, 2024
James E. Pepper declared bankruptcy, and ownership of the Oscar Pepper Distillery passed through E. H. Taylor Jr. and George T. Stagg before the 1878 Labrot and Graham acquisition.
Source: Whisky Advocate, "Woodford Reserve Opens the Pepper House," August 9, 2024
Leopold Labrot and James Graham acquired the distillery and operated it as Labrot & Graham Distillery.
Source: Whisky Advocate, "Woodford Reserve Opens the Pepper House," August 9, 2024; Woodford Reserve historical materials
National Prohibition began, interrupting commercial distilling at the Labrot & Graham site.
Source: National Park Service, National Historic Landmark Nomination; Woodford Reserve historical materials
Brown-Forman acquired Labrot & Graham Distillery in the early 1940s.
Source: Whisky Advocate, "Woodford Reserve Opens the Pepper House," August 9, 2024
Brown-Forman sold the property to a local farmer, who used the historic buildings for storage rather than distilling.
Source: Whisky Advocate, "Woodford Reserve Opens the Pepper House," August 9, 2024
Brown-Forman repurchased the historic property and began restoring it for a new premium bourbon project.
Source: Whisky Advocate, "Woodford Reserve Opens the Pepper House," August 9, 2024
Brown-Forman released Woodford Reserve bourbon.
Source: Whisky Advocate, "Woodford Reserve Opens the Pepper House," August 9, 2024
The Labrot & Graham Old Oscar Pepper Distillery complex received National Historic Landmark designation.
Source: National Park Service, National Historic Landmark Nomination; Distillery Trail, July 16, 2024
The distillery's formal name changed from Labrot & Graham Distillery to Woodford Reserve Distillery.
Source: Whisky Advocate, "Woodford Reserve Opens the Pepper House," August 9, 2024
Woodford Reserve Distillery continues operating tours, tastings, a gift shop, and a cocktail bar at its Versailles site.
Source: Woodford Reserve, "Our Distillery," updated July 23, 2025; Woodford Reserve, "Tours & Tastings," updated March 20, 2026
Every claim gets rated. A business's own website can never earn "documented."
National Historic Landmark material and modern bourbon histories associate Crow's work for Oscar Pepper with the use of instruments to measure temperature, acidity, and sugar, refinement of sour-mash practice, and influential work in charred-oak maturation. These sources support Crow's major role in bourbon history, but "perfected" is interpretive and the specific distillery ledgers and period scientific journals claimed in the first pass were not independently reviewed.
The National Historic Landmark nomination documents distilling at the Woodford site from 1812, and tourism sources market it as Kentucky's oldest distilling site. However, the facility did not remain continuously active through Prohibition and the 1973–1993 storage period, and this review did not establish a complete statewide comparison of earlier Kentucky distilling sites. The 1812 site history is strong; the statewide oldest-site title is not settled here.
The site has distilling roots to 1812, but commercial distilling stopped during Prohibition and the property was used for agricultural storage after Brown-Forman sold it in 1973. Brown-Forman repurchased and restored the site in 1993. The current Woodford Reserve operation is historically connected to the property but not uninterrupted since 1812.
The National Park Service's National Historic Landmark nomination identifies the Labrot & Graham Old Oscar Pepper Distillery as a nationally significant bourbon-manufacturing complex associated with the development of American whiskey production. The landmark designation honors the historic property and its industrial architecture; it does not itself prove present-day continuity or a statewide oldest-site title.
Whisky Advocate's ownership history distinguishes Brown-Forman's 1996 Woodford Reserve bourbon launch from the 2003 name change of the Labrot & Graham Distillery. This is a more accurate chronology than treating the modern brand as the facility's name since 1812 or since the 1990s restoration.
Woodford Reserve has operated under the Woodford Reserve brand name since 1812.
The Glenn's Creek site has distilling roots to 1812, but it operated under Pepper-family and Labrot & Graham identities for most of its history. Brown-Forman launched Woodford Reserve bourbon in 1996, and the historic Labrot & Graham Distillery formally became Woodford Reserve Distillery in 2003.
Source: Whisky Advocate, "Woodford Reserve Opens the Pepper House," August 9, 2024; National Park Service, National Historic Landmark Nomination
Woodford Reserve has distilled continuously at the site since 1812.
The property has an 1812 distilling origin, but commercial production was interrupted during Prohibition and again after Brown-Forman sold the site in 1973, when the historic buildings were used for storage until the 1993 repurchase and restoration.
Source: Whisky Advocate, "Woodford Reserve Opens the Pepper House," August 9, 2024; National Park Service, National Historic Landmark Nomination
All of Woodford Reserve Distillery is an original 1838 building.
Oscar Pepper's limestone commercial distillery dates to 1838, but the present working campus includes later structures, twentieth-century changes, and modern Brown-Forman restoration and visitor facilities.
Source: National Park Service, National Historic Landmark Nomination; Woodford Reserve, "Our Distillery"
Woodford Reserve survives because Brown-Forman treated a closed historic manufacturing site as an asset worth restoring rather than replacing. The property had endured ownership changes, a Prohibition-era shutdown, and a 1973 sale to a local farmer who used its buildings for storage. Its 1993 repurchase, restoration, copper-pot-still production, and conversion into a visitor destination tied a nineteenth-century bourbon landmark to a modern premium brand.
Distilling began at the Glenn's Creek site of Woodford Reserve in 1812, when Elijah Pepper established a farm, mill, and distilling operation. His son Oscar built the limestone commercial distillery in 1838, and James C. Crow worked there in the mid-nineteenth century on methods that shaped modern bourbon-making. Brown-Forman restored the formerly closed Labrot & Graham site after repurchasing it in 1993, launched Woodford Reserve bourbon in 1996, and renamed the distillery Woodford Reserve in 2003.
Woodford Reserve occupies a Kentucky distilling site with documented roots to 1812, and tourism sources often call it Kentucky's oldest distilling site. It is not a continuously operating distillery from 1812: the site closed during Prohibition and was used for farm storage after its 1973 sale until Brown-Forman repurchased it in 1993. This review does not resolve a statewide oldest-site title because other Kentucky sites require the same source-level comparison.
James C. Crow worked at the Oscar Pepper Distillery, now part of the Woodford Reserve historic site, from the 1830s into the 1850s. National Historic Landmark material credits him with applying scientific measurement to whiskey-making and helping refine sour-mash and maturation practices. Calling him the sole inventor of every modern bourbon method would overstate the evidence, but his influence on bourbon production is central to the site's history.
Brown-Forman introduced Woodford Reserve bourbon in 1996, but the historic site remained formally known as Labrot & Graham Distillery until 2003. The Woodford Reserve name therefore belongs to the modern brand era, not to the site's original 1812 or 1838 operations.
The surviving limestone commercial distillery building dates to 1838, when Oscar Pepper expanded the earlier Glenn's Creek farm operation. The active Woodford Reserve campus also contains later structures, modern restoration work, visitor facilities, and current production equipment, so it should not be described as one untouched 1838 building.
7785 McCracken Pike, Versailles, KY 40383
(859) 879-1812
Tours and tastings are by reservation. Woodford Reserve publishes separate phone contacts for general information and tour questions, so check the current booking page before traveling.