Distillery
Kentucky Owl
On the banks of the Kentucky River in 1879, a pharmacist named Charles Mortimer Dedman started distilling bourbon. He called it Kentucky Owl and marketed it as the Wise Man's Bourbon. That fortune did not last. In 1916, federal agents seized roughly 250,000 gallons of his bourbon and barged it to a warehouse in Frankfort. The warehouse mysteriously burned to the ground soon after, wiping out the entire stock. The brand sat dormant for decades until Dedman's great-great-grandson, Dixon Dedman, began tracking down and hand-blending barrels of Kentucky bourbon. His small batches sold out almost entirely by word of mouth, and demand made Kentucky Owl a cult brand practically overnight. Stoli Group later bought the brand in 2017 and continues to produce it today. Kentucky Owl's whisky is built from sourced and blended stock rather than a single house recipe, a trait few bourbons openly embrace.
