Rabbit Hole Distillery

Rabbit Hole Distillery (Louisville, KY)

Louisville, Kentucky is many things.

Beautiful, bustling, historic, and filled with passionate people. The architecture speaks to its history while looking towards the future.

There is one distillery that is new, fresh, and embodies the innovation and clean modern aesthetic that so strikingly sits surrounded by historic red brick buildings.

Rabbit Hole was founded by former psychologist, Kaveh Zamanian. He was a scotch man once upon a time, but his wife Heather introduced him to the world of bourbon. This sent him down the proverbial "rabbit hole" and such was born a unique and wonderful brand of whiskey.

Rabbit hole was established in 2012 and, according to Kaveh, the development raised "a few eyebrows" at first, but soon it became a Louisville staple producing quality and craft whiskey that Kentucky is so well known for.

Though the brand was founded in 2012, it wasn't until 2018 that the physical location was constructed, built on the back of the brand's massive success.

Rabbit Hole Distillery (Louisville, KY)

The building is an absolutely stunning fusion of wood and steel, showcasing a highly modern look with flavors of a more rural undertone. This is a great analogy for the whiskey they produce. Classic flavors and profile with a unique notes that separate it from the pack.

The gift shop has racks upon racks of their quality whiskey on display as well as all kinds of fun branded merch that have a clean, industrial look to them. We were quite taken with how nice everything was, and how easy it was to check-in for our tour.

According to our guide, the building is separated into two distinctly purposed halves. One half is for research and development. It's where the powers that be decide how to tweak their existing lineup as well as develop the new lineup.

The other half is for the physical operation. That is, their mash cooking, fermenting, distilling, barreling, and bottling all take place on the other half of the building.

You can see through the open windows into the labs and different areas that transparency is a vital ingredient for Rabbit Hole's entire operation.

Their entire distillation process is painted up on the walls along the main hallway, giving awesome insight to those who walk down its pathway.

The actual distillery operation is clean, industrial, and impressive. There are clean, purely aesthetic additions that show the distillery had tours in mind when they were designing the architecture.

The mash room has multiple levels with plenty of open space for you to appreciate and view the distillery in all its splendor.

While the architecture and operation are impressive, the tour guides that we met have a deeply profound passion for not only whiskey, but for Rabbit Hole as a whole. Josh, their Brand Experience Manager was very transparent and genuinely excited about the whiskey they produce. It's incredible to see a staff that isn't just showing up for work, they're coming to this wonderful place with a sense of purpose and pride. It's absolutely infectious.

Once the tour is over, you're sent up to their bar which is rightly named "The Over Look."

The tasting includes chocolates and a full bar of ingredients for you to smell while you parse flavors from their drams. While the tasting is great, the bartenders also mix mean cocktails that showcase the uniqueness of Rabbit Hole's lineup rather than overshadow them.

After grabbing your craft cocktail, you can go enjoy the landscape of their little corner of St. Louis.

The cityscape is beautiful in all its varied splendor and color. Looking over the city, knowing you're in a beautiful city, full of beautiful distilleries, with oftentimes beautiful weather gives you a great sense of serenity.

If you're looking for a distillery with a great sense of purpose, good whiskey, and a beautiful vibe and feel, then Rabbit Hole should be on your list for your next visit.