A bourbon bankruptcy

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The bourbon industry has shifted and recent headlines bare that out. We discuss on this week's Access Louisville podcast.

Topping our show this week is news on a potential deal to acquire Luca Mariano Distillery in Danville, Kentucky. As LBF Bourbon Reporter Stephen P. Schmidt notes Mark Newman, CEO of Las Vegas-based Apogee 21 Holdings, Inc., doing business as A21 Wine & Spirits, made a bid for $16.7 million to acquire the distillery as well as more than 6,600 barrels that are aging there. A hearing on the confirmation plan of the sale is set for July 7 in Detroit.

In June 2025, Luca Mariano held a grand opening for the facility despite being involved in several lawsuits. A month later, LMD Holdings, the parent company of Luca Mariano, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Also on the show this week, we chat about a different bourbon company, TKC Distilling Co, which is facing two lawsuits in Jefferson County Circuit Court over claims of unpaid bills. TKC Distilling Co. is the producer of True Story, a bourbon brand launched by Angel’s Envy Co-Founder Wes Henderson and his sons in September 2024.

The company faces two legal complaints for more than $1.5 million. 

Late in the show we talk about the development of data centers, including a proposal for a data center in Charlestown, Indiana and new regulations being considered by Louisville Metro Government.

Access Louisville, sponsored by Baird, is a weekly podcast from Louisville Business First. You can also follow it on popular podcast services including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

A distillery went bankrupt, but now it might be bought. We'll get into it next on Access Louisable. Thanks for joining us. My name is David Mann, and joining me today is Stephen P. Schmidt. Hello. And Shea Van Hoy. Hey folks! Access Louisville is a weekly podcast from Louisville Business First. Each week we bring you the latest news and plenty of sharp opinions about what's going on here in Louisville, Kentucky. A few things before we get into it. First, this podcast is sponsored by Baird. Discover the Baird difference at rwbaird.com slash Louisville. We'll hear more from Baird later in the show. Also, our next live podcast is set for July 30th. I'm calling this one How Louisville Lives. We're going to talk to about the ins and outs of residential real estate with three local experts. Stacy Durbin of Semen and Realtors, Jakeiva Lee of Greater Louisville Association of Realtors, and John Mand of Lenahan Sotheby's. The housing market is a constant conversation around town, so we hope you can make it out and to this event and get some real highlights on where it's going next. I'll leave a link in the notes to this show where you can buy tickets. For now, though, let's get into that bourbon talk. Steve, I'm just gonna set the scene here. Luca Mariano Distillery is in Danville, Kentucky. Uh, it opened last year in June of 2025, and then a month later it filed for bankruptcy. And we've kind of been watching this story for a while. But the latest uh chapter is that now it might get acquired um uh as a part of the bankruptcy proceedings. So I guess who's the buyer?

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Yeah, so the buyer would be uh Mark Newman, he's the CEO of Apogee21 Holdings, but they're uh they do business as A21 Wine and Spirits, and uh they are looking to make a bid for 16.7 million dollars to acquire not only the distillery uh in Danville, Kentucky, uh, but also about 6,600 uh barrels of whiskey that's aging from two to ten years. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

And this Shay has been a talker for us uh during the last week in terms of the numbers of people we're seeing come to our website. You know, why do you think people are so interested in bourbon news like this lately?

SPEAKER_03 2:32

I I think it's because it's not boring. Uh, you know, if things are just sort of humming along with no highs or lows, uh people get a little less interested. But you know, Steve started working on the bourbon beat when things were like red hot, yeah, and so everyone was interested when because like how do we get into this game and all these distilleries and all these tasting rooms open? This money started. All this money, yeah, all these barrels. Uh and then uh, you know, then flash forward to now where it's the other end of that where you know, from big players like Brown Foreman who have reported, you know, declines in sales, uh, down to you know smaller places or or um non-distilling producers uh cutting jobs. You know, we had Whiskey House uh a couple weeks ago. So I think it's that yin and yang. We've had both the yang and the yin, I don't remember which is which, but like uh that's when people are interested in is when there's kind of drama either way.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's anybody that wants to inject uh positive news into this sector. Um, because when I talked to Newman, he was saying he wants to add 15 to 18 full-time jobs at that facility, and that it also includes um having a master distiller. So give me no complete because this this is a non-distilling producer. Their biggest brand was Noble Oak Bourbon, and so they're looking to have this as their home place for Noble Oak and have these other brands after the Samuel, I think it's called Samuel T. Damn Good Whiskey Company. So um, you know, who knows what will happen with this? They're hoping that the sale finalizes and finalizes in July. But I I think anything that, hey, we're gonna try to generate jobs, we're gonna try to, we're gonna try to open up this distillery, because the distillery opened under kind of a gray cloud, so to speak, with Luca Mariano had all these, uh it was a non-distilling producer, it was gonna make its own juice, and then the wheels kind of fell off before it could get going. And so um I think anytime you have a situation like this where that's been bogged down by all this uh litigation, if somebody can get in there and and give it a fresh start, people are interested in that because that there's a lot of people in the in the bourbon industry who are out without a job right now.

SPEAKER_02 4:33

Oh, yeah, true. That and uh we'll definitely get into that later. Um you also had a story about TKC distilling. Uh I think TKC probably stands for the Kentucky Castle. That's right. These guys are trying to redo that famous castle, which is in Versailles, Kentucky. Uh who uh who have filed legal complaints against uh that company?

SPEAKER_01 4:54

Yeah, so uh the TKC Distilling is um that's uh Wes Henderson's uh group. He is the uh one of the co-f he co-founded, uh just give some background, he co-founded Angel's Envy um way back when with his dad, Lincoln Henderson, who was a longtime just master distiller at uh Brown Foreman, who launched uh uh played a key role in the launching uh the Woodford Reserve. So anyway, so the Hendersons are well known. Um he um is facing two lawsuits for about $1.5 million. The first one is from Lucket and Farley, uh, which is a Louisville-based architecture firm for work that they did on the master plan and building the Edgewood distillery, or coming up with the plans for the Edgewood distillery, which is where the heart of the this operation would would exist. And the other one is somebody that's known by many people in the bourbon space, uh Peggy knows Stevens. Um she uh has a consulting group, and so she's sued for $510,000 for consulting services uh for an agreement that began in January of 2024 that she never got paid for. So, all in all, there's about $1.5 million there. Um, and it seems like uh that I haven't talked to Wes about this uh in person, uh you know, straight uh I haven't talked with him directly, but it seems like things are just kind of uh stalled right there. The the castle is still operating as a as a hotel, but everything else is kind of being put on hold. And they still have the true story brand, we should say that's that's the so they they they launched this brand in October of 2024, and that's still out there, but um yeah, their plans they had really great aspirations, and now those are kind of being reined in a bit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:35

True story bourbon, that was the brand that you mentioned in 2024. So yeah. Um let's see here. I got a quiz for you guys. You know why there is a castle in Versailles, Kentucky?

SPEAKER_01 6:49

Uh the name? Tied to the name? I'm thinking of the Palace of Versailles in France.

SPEAKER_02 6:56

Actually, you're close. There was a uh a man uh in uh 1969 built this castle. His name was Rex Martin. He and his wife uh were inspired by the castles they saw on their honeymoon in Europe, and uh, I guess they they had some money to throw around and decided to build he built this as a gift for his wife. And now it's a hotel and thing that people drive by and see.

SPEAKER_03 7:19

So yeah, I had a friend that did some sort of like group adventure thing there or something. I don't know. Uh seems pretty cool. Uh I've driven by it, like everyone kind of knows is driven by it. And oddly, there's you know, also the Charlestown, Indiana castle, which I don't think is a sprawling, but there's a No, I didn't know this. Yes, yeah, yeah. That's my secret quiz.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Well, as romantic as that story was, the this uh the uh the AI also mentioned, I just did a Google search on this. The AI also mentioned that uh Martins got divorced in 1975, and the uh the construction of this castle stopped abruptly and it sat there for roughly 30 years unfinished, uh and became kind of just a thing. Like I remember driving by it as a kid and just being like, whoa, a castle. Yeah. Um kind of just became this curiosity.

SPEAKER_03 8:06

It's along one of the routes to Keeneland, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:08

Yeah, well, it's on one of the routes to Lexington. Yeah, yeah. Um that's how I remember going by it. But um, but yeah, I guess after after the um this this group took it over and kind of operates it as a as a hotel and attraction now. And I've seen the pictures of it. It looks nice. They got a pool, a pool right underneath one of the turrets and and and all that. Guillotine and everything. Yeah, yeah, you can get your picture in there, maybe. Uh all right. Well, um, Steve, do you think these stories kind of fit this larger narrative about the bourbon bubble bursting? We talked about that, but you know, you've also written about Whiskey House, you've written about some of the other kind of just um uh down the downside of what's going on in the bourbon industry.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

Yeah, I don't know if the bourbon's the bubble is bursting. I think the bourbon's just shrinking, maybe. Uh I think there's just there's less of a uh, I guess you would call it like a Teflon coating on that on that bubble. Uh because yeah, the the um whiskey, you mentioned Whiskey House, uh we they laid off 22 employees, which is 33 30% of its workforce. Uh uh, not that I guess it was like maybe a week ago. And that was kind of a big that was kind of a big deal because uh, you know, they're they've been one of the one of the most tech heavy um distilleries that have been working only with clients. And so the fact that they're the fact that they are laying off so many people just speaks to the fact that there's less people there's less demand to create um bottles of whiskey, you know. I the yeah, there's there's definitely something going on. Um, but I don't know if it's like really bursting, it's just it's um it's shifting and it's it's it's shrinking. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 9:52

Um that seems to be the uh the plot line that you're following. So uh with that, we'll switch gears here. Uh we'll talk about another another maybe bubble here. Um uh and that is uh data centers. That seems to be kind of the thing everybody's talking about lately because there's been a lot, there's been several proposed data centers around Louisville, several proposed around the country. Um so you just wrote Shay a story about some legislation that seeks to um uh limit the size of data centers that get built in Louisville. What's the what's the details on that?

SPEAKER_03 10:28

Yeah, it's a it's a draft proposal from the mayor's office, and it came after some uh you know public uh surveying from the I think the planning department. Uh but the headline of this was that uh this, if it passed through Metro Council at some point, would ban hyperscale data centers uh larger than 500,000 square feet. That's pretty big. You know, uh our largest warehouses in Louisville are just over 1 million square feet, thank the Amazon warehouse in Jeffersonville. Um so half that size, but you know, your average uh, you know, the Publix is 50,000 square feet roughly, so 10 times that. So still pretty big. Yeah. Um also for some perspective, the uh I believe the Meta data center, which is going to be finished later this year, is about 700,000 square feet. Uh so uh now that's not in Louisville, but to just give kind of perspective. Also, there's a lot of restrictions around where could be a lot of restrictions around where these would go and what they would be near. So not near a school or daycare. Uh they would be limited to industrial areas. Uh, there would be a lot of onus on developers to say, like, to not, you know, there's spec where there's spec data centers going up now, just like spec warehouses. So the city would want to know who the end user was going to be, not just who's building it. Yeah. Uh, such as Powerhouse in out of Virginia, which is pairing with Poe on this $11 billion proposed South Louisville uh data center. Um, you know, that'd be an example of uh, you know, a data center builder. Uh also things like uh cost of improvements to the land would be up to the developer. Uh so very kind of stringent uh restrictions. These are not law yet. They're gonna have a public hearing, and then whatever they would present to the council would go before the council to vote. At the same time, uh I was actually typing this up. I saw that uh the news and tribune across the river had a story on uh New Albany Mayor Jeff Gahan throwing out the idea of a year moratorium on any data center, um you know, uh I guess approvals in New Albany. Um we've had pushback in Madison, Indiana. We've had pushback in I think Oldham County. There's one proposed in Meade County, there's a couple others that have sort of bubbled up in Louisville. Uh there's one that's facing pushback really before a whole lot of details are out in Charlestown, and that's a much smaller one, it's about 50,000 square feet. So I think it's like now municipalities are realizing, man, these are coming faster than we thought. We need to get some restrictions because um right now it's just sort of like the public's complaining about uh, you know, their right to do so, but uh without any sort of guidelines. And so they want these guidelines on to say, like, look, if if they've hit all of these guidelines, there has to be a place for these data centers because people uh I've also also said it's kind of funny that you know people go on Facebook to complain about data centers when one being built in Jeffersonville to serve uh Facebook users. So yeah, uh, but anyway, uh that's a that's a sidebar. But um, yeah, uh, I think it's just trying to get a handle on this. And many, you know, Atlanta has passed legislation. Uh it's the Wild West, and people are just trying to put some um, you know, some restrictions and guidelines on these things.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

Yeah, uh, I was at you were there too, the uh one Southern Indiana celebration a few weeks ago, and everybody in in the room seemed to be talking about data centers, uh, in part because that story about the Charlestown data center had just broken a day or two earlier. That was kind of the talk of the town. And uh and then Meta uh you know kind of got in. It's it's it's almost done. It kind of got in before data center was a dirty word, you know.

SPEAKER_03 13:58

Yeah. Well well, Olivia, our reporter and me went over to uh sort of a you know a tour of River Ridge and then just an update on everything going on there. That's where the meta uh building is being built. And um, you know, on Wendy uh Dan Chester on their team who's also a state rep, so she's now seeing it from both sides, uh state representative. She was like, you know, this meta was announced four or five years ago, and she's like, there was nothing. There was no, it was just all great. Meta's coming here. Now it's like a little over a hundred jobs, but as uh you know, one River Edge folks pointed out, right now there's more than a thousand construction folks on site every day uh making good wage jobs. So there's not just the end result of these, but there are you know people being employed to build these high-tech things. And um, you know, and I forgot to mention in the Louisville the Louisville guidelines, an important one that many people are talking about is what's it gonna do to my utility rates? Is it gonna because they they use so much energy, um, baked into this, if it would go through the Louisville uh guidelines would be that the developer would have to prove that it would not affect existing rates, that you know it would be outside of that. So I don't know how you do that, but that's in there.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

Yeah, I don't know how you legislate it, but it does seem like the kind of protection I think people are worried about. Speaking of bubbles, I I wanted to just throw it out there. Is the data center bubble, is that a bubble?

SPEAKER_01 15:24

I I would say like the bourbon bubble is based off people wanting to drink alcohol. The data center is based on people wanting to use AI, which it's a sea change situation. So I don't really think that there's like I mean, people are gonna people are not gonna are not are gonna keep continuing to use AI. It's still gonna take a lot of energy. And so you're just gonna find more and more people trying to figure out how can we how can we how can we do that. Uh, there's a lot of people in the nuclear reactor space are trying to get little nuclear plants uh uh as a way to do that. Um, I think the biggest thing with data centers is the amount of water that they take up. And so being able to recycle water is good. I remember talking with uh uh uh Jimmy Kirchdorfer at Isco uh Industries. He was like, when we were talking to a couple months ago, he's like, one of our biggest verticals right now is is uh is getting these pipes into these data centers. You'd be amazed how many, how many miles of pipes it takes for one data center. And so figuring out, I think that when when you have a a world that's running that low on water, um you know, there's we're lucky here in Kentucky that our water table is not near, we don't have the situation as as like say like uh Colorado, Arizona, you know, places like that. So places that are that are low on water, I don't think are gonna have data center centers, period, because they just they don't have the the ability. But when you have more resources like we do, people are gonna keep knocking down the door. So I just don't see this really bursting. There's gonna be big tech coming in, and it's just uh trying to figure out the regulations that make it make it work for everybody because everybody wants to use AI. We use AI, um, and so but you have to figure out how to power it.

SPEAKER_03 17:01

So yeah, if I remember correctly, one of the reasons that Intel built their like huge chip factory in the middle of Ohio was the availability of water, um, which obviously we have, and one of the things we're actually to kind of promote, Olivia's working on a story about the made it Meta data center um and how that's coming along. Uh but one of the things that uh one as or sorry, I keep saying one as I River Edge uh was talking about is that Meta is using the a um uh closed circuit water system, which means they're recycling the own water they're using, and apparently this one in Charlestown is as well. So they're trying to get on front, which makes sense. Like if I don't understand what I don't know why you wouldn't.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

Yeah, why you couldn't do that? It's like building a fountain, like building the Bellagio fountain and using fresh water every yeah exactly.

SPEAKER_03 17:44

So that is a big key. Um, is you know, I think these things need to recycle their own water.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Yeah, I do think there is a kind of a parallel structure between living next to a distillery and living next to a data center. I mean, the the the biggest distilleries are trying to use their re reuse water and other steam and other things, not only because it's better for the environment, but because it's better for business. And so I think you yeah, I think as as more and more data centers come out there, I think you'll try to find more um self-contained, sustainable things that'll be good for everybody involved. At least that's that's the hope. Um, because you you're also trying to figure out what are the environment what are the in impacts to people living next to these data centers. There's their noise, is there, you know, it's still so new to know what's going on. Um, but uh I I think there is, you know, I I think like I said, there's a there's a commonality there between between like uh having being next to a distillery and being next to a data center.

SPEAKER_02 18:37

Yeah. All right. Well, good stuff. I think with that, we'll go ahead, we'll take a break, we'll get a word from our sponsors, we'll be back after that, and we'll give you something else to think about.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

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SPEAKER_02 19:18

That is our show, except we recently started this new thing where we just uh it's kind of a crab bag. I'll just ask you guys to give us give us all out there something to think about. And we'll just go around the room here. Uh share an observation or thought you had uh that you want people to know more about. And Steve, I'll start with you.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Yeah, so we're recording this on June 11th. Uh uh on so when this airs, the Louisville Kings will have either won or not won a uh championship in their first year. Um so the game would have been at 3 p.m. on uh this airs tomorrow. Saturday. Yeah, this will be out of the time. It airs tomorrow. All right.

SPEAKER_03 19:58

The story comes out Monday. So people can listen to this tomorrow. Okay, preview it.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

So very good. I can preview it. Okay, so 3 p.m. What to watch on Saturday on ABC? Um yeah, the the Kings are uh looking to they they started out the season 0-0-3, uh, but they've they've won seven of eight, including two back-to-back. They had a they had a win against uh DC, which one of the hottest teams a couple weeks ago, then they came back and beat them in uh in Louisville. And so now they have to, it's really, really hard to beat a team three times in a row, but uh uh that's what they're trying to do. The thing is that the DC, they're the team that they played are the uh DC defenders, they won, they're defending their their championship from last year. So um, and it's it's a home game for them. So yeah, it's kind of uh the thing is that uh one thing I was I was on the call with Chris Redman, the coach, and he was like, Well, we played in St. Louis, which is one of the loudest, craziest places to play in the league. So he's like, you know, even though it's gonna be it, we feel like that was a good training ground for anything they're gonna face in DC, which you'll you'll have a lot of people come in from other places. Um I saw that the the place holds 20,000. I think I saw that they have hold at least 16,500 tickets so far. So I think you're gonna have close to a sell-out crowd. Now, who's gonna be there for in DC? Who's gonna be there for Louisville? Who's there just to watch a game? I'm not really sure. But uh the other thing I'll say is that uh I do think that if they do win, um, that um there might be some type of thing at in Louisville to to honor them. I don't know if it's gonna be a parade, but I could definitely see a uh some type of pep rally at Lynn Family Stadium where they're like holding the trophy. Or anyway, there could be some excitement there next week, depending on what happens on Saturday. Yeah, I hope I hope that happens. All right, Shay, how about you?

SPEAKER_03 21:50

Yeah, I was thinking about this and um kind of landed on a story I wrote uh this uh was late last week uh about Tracy Skeens retirement. From Yum brands. She's been there for 25 plus years. She most recently, for the last few years, was their chief operating officer, one of the most visible, well-known people at Yum. It's just a really uh time of big time of change for Yum. You know, they got a new CEO about a year ago. They have a lot of a lot of executive and divisional changes. Here locally, the big changes, they're, you know, they've donated their headquarters to JCPS. They're in the process of moving 500 plus employees downtown, which is great for us downtown. I say us as like a collective downtown to have those folks here. They're moving into the PNC Tower, obviously spending, I think we had a price tag on that. It's multi-millions to renovate that for their headquarters. Um and then also kind of the most public-facing thing is uh they're in exclusive talks to sell Pizza Hut, which is one of their legacy brands, um, but not one of their best performing brands. Yeah. Taco Bell has definitely been the star for them the last few years because you know, Taco Bell's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

Because of the size. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 22:58

And pizza's kind of always been the Yeah, and then and Pizza Hut has, you know, what's its just from a just from the perspective of someone who eats pizza, uh, you know, what's their current identity? I don't really know. You know what I mean? So uh it seems kind of like back in the day their identity was you'd go there to eat and you'd sit down and you'd have a buffet. It was book it. You could get a pitcher of beer at some of them. Yeah, you had video games, you played Miss Pac-Man or whatever. Uh, and so there's just it's a big time for one of our legacy public, our legacy public companies coming after you know the huge news when KFC relo relocated its headquarters to suburban Dallas. So just a really big time of change it. Yeah, I'm one of our um companies to keep an eye on.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

We'll see how Louisville kind of fits into how it all shakes out. Um I will talk sports too. Um men's uh men's World Cup starts this week, and um the Team USA is gonna be playing Paraguay tomorrow at 9 p.m. That's the first uh Team USA game.

SPEAKER_03 23:55

Um by tomorrow you mean Friday.

SPEAKER_02 23:57

Uh tomorrow I mean Friday at 9 p.m. Kind of late. It's in LA, I'm told, so you know they play games late in LA. Um and then after that, it is gonna be uh Australia and Turkey that they're playing. So um it's uh interesting. I I wouldn't say I'm the world's biggest sports fan, but I do love uh an international competition. I think it brings out the best in people. Um and Team USA is ranked number 19 according to this Yahoo sports power ranking that I'm looking at. And other rankings I had I looked at kind of had them in the middle of as well. It's about 48 teams.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

So and uh Mexico plays tonight. What so the that game would have been done uh uh before this comes out. But uh yeah, the the World Cup starts starts today and goes all the way till um mid-mid-July.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

So top five teams to watch. France is number one according to this Yahoo, Yahoo sports, uh Spain number two, Argentina, England, and then Portugal.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Did you say Nor? So uh Norway is uh they they're uh they're a dark horse. They've got the best striker though in the uh a guy named Erling Holland. Um he's like he plays for Manchester City, and so he could they could do some stuff because they they um like I said when you get the best goal scorer in the world, uh good things can happen.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

I got him at or they got him at number 16 on this one. So that's you think it's too low. Yeah, there's no way. All right, my observation is a dad joke. All right, well, that will do it. Good stuff. Uh if you like what you hear, please consider uh subscribing to the Access Louisville Podcast on popular services, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Thank you very much, Steve. Thank you, Shay, and thank you, uh Baird, for the support, and of course, thank you guys out there for listening to us, and we'll see you next time. Bye-bye,