In a crowded market where it’s hard to stand out, Left Bank Spirits has always been able to make a claim that no other bourbon brand could.
That’s because since its founding in 2017, it is distilled in Kentucky (Green River Distilling in Owensboro, to be exact) and then shipped down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers on barges to be bottled in New Orleans.
“It’s the way it used to happen,” said Ken Hagan, the co-founder of Left Bank Spirits.
Before making its journey down to his business partner in the Big Easy, though, Hagan adds pieces of wood from staves into each barrel, which are toasted and charred in different ways for additional flavors.
But recently, the company has put in the paperwork for a Class B rectifier’s license, allowing it to set up a bottling room for both its products and other Kentucky-based producers. What Hagan bottles in Kentucky — from single barrels — will be done so under a new sub brand called Shippingport, a reference to an island in the Ohio River near the Portland neighborhood. It's unrelated to the nearby Shippingport Brewing Co. in the same neighborhood.
The barrels bottled for Shippingport will also tend to be some of their older barrels, he said. The site could also be the site of some blending endeavors as well.
The room, which was built in 2021, will be located in an 11,000-square-foot facility that Left Bank already uses to age its bourbon, located at 737 S. 13th St. in West Louisville in the California neighborhood. It is the former site of the Louisville Tin & Stove Co., Hagan said. Left Bank took over the building in 2020.
Hagan, who serves as an enterprise analytics strategy advancement principal at Humana, also added that there was interest in setting up a tasting room at the facility as well, but he noted it is probably "a 2025 dream."
Left Bank originally chose the West Louisville location for several reasons, Hagan said.
“It’s a part of town that needs new business activity,” he said. “It’s close to Shippingport, so that keeps me close to the history of where it was, but I think it's important when people start to spend their small business money [that] we’re spending it in parts of towns that have been neglected.”
Historic significance
It was the island of Shippingport where, as the story goes, around the beginning of the 19th Century two French brothers, Jean and Louis Tarascon, realized that there was a big market in New Orleans for Kentucky whiskey that was shipped down in a charred barrel similar to their beloved cognac. It eventually was called “bourbon whiskey.”
Both Hagan and his co-founder, Joshua Easton, are big history enthusiasts, especially about this particular topic: the bourbon bridge, so to speak, between Louisville and New Orleans. They have been best friends for more than 30 years after meeting in college while attending the University of Louisville. Crazy fact: Hagan met his wife through Easton, who ended up marrying a close childhood friend of Hagan’s wife.
Hagan and Easton’s love of history extends to their logo which is an “alligator horse,” which was the name given to soldiers from Kentucky who fought in the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812.
Left Bank Spirits is currently looking to raise $500,000 in capital from private equity groups to grow its marketing and sales efforts and scale the business. It had initially relied upon some small business financing from Republic Bank, said Hagan, who added that his company has doubled its sales for the past three years.
Left Bank Straight Bourbon Whisky — the only expression it sells — is available for around $50 in Kentucky, Louisiana, Nebraska and Colorado. Hagan said the hope is to be in four additional states (Texas, Missouri, Kansas and possibly Illinois) by the end of the year. The bourbon is made both through a small batch and single barrel.
On a side note, Left Bank Spirits will be featured in famed chef and TV personality Emeril Lagasse’s latest show “Emeril Cooks,” which will air on the Roku channel either in November or January, Hagan said.
“We got it filmed about 12 hours before the writers’ strike,” Hagan said. “His producers said that he really liked that story — that we’re taking whiskey, floating it down the river like it used to be and also adding wood to it to make it our own flavor profile."
