How Angel's Envy is Expanding in Kentucky and into the Metaverse
Editor’s note: Today is National Bourbon Day and while we celebrate bourbon every day, there actually is some big bourbon news to share.
The Angel’s Envy Distillery opened in Louisville, Kentucky in 2016. The brand was founded in 2006 by retired Brown-Forman Master Distiller, Lincoln Henderson, and his son and grandsons. Now the distillery’s visitor center has undergone an $8.2 million renovation that has added 13,000 square feet of additional tasting rooms and event spaces.
The History of Angel’s Envy
Henderson helped to create the Woodford Reserve brand, among others, during his tenure at Brown-Forman. Upon retirement his son, Wes Henderson, approached him about starting his own brand so the family could be in business together.
The elder Henderson had wanted to experiment with cask finishes during his time at Brown-Forman, but it was simply unheard of in American whiskey at that time. He agreed to go into business with his son and grandsons and the family set to work figuring out the best type of wine cask in which to finish Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey.
Henderson landed on port wine barrels to finish Angel’s Envy. As the family lore goes, Henderson exclaimed after trying it, “the angels will be envious of this,” which refers to the phenomenon of the angel’s share —and no angel would get to try the final product.
The brand hit the market in 2011, and in the summer of 2013 the family broke ground for a brand-new distillery on Main Street in Louisville. Tragically, Lincoln Henderson would die just a few months later, some three years before his vision of a distillery operated with his family would come to fruition.
The distillery opened to the public in 2016, an emotional day for everyone involved.
Angel’s Envy has continued to operate and conduct tours, with an interruption of tours during Covid. But they took the opportunity to solve a distinct problem: they were turning away as many people daily as they had tour capacity.
Time For Expansion
The Angel’s Envy Distillery in downtown Louisville, Kentucky is considerably landlocked with an interstate highway on one side, a baseball field on another, and condo and office buildings on the others. The company had already built barrel storage outside of the county, but there still was not enough room for much of an expansion. During the Covid lockdown work began on pushing out as far as they could within their existing footprint.
The result was an additional 13,000 square feet of retail, tasting rooms, and event spaces that look as though they have always been there. In the previous iteration of the Angel’s Envy visitor center, there was a small gift shop and an upstairs bar area, both of which doubled as tasting rooms. Every tour or event was confined to those multi-use spaces.
Today, there are separate, closed tasting rooms both upstairs and downstairs. The bar can be closed off for smaller cocktail classes or opened for larger cocktail receptions. There is also a brand-new large event space that can be divided into two separate spaces with separate bars for events large and small.
This new space effectively doubles the capacity for tours, though reservations are still required and fill up fast. Tour reservations can be made here.
“Angel’s Envy has seen significant growth over the past several years, and that will only be amplified with our brand home expansion as we can now better meet the incredible demand from visitors who want to tour our facilities and experience our distillery,” says Gigi DaDan, Angel’s Envy General Manager. “We’re proud to be part of such a strong community in Louisville and will continue to invest in our hometown.”
Coming Soon: The First Virtual Distillery In Decentraland
Virtual experiences became popular out of necessity during the shutdown, and now there’s no stopping them. Virtual experiences give people an opportunity to experience things that would otherwise cost money and travel time, and virtual distillery tours and whiskey festivals give more people an opportunity to mingle with representatives from their favorite brands. Notably, Fred Minnick’s Repeal Day Expo was the first virtual whiskey festival, but Jack Daniels has had a VR distillery tour for quite some time.
Now, Angel’s Envy has partnered with Decentraland, a virtual world in which parcels of land can be purchased with the platform’s virtual currency, MANA. MANA is based on the Ethereum blockchain and entered the market at a value of $0.02 and has gone as high as $5.79. The parcels of virtual land are NFTs, or Non Fungible Tokens, bits of digital “property” stored on the blockchain that are unique and can’t be replaced (as opposed to hard currency, which is fungible, meaning it can be traded for other bills of the same currency).
Since it opened to the public in 2020, brands like Adidas and Atari have bought digital real estate in Decentraland’s platform and artists have even held concerts there. Now whiskey fans will have the opportunity to experience Angel’s Envy’s distillery tour and cocktail classes inside the virtual world.
“We’re thrilled to launch the Angel’s Envy Meta Distillery on National Bourbon Day and look forward to engaging and celebrating bourbon with new audiences from all over the world through the virtual experience,” says DaDan.
The Angel’s Envy Bourbonverse will only be available between June 14-20, 2022, and it’s possible to join as a guest even if you don’t have a crypto wallet or any experience with the blockchain. Cocktail kits for the virtual cocktail classes can be purchased here.
“We are excited to welcome the first distillery in Decentraland with the Angel’s Envy Meta Distillery,” said Adam de Cata, Head of Partnerships for Decentraland Foundation. “As we have seen over the past several months, people want to engage in the metaverse with activities and goods that they can relate to from this reality. The Angel’s Envy Meta Distillery creates a new way for people to engage and celebrate in the metaverse.”
So even if you can’t make it for a tour at Angel’s Envy this summer, you can still have a great Angel’s Envy experience from the comfort of your own home. Of course, nothing beats the real thing.