LOUISVILLE — In the ballroom of a suburban Louisville hotel on Monday, the heft of the trophy that Henderson native Eric Gregory had received minutes before — a large glass sculpture resembling an oversized drop of bourbon falling onto a heavy chunk of limestone — was straining his arms and testing his ailing back.
Still, the smile remained on his face.
Gregory had just been inducted into the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame — and received its Parker Beam Lifetime Achievement Award, named for a legendary distiller and marking the first time the award had been bestowed on a non-distiller.
The Lifetime Achievement, award presenter Andrea Wilson of Michter’s Distillery said, “is the highest accolade in the industry.”
Gregory received it for his 19 years of his success as president of the Kentucky Distillers’ Association
He’s credited with helping elevate bourbon and the bourbon industry; helping grow the KDA’s Kentucky Bourbon Trail by leaps and bounds; and helping win a string of legislative victories that range from easing taxes on bourbon aging for years in warehouses to permitting distilleries to serve tourists a cocktail or a meal.
His friend Gov. Andy Beshear preceded his keynote address at the induction ceremony by reading aloud a proclamation citing Gregory’s accomplishments “in grateful recognition of a career that has fundamentally and permanently shaped the legacy of Kentucky bourbon.”
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A couple of decades ago, Kentucky bourbon was as sleepy and dusty as a forgotten bottle on a bottom shelf.
The Kentucky Distillers’ Association in 2007 was a part-time organization with 10 distillery members.
Its Kentucky Bourbon Trail featured seven stops at distilleries and drew about 200,000 visitors a year.
While part of the KDA’s mission was to lobby state government on behalf of its members, the organization wasn’t even based in Frankfort.
Bourbon itself had for years been largely out of fashion — remembered as something that people’s grandfathers drank, before vodka and gin and wine and craft beer stole the scene. The industry was producing 937,000 barrels of Kentucky whiskey per year, and there were fewer than 5 million barrels aging in warehouses.
Even in Kentucky, bourbon was largely regarded as a sin industry that was taxed seven ways to Sunday.
Then the trade association hired the then-40-year-old Gregory, who had been an award-winning newspaper reporter in Lexington and Honolulu, then got into public relations, then into governmental affairs.
“The Kentucky Distillers’ Association needed a visionary leader,” Wilson said in introducing him Monday. “Eric was that person.”
Gregory knew how to tell a story, knew how to promote ideas and knew Frankfort, legislators and the legislative process.
Today, the Kentucky Bourbon Trail has more than 70 destinations that last year attracted 2.7 visitors — up nearly 14-fold from 2007. About 80% of those visitors come from outside Kentucky, and the KDA says their demographics rival that of visitors to Napa Valley.
Bourbon production by 2024 totaled 3 million barrels, up 350% from 2008, while 17.1 million barrels of Kentucky spirits are aging in rickhouses.
Further, bourbon exports are up 105% — and had been up 225% before tariffs imposed by President Trump prompted Canada and some other countries to curtail imports of U.S. whiskey.
Over the years, Gregory helped invite smaller craft distilleries into the KDA and ensured that they had a seat, and a voice, at the table with the giant distillers like Jim Beam and Maker’s Mark.
The KDA said bourbon is today a $10.6 billion industry, generating nearly 24,000 jobs and producing more than $371.8 million in taxes each year for Kentucky state and local governments.
The organization, which now has several full-time staffers and is headquartered just six blocks from the state capitol, has proven to be a skilled lobbying organization, counting some two dozen key legislative victories over the years (and inducting a few legislators into its Hall of Fame).
The trade group’s distilleries have even helped Kentuckians in times of need, such as producing ethanol for hand sanitizer during the Covid-19 pandemic.
And KDA, with partners such as new Bourbon Hall of Fame member and whiskey personality Fred Minnick, raised millions of dollars for tornado victims in Western Kentucky and flood victims in Eastern Kentucky through auctions of rare whiskey and special experiences.
Certainly, Gregory had the benefit of what has been an astonishing wave of popularity for bourbon over the past couple of decades, though he did have the talent and enthusiasm to help the industry ride that wave well.
“None of this happened because one person had a good idea,” he said during his acceptance speech. “It took distilleries making phone calls” to their legislators as well as having various distilleries “come together and compromise” for the overall good of the industry.
“This is an industry that prides itself on comradery and cooperation instead of competition,” Gregory said later. “It makes my job a lot easier, and is different from every other industry.”
“I’m certainly not ready to retire,” Gregory, who turns 60 next year, told some 300 industry representatives, friends and family at the ceremony.
And he’s not done celebrating.
“Next week, we celebrate 35 years of marriage,” Gregory said of he and his wife, Ellen, who he said is the person “behind any success I’ve had.”
“You,” he told her from the podium, “are my Lifetime Achievement.”
