A year and a half into a retirement of walking the pristine white beaches of Sarasota, Fla., Corky Taylor said to himself, “I can’t do this.”
It was around this time that he’d begun thinking about getting the rights to the name of his great-grandfather’s distillery, “Peerless,” and its original Distilled Spirits Plant number.
He thought if he could get both those secured, well, then, “that would be a real good thing.”
He told his wife, Jamia, that they were moving back to Kentucky, to Louisville, to where he’d moved his family from Henderson in the late 1980s and he was going to give it a go at resurrecting his great-grandfather Henry Kraver’s distillery, The Kentucky Peerless Distilling Co., which Kraver first founded in Henderson in 1889.
(Jamia Taylor wasn’t ecstatic to give up sunny Florida days every day, but they found compromise with a one-week-a-month stay at their Florida home, he said.)
Taylor, with his son, Carson, set up his Peerless on the historical Whiskey Row in Louisville.
Now, 12 years since the company was founded, nine years after the first barrel was filled with Taylor’s Peerless bourbon and five years since the first Peerless bourbon was sold, Taylor has been inducted in the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame’s 2024 class.
He said he was caught off-guard that this honor came to him so quickly.
“Well, I am surprised,” he said, but added, “We try to do it right, and we have done it right.”
This, he explained, is exemplified by the company’s choice to not buy other whiskey brands and bottle it as their own while waiting for the Peerless whiskey to age at least four years.
Peerless’s first barrel of bourbon came on March 4, 2015, and its sales began on June 23, 2019, Taylor said. (He waited till June 23 because it was his father’s birthday, he said.)
“We made it, we waited for it, and then we put it out,” Taylor said.
Taylor, a 1967 Henderson City High School graduate, got started with his business career locally. He said he briefly worked at his Taylor-Dempewolf Ford, where his father was co-owner, and he also worked at Colonel Jim’s, which was run by his wife’s family. He also owned local eateries, Taylor’s Junction and Corkscrew’s Deli.
Later, he founded Bencor, a financial services company, before moving it to the Louisville area. He later moved the company to Sarasota, continued to grow it, and sold it more than a dozen years ago, he said.
He said the success of Peerless is a result of the company employees—“a lot of really good people.”
“I didn’t do this by myself,” he said. “It’s an honor for (employees), as well.”
His great-grandfather’s distillery was located right off Second Street in Henderson. Kraver was also the president of First National Bank and owner of the original Henderson Brewing Co., Taylor said.
As a nod to Kraver, Taylor said the current Peerless is the only completely Kosher distillery in the country. He invites rabbis from around the country to come to the distillery to inspect it several times each year.
“It costs a little money to do that, but I think it’s worth it,” Taylor said.
To get the Peerless name back, Taylor said it took about 1 ½ years.
And the government-issued DSP number? That took two years, he said.
There are more than 20,000 numbers that have been issued. So, when bourbon aficionados from all over the world see the Peerless number—”DSP-KY-50”—they know there’s some history involved with Peerless, Taylor said.
Below is a partial list of awards that Peerless has won for both its rye and bourbon whiskies
- “Whisky Magazine” Golden Craft Producer of the Year 2019
- “Whisky Advocate” Best Rye Whisky 2019
- “Whisky Magazine” World Whiskies Awards Best Kentucky Bourbon 2020
- “Whisky Advocate” Ranked Kentucky Peerless Double Oak Bourbon #8 of Top 20 Whiskies 2021
- “Whisky Advocate’s” Ten Favorites Top Rated High Rye Bourbon
- John Barleycorn Awards gives Double Gold for all five Peerless expressions submitted, including Small Batch Bourbon, Small Batch Rye, Small Batch Double Oak Bourbon, Small Batch Double Oak Rye and High Rye Bourbon.
(There are more)
The Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be Sept. 10 at The Legacy at Log Still in Nelson County, Ky. The ceremony is held in conjunction with the Kentucky Bourbon Festival in Bardstown. Other inductees include Elmer Lucille Allen, Dee Ford, Ken Lewis and Peter Loftin.