A Day on the Trail: Angel’s Envy Distillery Celebrates $8.2 Million Visitor Center Expansion with National Bourbon Day Party

Imagine having to turn away 50% of the people that wanted to visit your business. That is the challenge that was facing Angel’s Envy Distillery on Whiskey Row in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. The Angel’s Envy bourbon brand, famous for taking fully matured bourbon and finishing it in various wine, rum, and other specialty barrels, was co-founded in 2010 by the late Master Distiller Lincoln Henderson and his son Wes Henderson. In 2013 they started on a journey to build their own homeplace that would include a fully operational distillery including distillation, barreling, bottling and a visitor experience.

Construction began on the new facility in July 2013 and the distillery and homeplace officially opened its doors in November 2016. Before long, Angel’s Envy discovered it had a problem, a good problem to have albeit a problem, they were turning away people that wanted to tour the distillery where their favorite bourbon was made. The solution, announced in November 2020 was to expand the visitor center by adding more than 13,000 square feet to the brand home including a new event space and bar, a larger retail space and several new tasting rooms.

What Makes Angel’s Envy Distillery Tours So Popular?

Well, first it’s the bourbon and its reputation in the distilled spirits world. In addition to the amber liquid, it’s the same old three words that have been a part of real estate forever, location, location, location. The Angel’s Envy Distillery sits on Whiskey Row, near the Ohio River on Main Street in downtown Louisville directly across the street from Louisville Slugger Baseball Field and right off I-65, an interstate with average daily traffic around 150,000 travelers per day. For Northerner’s heading south for their Winter or Summer break it’s an easy drop off from the interstate to pick up a one-of-a-kind ‘distillery only’ bottle of Angel’s Envy.

Expansion Will Allow Angel’s Envy to Double Annual Tour Visitors

The expansion, which adds 13,000 square feet to the facility, will allow Angel’s Envy to welcome an additional 64,000 visitors each year, doubling annual guest capacity.

“We had a good problem when we opened in 2016,” explained Angel’s Envy Brand Home Manager Dee Ford. “We quickly realized that we were turning away as many people as we were hosting… We decided we needed to put together a plan to enlarge this space to accommodate more visitors. We are about 90,000 square feet and we added an additional 13,000 square feet.

“We now have five new tasting rooms. Three are upstairs and two are downstairs. And a wonderful event space that has a very nice catering kitchen and an additional bar upstairs.

“We also added a ‘bottle-your-own’ area on the first floor. We’ll be offering a single barrel of Angel’s Envy [sold by the bottle].

Ford added that guest experience will start in a new room that will lead directly to the distillery.

“We’ve made it easier for guests to start a tour and head right into the hot, steamy bourbon distillery,” said Ford. “It smells just like cornbread coming right out of the oven. Visitors will walk directly into the center of the center of the ‘cathedral’ as it’s called. Guests will see our column still, doubler, fermentation and more. They’ll see the overall look and feel of the entire grain to bottle experience that we do here at Angel’s Envy.”