Copper & Kings American Brandy Co. founded by serial entrepreneurs Joe and Lesley Heron like to play to the beat of a different drum. So much so that when you visit you’ll find that music is a constant theme throughout their urban distillery in downtown Louisville, Kentucky. The theme starts with the name of the distillery. As Joe tells it, “We’ve built our love of music across the company – our name is meant to sound like a band – think Kings of Leon, Shovels & Rope, Band Of Horses, Iron & Wine.”
In many ways a company is like a band…
Everyone has a specific talent and role to play, and the best bands play well together, like each other, and bring out the best in each other. Day after day.
Heron says, “Products are like songs on an album. They are all related, but different.” And being a different kind of distillery in bourbon country is what they do. They don’t make bourbon but they do take advantage of the multitudes of expertise that comes with building a brandy distillery in the heart of bourbon country. They are within a mile of Vendome Copper & Brass Works and one of the early adopters building a distillery in downtown Louisville. There are now 10 distilleries within a few miles.
Copper & Kings American Brandy Company 5 Year Anniversary
To help commemorate its five year anniversary Copper & Kings is releasing what else, a five year old brandy. ‘A Song for You’ is a limited release American Brandy that’s been matured in bourbon barrels for five years.
“Five years ago, we launched ourselves off a cliff with the folly that is an American Brandy distillery in Bourbon Country,” says Copper & Kings founder, Joe Heron. “We are enjoying our time on the dance floor, painting with different colors, and we, like a wild goose, have managed to take off. This is a celebration of survival as much as anything, and a thank you to anyone who ever bought a bottle of Copper & Kings American Brandy, and to everyone that’s worked at Copper & Kings with pride, energy and natural enthusiasm. This is our song for you.”
The Copper & Kings American Brandy Limited Release of A Song for You is the original sourced “DNA1” blend of pure copper pot-distilled brandy that helped launch Copper & Kings in 2014. Bottled at 100° proof (50% alcohol by volume), the youngest eau de vie in the blend is now, after five years, 8-years-old, and the oldest is 18, with most being 12 and 13-years-old. The varietal blend is predominantly Muscat de Alexandrie, Chenin Blanc and French Colombard, with additional layering of Thompson and other varietals. At the time, the brandies were sourced from seven states across the USA.
Master Distiller Brandon O’Daniel.
Master Distiller Brandon O’Daniel is appreciative – “We were so fortunate to have some very fine distillers share their aged stocks of pot-distilled brandy with us when we started, and this helped us build a foundation of our own definitive American Brandy as we distilled our own distillate for maturation. After five years in Kentucky bourbon barrels, we have a great illustration of our style – confident, rich and bold, a feisty rambunctious mid-palate reminiscent of fine whiskey, and a lingering smooth brandy finish. A Song For You is rich, velvety, with a silky skirt that wraps inside your glass. It sits in the sweet spot between a fruit forward brandy and a super-smooth, long finishing whiskey. With our own distillate now being bottled, we are up to “DNA9” – but everything was built on the shoulders of this original DNA1, history in a glass.”
Copper & Kings uses small batch copper pot-distillation to forge untraditional, non-derivative, pure pot-distilled American apple and grape brandies, absinthe, gin and Destillaré liqueurs that are non-chill filtered with no added sugar, colors, artificial flavors, or synthetic chemicals. The state-of-the-art distillery exclusively focuses on the distillation of brandy-based spirits.
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Copper & Kings American Brandy A Song for You
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