April 15, 2025
Lexington Herald Leader
“From engaging directly with the distillers who make your favorite pour to discovering a new brand to add to your bar, there’s no place quite like KBF,” said Cordell Lawrence, festival board chair and Eastern Light Distilling chief executive officer, in a statement. “We are pleased with the anticipation for the 2025 Kentucky Bourbon Festival — by our distillery partners and bourbon enthusiasts from across the U.S. and around the world.”
April 12, 2025
Voice-Tribune
“Visiting Oxmoor Bourbon Company is a rare and fascinating opportunity for guests to immerse themselves in the history of bourbon and of Kentucky, while also supporting the preservation and the advancement of both,” said Cordell Lawrence, CEO of Eastern Light Distilling and advisor to Oxmoor Bourbon Company.
April 3, 2025
The Spirits Business
The Kentucky Bourbon Trail received 2.7 million visitors in 2024, up from 2.5 million in 2023. This marks the third consecutive year the Bourbon Trail has received more than 2 million visitors, with people flocking from all 50 states, and more than 20 countries across six continents.
April 2, 2025
The Lane Report
For example, Kentucky Peerless Distilling revived a once-thriving heritage brand, starting small with limited releases. Master Distiller Caleb Kilburn essentially learned on the job for close to a decade at Peerless. He is now working to open his own distillery, Eastern Light Distilling, with an eye toward community. The farm on which Kilburn was raised, he said, is only about six miles from the distillery’s location on a ridge in Morehead.
March 4, 2025
WKYT
Cordell Lawrence is the co-founder and CEO of Eastern Light Distilling, based out of Morehead. Lawrence says larger bourbon companies that export more of their product will take bigger hits from tariffs.
“The ones that are less exposed typically are the mid-size distilleries and the craft-size distilleries that are more reliant on a domestic market, the U.S. domestic market for their sales,” Lawrence says.
January 27, 2025
Fred Minnick
The third ultra-premium expression from Old Commonwealth Distillery is Colonel Randolph 16-year-old Kentucky straight bourbon.
This single barrel offering was personally selected by Gordon Hue, the man responsible for reviving the Colonel Randolph brand in 1990. At 106 proof, this 16-year whiskey—made with the exact mashbill as Hue’s release—has a flavor profile that emulates and encapsulates vintage whiskey.
September 21, 2024
Louisville Business First
Cordell Lawrence, founding partner and CEO of Eastern Light Distillery, said the vast majority of visitors to the distiller’s booth at the Bourbon & Beyond festival were from out of state — some from as far away as Australia. He said that makes the four-day festival the perfect introduction spot for not only bourbon, but also to Kentucky agriculture.
September 20, 2024
Louisville Courier Journal
Ahead of opening in Kentucky, locally owned Eastern Light Distilling provided signature cocktails at Bourbon & Beyond all weekend. Watch the video to see their drinks.
September 19, 2024
Louisville Courier Journal
There’s no shortage of bourbon brands at Bourbon & Beyond, from legacy brands such as Maker’s Mark and Jim Beam to newcomers like Eastern Light Distilling Co., which is currently developing a 230-acre campus that features a 50,000-square-foot distillery, rickhouses, a bottling facility, a bourbon tourism experience, and event space in Morehead, Kentucky.
September 19, 2024
Louisville Business First
You never know what you’ll find at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival — well, besides lots of distilleries and producers handing out samples of their products and selling bottles, that is. The layout of the festival, though, is always undergoing changes, which KBF President/COO Randy Prasse told me is a point of pride for his team.
September 19, 2024
Fred Minnick
“We are looking forward to another exciting year at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival,” Cordell Lawrence, board chair and chief executive officer of Eastern Light Distilling, said. “It has become the best place in the world for bourbon enthusiasts to not only enjoy incredible whiskeys but to also meet the people to make them.”
August 1, 2024
Press Release
MOREHEAD, KY., (August 2, 2024) – Eastern Light Distilling, a locally owned and operated distillery being built in Morehead, KY, today announced that Jason Helmkamp has officially joined the team as the company’s Chief Financial Officer.
July 2, 2024
Office of Governor Andy Beshear
FRANKFORT, Ky. – Today, Gov. Andy Beshear joined local officials and company leadership at Eastern Light Distilling for the groundbreaking of its new $143.7 million Morehead distillery, a project that is creating 50 new full-time positions.
July 2, 2024
Press Release
MOREHEAD, KY., – A new day is dawning for Kentucky Bourbon as Eastern Light Distilling celebrates a major milestone in bringing their new distillery to life. Eastern Light’s innovative concept will bring the state’s signature Bourbon industry to Eastern Kentucky like never before, generating significant new investment, jobs, and tourism opportunities to the region.
May 20, 2024
Louisville Courier Journal
The Kentucky Bourbon Trail boasts more than 40 distilleries scattered throughout the middle of the state. But if you venture an hour or two off the eastern edge of that beaten path, there’s even more in store. In recent years, Eastern Kentucky has welcomed a growing collection of moonshine and bourbon distilleries, and more on are on the way.
February 12, 2024
VinePair
Cordell Lawrence, co-founder of Eastern Light Distilling in Morehead, Ky., which is set to begin operations in 2025, says that this is the “next generation” of contract distillation. “The prior giants of the contract world have aged out, meaning they have now been able to grow to a point that it makes more monetary sense for them to focus on their consumer-facing brands and less so on contract,” he explains, pointing to examples like Wilderness Trail, which had previously contract- distilled until it was acquired by Campari last year.
January 9, 2024
Louisville Business First
As Cordell Lawrence and Caleb Kilburn have set off into their next venture in the bourbon industry, the conversation inevitably turns to the following question about Eastern Light Distilling: Why build it in Rowan County? Or for that matter, why Eastern Kentucky?
The answers, they said, of their planned all-in $143.7 million investment in Morehead are numerous.
January 3, 2024
The Bourbon Flight
As a new day dawns on Kentucky bourbon, Eastern Light Distilling officially unveils its new brand as co-founders Caleb Kilburn and Cordell Lawrence commit their full focus to creating a new craft bourbon distillery in Eastern Kentucky. In December, Kilburn and Lawrence departed from Kentucky Peerless Distilling Company, where they had honed their craft for nearly the past decade.
January 3, 2024
Press Release
MOREHEAD, KY. – As a new day dawns on Kentucky bourbon, Eastern Light Distilling officially unveils its new brand as co-founders Caleb Kilburn and Cordell Lawrence commit their full focus to the creation of a new craft bourbon distillery in Eastern Kentucky.
Nov 28, 2023
Louisville Business First
When all is said and done, 2023 will be another banner year for the bourbon industry.
Aside from the profits and investments of preexisting distilleries and brands, what is most noticeable is the number of new distillery projects that have been announced — some of which are being constructed in counties that previously did not have distilleries.
June 29, 2023
Office of Governor Andy Beshear
FRANKFORT, KY. – Today, Gov. Andy Beshear recognized new growth in Kentucky’s signature bourbon and spirits industry with Eastern Light Distilling, an Eastern Kentucky-based distilling company investing more than $143.7 million in a new venue located in Rowan County, expected to create at least 50 new jobs in the area in the coming years.
June 29, 2023
Press Release
LOUISVILLE, KY.— A new day is dawning for Kentucky bourbon as Eastern Light Distilling introduces an innovative concept to expand Kentucky’s signature bourbon industry into Eastern Kentucky, bringing significant new investment, new jobs and new tourism opportunities to the region.
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