Michter's Distillery

The Michter's name traces back to a Pennsylvania distillery founded by John Shenk in Schaefferstown in 1753, but the whiskey in the bottle today comes from a different story entirely: a 1990s Kentucky revival that rebuilt the brand from the ground up.

History & Heritage

The lineage Michter's advertises runs from Shenk's Distillery through a mid-1800s purchase by Abraham Bomberger, after which the operation was known for decades as Bomberger's. Lou Forman created the modern Michter's name in the 1950s, combining parts of his sons' names, Michael and Peter. The Pennsylvania company declared bankruptcy in 1989 and abandoned the property, leaving the Michter's trademark unused. In the 1990s, Joseph J. Magliocco and Richard "Dick" Newman filed for the abandoned trademark and revived Michter's in Kentucky, with no direct operating connection to the old Pennsylvania facility. Magliocco serves as President of both Michter's and Chatham Imports, Inc., which owns, as of July 2026, the Michter's brand.

Michter's now operates three Kentucky locations: the Shively distillery in Louisville, the Fort Nelson Building on Louisville's Museum Row, and 205 acres of farmland in Springfield. The Fort Nelson Distillery opened to the public in 2019 after an eight-year restoration. Because Michter's built its own distilling capacity gradually after the Kentucky revival, older and limited releases can include mature stock distilled before Shively came fully online; the 2025 Celebration Sour Mash was noted as the last edition made entirely from pre-Shively distillate, marking the close of that chapter.

The Whiskey

Shively is a 14.3-acre, 88,674-square-foot fully licensed distilled spirits plant (DSP KY-20003) housing all of Michter's processing and bottling, two small pot stills, and a custom 32-inch-diameter, 46-foot copper column still with 19 trays, paired with a 250-gallon copper pot still doubler, all built by Vendome Copper & Brass Works. Grain is non-GMO, USDA grade #1, and sourced within the United States. Every Michter's whiskey ages in Kentucky rickhouses, with some warehouses heat-cycled through winter to drive additional movement of whiskey into and out of the barrel wood despite the higher evaporation cost.

Production runs on a deliberate set of constraints: barrel wood is open-air seasoned for 18 to 60 months before use, bourbon and American rye barrels are toasted before charring, and spirit enters the barrel at 103 proof, well under the 125-proof legal maximum. Michter's states that every whiskey it releases is either a single barrel or a small batch made in equipment built to hold no more than twenty full barrels. The core lineup includes Michter's US1 Kentucky Straight Bourbon (Small Batch Bourbon), Michter's US1 Kentucky Straight Rye (Straight Rye), Michter's US1 Original Sour Mash Whiskey, and Michter's US1 American Whiskey (Unblended American Whiskey), alongside limited releases such as the 10 Year Kentucky Straight Bourbon and Rye, Barrel Strength Rye, and the Toasted Barrel Finish series. Michter's does not publicly disclose exact mash bill percentages for its core US*1 whiskeys.

Why It Matters

Michter's has drawn sustained industry recognition, including Drinks International's "World's Most Admired Whiskey" honor in late October 2023, the first time an American brand received it, and a 2012 Wine Enthusiast Distillery of the Year citation from a period when Michter's operated as a non-distilling producer sourcing whiskey rather than making it, a detail that drew notice within the whiskey community at the time. That earlier chapter makes the brand's subsequent build-out of full production capacity at Shively, and its continued expansion into limited single-barrel and small-batch releases, a more meaningful marker of where the company stands today.

Visiting the Distillery

Michter's Fort Nelson Distillery, at 801 West Main Street on Louisville's Whiskey Row, offers guided tours and tastings. Michter's recommends booking online in advance; walk-ins are accepted first-come, first-served.