RD1 Spirits

RD1 Spirits is a Lexington, Kentucky bourbon house built on a simple idea taken further than almost anyone else in the category: finish the whiskey with real wood, not just barrels. Founded in 2020 by a group of Lexington entrepreneurs, RD1 became the city's first legal distillery and the 47th member of the Kentucky Distillers' Association, and it has spent the years since building a research-driven approach to wood finishing that now anchors a dedicated brand destination at The Commons.

History & Heritage

RD1 Spirits was founded in 2020 by a group of Lexington entrepreneurs and co-founder Barry Brinegar, entering a bourbon landscape thick with historic names by staking out a different lane: experimentation with wood. The company's leadership settled around CEO Mike Tetterton and CFO Marsha Couch, with University of Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops joining as a shareholder and advisor. As of July 2026, RD1 Spirits is owned and operated by this group of Lexington entrepreneurs and key investor partners, led by Tetterton and Couch.

The brand's biggest milestone landed in 2024 and 2025 with the construction and opening of RD1 Distillery at The Commons, a two-story, roughly 10,000-square-foot, five-million-dollar brand destination at 113 Turner Commons Way in Lexington. The building was designed from the ground up as a research and development distillery rather than a production facility: a glass-enclosed wood-finishing lab, private tasting rooms, a VIP speakeasy, and a craft cocktail bar all sit around the R&D still house, giving visitors a direct view into how RD1 develops new finishes rather than just a warehouse tour.

The Whiskey

RD1's commercial-scale Kentucky Straight Bourbon is distilled at Western Kentucky Distilling in Beaver Dam, Kentucky, under eighth-generation Master Distiller Jacob Call, using a mash bill of 70 percent corn, 21 percent rye, and 9 percent malted barley. The whiskey is made from 100 percent Kentucky corn and local limestone well water, distilled on 100 percent copper equipment, aged a minimum of four years in Kentucky, bottled in Kentucky, and left non-chill filtered.

What sets RD1 apart happens after the whiskey is already bourbon. At the Lexington R&D distillery, an 800-gallon pot still, a 175-gallon pot still, a 750-gallon fermenter, and a 1,000-gallon mash cooker support a program producing roughly one experimental barrel per week, all under Research and Development Master Distiller Jarrad Gollihue, PhD. RD1's signature technique inserts virgin wood stave pieces, cut from Brazilian amburana, Japanese mizunara, and French oak, through the bunghole of already-mature barrels, where they steep for one to eight months. The result is a family of finished expressions: RD One Bourbon Brazilian Amburana Finished, RD One Bourbon French Oak Finish, and RD1 Maple Bourbon Oak And Maple Finished, alongside the unfinished RD1 Straight Bourbon Whiskey Small Batch. Limited releases have pushed the technique further, including a 10-year bourbon finished with Brazilian amburana wood and a Kentucky straight whiskey finished with both Japanese mizunara and French oak.

Why It Matters

For a brand that only started distilling in 2020, RD1 has built an unusually decorated shelf. Its French oak finish took Double Platinum at the ASCOT Awards and Gold at both the American Distilling Institute's International Spirits Competition and the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, all in 2023. The oak-and-maple double finish and the Brazilian amburana finish each collected Gold at multiple national competitions the same year, and in 2025 the mizunara and French oak limited release earned a 95-point Gold at the New York International Spirits Competition and a 96-point Double Gold naming it Best Spirit of the Year in Quality at USA Spirit Ratings. The 10-year amburana-finished limited release added a Double Platinum at the 2025 Ascot Awards. That consistency across formats, from the flagship small batch to one-off experimental releases, is the clearest evidence that RD1's wood-finishing lab is producing more than novelty.

Visiting the Distillery

RD1 Distillery at The Commons welcomes visitors for a self-guided lobby tour with interactive displays on bourbon production and wood finishing, a guided Tour & Tasting covering Lexington's bourbon history and the R&D process, and a Bottle-Your-Own Experience where guests taste from rotating experimental barrels and fill a 200ml or 750ml bottle themselves. A bourbon bar and patio are open without a tour reservation, and a speakeasy space is available to book separately. The distillery is located at 113 Turner Commons Way, Suite 110, Lexington, KY 40511, open Monday through Thursday 11am to 6pm, Friday and Saturday 11am to 7pm, and Sunday 1pm to 6pm. Reservations are encouraged.