Founded in 1865, Mellwood Distillery (so named for the street it resided upon) would evolve into General Distillers Corporation of Kentucky, and become the birthplace of Kentucky Nectar, decades ago. After a period of dormancy, Kentucky Nectar was last produced by Heaven Hill, as a private label brand for Chicago wine importers Geeting and Fromm, between 1957 and 1967. That 8-year-old bottled-in-bond Kentucky bourbon was of an unknown mashbill. 

While Kentucky Nectar wasn’t produced within any prior iteration of Old Commonwealth Distillery, the new owners of the Lawrenceburg facility were bullish on the brand. “Reviving vintage brands is our mission, combining our love for Kentucky history with our passion for whiskey,” says Zachary Joseph, Old Commonwealth’s president of operations. “The Kentucky Nectar label fits perfectly within our portfolio of vintage labels.” (Fittingly, however, the first name of the facility that is now Old Commonwealth was Nectaraen Distillery, established and operated by S.O. Hackley in the 1870s.)

While Joseph and partners Andrew English and Troy LeBlanc haven’t seen an original Kentucky Nectar in the wild, they sought to bring a twist to the label. After six months of testing various barrels of sourced whiskey and finishing iterations, most protocepts weren’t stacking up. “We tested 27 different iterations of finishes, and a wheated whiskey with a honey finish was the 24th variant,” says Joseph. That combination became Kentucky Nectar.