Numerous groups toured Woodford Reserve Distillery the day we held our planning retreat there.
On November 4, we held our annual editorial planning retreat at Woodford Reserve Distillery in Woodford County, Kentucky. This is the third time we’ve held this retreat at this historic central Kentucky site over the past decade or so. Woodford Reserve produces premium small batch Kentucky bourbon and is owned by Brown Forman Corporation. Some buildings on this tiny, wooded site date to 1838 and the distillery was listed as a National HIstoric Landmark in 2000.
We were impressed by the number of corporate and leisure tour groups that came to the facility on this late fall day. Tim Knittel, the culinary program and meeting facility manager here, told me that this was actually a light day for groups. During football weekends, the distillery hosts up to a thousand or more guests on Fridays, he said. Ten thousand guests or more tour the distillery on busy months, he added.
Knittel and Marnie Walters, manager of sales and marketing for the distillery, are working with other entities in the central Kentucky region to package the distillery for meeting groups. We met in their creekside facility, The Dryer House. An adjacent patio offers outdoor seating for meeting attendees beside the tiny creek that runs through this property. Tours of the distillery are complimentary for groups meeting on the premises. Catering is handled through Knittel’s office and is arranged through local chef Ouita Michel, who runs another Woodford County establishment, the Holly Hill Inn.
For more information on Woodford Reserve, visit www.woodfordreserve.com.
Some buildings date to 1838 at Woodford Reserve Distillery outside Versailles, Kentucky.
We planned much of our 2013 editorial for four different publications and online editions in The Dryer House meeting facility.
The Dryer House sits on a creek and has an outdoor patio in the back for casual meetings in nice weather.
