Silver Trail Distillery
Hardin
After touring Maker’s Mark Distillery, Spencer Balentine felt inspired to start creating spirits based on his family’s colorful moonshine history. Opened in 2011, the Silver Trail Distillery has already grown a following by winning several awards as well as being featured on the Discovery Channel’s “Moonshiners.” The show recounted Balentine’s dad’s story as a local moonshiner in the area.
The distillery has since claimed a spot on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail Craft Tour, which promotes eight craft distilleries across the state. Balentine’s 100-proof LBL Most Wanted Moonshine hearkens back to his grandfather’s 1920s recipe. The award-winning spirit is packaged in ring-handled jugs as a nod to its secretive moonshine past. Other concoctions include an apple pie moonshine called Apple Cin.
The tour focuses on western Kentucky’s moonshine history with items including a 1947 regional map and a custom-made copper still originally designed by Balentine’s great uncle in the 1940s.
