Bourbon Distillery Founder Kaveh Zamanian Shares his View from the Rabbit Hole

Kaveh Zamanian describes his journey into the bourbon world as going down the rabbit hole, so naturally when he decided to start his own brand and build his own distillery the name Rabbit Hole just stuck. A little over three years into having a fully operational distillery, Rabbit Hole has launched a new single barrel program, but it’s not your run-of-the-mill barrel pick. Along with each single barrel comes limited edition artwork. The first series is based on the Alice in Wonderland story in partnership with a Korean artist named Kasiq, but there are many more artistic partnerships coming down the pipeline.

We met up with Zamanian at the launch party for the first single barrel release, which included food, cocktails, and live music for the people who had been waiting in line for their chance to buy a bottle, some for hours, in a line that wrapped around the block.

The Bourbon & Single Barrel Release

You just released a single barrel, your first single barrel product here at the distillery, correct? Is this something that you've distilled here at the distillery, or is this from the old stocks that you had to start up the distillery?

This is a four-year Cask Strength, so it's the contracted stuff that we had, not the ones that we distilled here. It's one of the oldest barrels that we have, or some of the oldest barrels that we have, and our single barrel program, just by design, it's always going to be an older product and it's always going to be released in cask strength and released in collaboration. This first one is a collaboration with Fred Minnick, and part of the thinking behind it was coming out of COVID-19, we want this inaugural release to be our way of supporting our community. In partnership with Fund For The Arts, all the proceeds go to local bars and restaurants here in Louisville. Those guys, I think, have had a much, much more difficult time than we have in this past year or so, and we want to help them out in any way we can, and this is our small way of contributing.

It seems like your Single Barrel project is going to work a little bit differently than a lot of single-barrel selections, are they only available at the distillery or can people come in from a store or a retailer or whatever to do a pick?

There's a partnership with the different partners. With the first 10 barrels that are out of Heigold, that are going to have Kasiq's illustrations, it's a combination of different groups. So we did one with the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, one with Total Wine, I can't even tell you there are so many different picks. It's a combination of retailers and various accounts, and I think Justins' House of Bourbon did a pick with us. These first 10 barrels are just for Kentucky, so it's only going to be offered in Kentucky. 

And where is Rabbit Hole's distribution currently in the United States?

Right now, we're national, we are just about to open up in the UK as well. Then it's going to the UK, Sweden, and Canada, in addition to all 50 states.

The Inspiration & Artwork

You've done some really interesting things with your packaging, You changed the names of the whiskeys to be more Louisville-centric. What was the impetus behind that? 

Right now, there's two Kentucky straight bourbons, there is a bourbon finished in sherry casks, and we have a rye whiskey, and one of the things that's always been on my mind is how do you help consumers that don't know the difference, let's say, between a high rye and a four grain, to be able to distinguish differentiate and be able to spot the ones that they like? 

We felt that unfortunately, because in contrast to, I'd say, the wine industry where we can designate the grape varietal, cab versus pinot or whatever, in whiskey, it's just a little bit more challenging. We had to come up with a secondary, fanciful name. And for us, provenance is a big part of what Rabbit Hole is about, so we felt why don't we honor different Louisville folks or places and capture the spirit of Rabbit Hole and Louisville at the same time with some of the names.

So obviously, Cavehill and Heigold, those names are well known to people here locally, but do you have a lot of people questioning, what they mean? Or do you use that as an opportunity to explain to people Louisville's heritage?

Both of them, right? They ask what it means, and it's naturally an opportunity for us to tell them more about the name, the heritage of Louisville, what's in the bottle, and why we picked those names. All those things spark conversation. 

The artwork on this barrel is striking. Tell us about your connection to art. 

We have a real soft spot for the “creative classes” as I like to call them, of all different groups, be it culinary and bars to visual arts and so on. The idea behind this was, how do we not only offer our consumers a unique product but also in addition to the liquid, we have a package that meets our values and appreciation for the creative class?

Every barrel pick that we have, and each year we're going to have basically, each SKU is going to have an opportunity to have its own single barrel pick. We started with Heigold, and all the Heigold barrel picks this year are going to have Kasiq's illustrations on there. Given the Rabbit Hole, we felt that the theme of Alice In Wonderland is the most appropriate one for this inaugural launch, and my instruction in collaboration with Kasiq was simply, I want these classic Victorian characters to be brought to life in a more 21st century way. And what I think he did was a beautiful way of bringing technology with these classic characters and the renditions are really, truly Rabbit Hole. It's that blend of modern and tradition coming together.

How did you find the South Korean artist Kasiq?

I started with a long, very, very long list of illustrators and artists from both the US and around the world, and we've been in conversation, this started over about a year and a half ago. Basically, the next 40 barrels are already lined up with different illustrators, so we have 40 barrel picks coming in this coming year, and four different artists. Basically, 24 different illustrations. Each artist is going to do, just like with this first one, six different illustrations. Our bottles come in six-packs, so every pack is gonna have six different illustrations. So as you can imagine, it's really complicated logistically and otherwise, but it's just a really cool way of giving the artists an opportunity to take a theme that I've identified and run with it. 

One of the themes is Alice in Wonderland, another theme that's around the corner is Landmarks of Louisville. We have another theme, which I have a soft spot for various literary groups, so we have a theme of Shakespeare plays. I told them, what I want is to see if you guys can create book covers, there's six different Shakespeare plays that they're doing, so it's cool, fun, festive, playful, whimsical designs, and that's going to be part of our single barrel program. As a consumer, you get a great pick with whoever the collaborator is, in this case, Fred Minnick. And then you're also going to get a cool unique package, as well.

So when are you going to do the Hunter S. Thompson edition?

 You know, that's in the works too. The challenge ultimately has been there are so many great artists, to narrow them down to the ones that get picked for a given year. I've got probably 24 people in the pipeline, and we just started with Kasiq and we've got the next four just finalized for this year, and then we're going on to the next four and the next four after that.

The Distillery 

The story goes that you went down the rabbit hole and eventually you ended up with a distillery, so how does it feel to get to this point where did you see the line wrapped around the block?

I was so emotional walking and talking to the folks around. It's amazing. It's a dream come true. It's hard to describe it in words. I think it's just, to see people fall in love with Rabbit Hole, with what we're doing, it's just mind-blowing for me. Honestly, I still can't wrap myself around it. My wife asked, can you believe it? I can't still, really, it's not computing, the energy and the vibe and the excitement around it.

It's kind of like a field of dreams thing, if you build it, they will come.

It is. That's a great way of putting it.

The distillery is a purpose-built space that is meant to accommodate a lot of visitors, so how did it feel to be shut down for over a year for your main purpose?

 You know, it was really painful. I think probably the most painful part of it was having to basically tell some of our hospitality folks that we can't accommodate them. Some folks ended up coming back and staying with us, but we had to repurpose their positions, so working in bottling. We did some work with hand sanitizer and all that, so we brought them in as much as we could. Some folks decided to basically take a leave and now they're back, it was hard. 

The revenue side of it, obviously that's always an issue because tourism for us was big, we had over 35,000 people here before covid, and naturally going from that to zero, that was an impact. All in all, it was a pretty tough year.

If you were to explain Rabbit Hole in a nutshell to somebody who is maybe new to Bourbon entirely or who maybe is planning their first trip to Kentucky to experience Bourbon, what's your elevator pitch for Rabbit Hole?

 If you want to experience a distillery in a complete sense, a full sensory experience without any smoke and mirrors, you're able to see every step of the process from grain to bottling, Rabbit Hole is the place for you. We are large enough to be able to showcase the complexity of what a large operation is like, but at the same time, small and intimate from a footprint standpoint, that you can really get an inside look at what's going on with all the levels and have that full sensory experience, which I think is unique.

Is there anything else about Rabbit Hole you want people to know?

Rabbit Hole is about more than just making whiskey. It goes back to what I was saying as far as the culture. I think the artwork also is a representation of that. It's about bringing people together to celebrate the good things that we have together, that's what Rabbit Hole is about. I was able to find my dream, go down the rabbit hole to make it happen, and I hope that this is a story that inspires other people to do the same thing. Our team and everybody else, that's essentially Rabbit Hole. 

The Real Kentucky

What’s happening in Kentucky?

One of the things happening in Kentucky is that every distillery has its own unique take, be it on the liquid or contribution in terms of how they're promoting. And for us, it is this kind of intersection of modern and tradition and being able to bring in the creative kind of elements to it. 

We focus quite a bit on the front end of the process, so on the selection of your ingredients, mash bills, yeast, fermentation, so on and so forth. Obviously, the blending and maturation are equally important, but our angle is these different mash bills and how you can bring out flavors with different malted grains and things of that nature. 

I think the other piece of it that gets me emotional is to walk down the street and see all these people be excited about what I've created with my team, where it's an unusual story to have a guy named Kaveh start a brand in Louisville, Kentucky. People have this perception of Kentucky, which to me just can't be any further from what the reality is, and what I tell folks is, you gotta come out here, you gotta experience the culture and you gotta experience the people and you gotta experience what's happening—rather than what you think or imagine. And when you do that, you're going to see a very, very different community than what people have perceived or imagined, and I think this really is an embodiment of that.