Firm that did Google headquarters to design new Kentucky bourbon distillery

Janet Patton
·3 min read
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A planned $51 million distillery coming to Georgetown will be an architectural innovation from the same Danish firm that designed Google’s headquarters and the Lego brand museum.

Blue Run, which announced in August 2022 that it planned to build a whiskey operation in Georgetown, released preliminary designs by Bjarke Ingels Group.

Called “Meander,” the design shows one swooping half-mile-long building housing the entire operation including distilling, aging and blending. The design is meant to evoke Georgetown’s Royal Spring, according to a news release.

Construction of the 35,000-sqaure-foot Kentucky distillery and a 20,000-square-foot rickhouse will begin this year in Lanes Run Business Park in Scott County next to Toyota. It’s expected to open in 2025 and bring at least 45 full-time jobs.

In 2022, the company received approval for up to $850,000 in various tax incentives from the Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority to build the distillery.

Blue Run Spirits has introduced 13 bourbon and rye whiskey releases since the company launched in October 2020, selling 21,000 9-liter cases in 2022 and winning awards along the way. Many of their releases sell out in minutes online.

Blue Run Spirits released a rendering of its proposed $51 million distillery in Georgetown. The non-traditional design incorporates production and aging in one curving building topped with photovoltaic tiles.
Blue Run Spirits released a rendering of its proposed $51 million distillery in Georgetown. The non-traditional design incorporates production and aging in one curving building topped with photovoltaic tiles.

“We are thrilled to be able to reveal an early look of Bjarke Ingels Group’s design for the new Blue Run Spirits distillery in Georgetown, giving everyone a glimpse at where we are heading in developing a welcoming, unexpected and modern facility with a true focus on sustainability,” said Blue Run Spirits CEO and co-founder Mike Montgomery. “This will be a game-changing addition to Blue Run’s long-range business plans, allowing us to meet forecasted and unforeseen demand, while also giving our whiskey director Shaylyn Gammon and liquid advisor Jim Rutledge a home base of operations.”

In June 2022, Blue Run hired Gammon, who created the best whiskey of 2021 at Wild Turkey, to work with former Four Roses master distiller Jim Rutledge to elevate Blue Run’s current inventory.

Blue Run Spirits has released several acclaimed bourbons and rye whiskeys, many of which sell out quickly online.
Blue Run Spirits has released several acclaimed bourbons and rye whiskeys, many of which sell out quickly online.
Blue Run Spirits released renderings of the $51 million distillery that is planned for Georgetown. Designed by the same Danish firm that did Google’s headquarters and the Lego brand museum, construction will begin later this year. it’s expected to open in 2025.
Blue Run Spirits released renderings of the $51 million distillery that is planned for Georgetown. Designed by the same Danish firm that did Google’s headquarters and the Lego brand museum, construction will begin later this year. it’s expected to open in 2025.

Bjarke Ingels Group is based in Copenhagen and New York and has offices in London, Barcelona and Shenzhen. Besides the Google headquarters and Lego brand museum, BIG’s projects include the Audemars Piguet Museum and Hotel, the San Pellegrino Flagship Factory and world-renowned Copenhagen restaurant Noma.

“For Blue Run, we have boiled the entire process of whiskey-making down to a single linear sequence — from distilling to maturing to bottling. The half-mile long process meanders through the gentle hillsides creating bends and banks, inlets, and outlooks. A single shingled roof of photovoltaic tiles twists and turns to maintain optimal orientation even as the activities underneath require grandeur or intimacy. In the same way the Royal Spring is shaped by how the water flows through it, Blue Run Distillery is shaped by the flow of the whiskey and the processes and people who make it,” said founder & creative director, BIG, Bjarke Ingels, in the release.

Shaylyn Gammon, who has been working with whiskey legends Jimmy and Eddie Russell at Wild Turkey, was named the first whiskey director at Blue Run Spirits.
Shaylyn Gammon, who has been working with whiskey legends Jimmy and Eddie Russell at Wild Turkey, was named the first whiskey director at Blue Run Spirits.

“Design is at the center of everything we do at Blue Run — from our liquid to our bottle to our new distillery,” Montgomery said in the release. “The design BIG has developed is in dialogue with the landscape, the meandering path to making whiskey and a manifestation of the bold, distinct and inviting ethos that signifies Blue Run Spirits.”