Roots, Rickhouses & Rare Pours: An Evening with Preservation Distillery
The Central Ohio Whiskey Society welcomed an exceptional May evening crowd to Pinnacle Golf Club to spend an evening with one of Bardstown’s most intriguing hidden gems: Preservation Distillery. Small in headcount but enormous in ambition, Preservation has spent nearly a decade building a reputation for painstakingly slow, pot-distilled Kentucky bourbon—and their first-ever visit to COWS did not disappoint.
A Frontierwoman, a Farm & Forty Years of Bourbon
The story of Preservation Distillery begins not in Bardstown, but in California in 1986, when founder Marci Palatella accepted what her employer considered the worst assignment in the building: sell off all the bourbon and whiskey that nobody in America wanted. Bourbon was deeply unfashionable, but Marci spotted something the rest of the industry missed—Japan was thirsty. Within two years she had become the company’s top salesperson, moving dormant Kentucky barrels to the Asian market for as little as three or four dollars a gallon. She struck out on her own, building a portfolio of more than two hundred and fifty brands, sourcing from iconic Kentucky distilleries and blending with the precision of a winemaker. Names like Very Old St. Nick, Rare Perfection, and Old Man Winter were born in that era.
By 2010, sensing the American palate was turning back to bourbon, Marci began searching for a permanent home. A 2014 visit to Bardstown sealed it: she stumbled onto a forty-acre former event venue called Hillbilly Heaven—the site of every local prom, wedding, and outdoor concert anyone in Nelson County could remember—and knew immediately it was meant to be a distillery. She purchased the property in 2015 and began distilling estate pot-still bourbon and rye in October 2017. Preservation is today the first and only 100% pot-distilled producer in Nelson County and the first Kentucky distillery founded by a woman.
An Ambassador Worth Her Proof
Presenting for Preservation was Shelby Nash, PR/ Social Media Director, and a key member of the distillery’s leadership team who has been instrumental in shaping its brand identity and visitor experience. A Bardstown native who had been working in Louisville’s transplant medicine world, Shelby wandered onto what she thought was the old Hillbilly Heaven event venue in 2018, only to find it had been transformed into a distillery. Marci sat her down, poured her a glass of whiskey she expected to be too hot to enjoy—and Shelby walked out with a part-time job she didn’t need and couldn’t resist. Six months later she had left the hospital for good. As Kyle Lloyd, Preservation’s Master of Maturation and VP of Operations, said over Zoom later in the evening: “I’m learning stuff [from her] all the time.” Shelby is exactly the kind of ambassador who makes a COWS meeting feel like a private conversation — warm, knowledgeable, and completely at ease whether she’s pouring for four people or a hundred.
Five Expressions, One Philosophy: Slow Down, or Don’t Bother.
Shelby guided the room through five expressions that collectively span nearly four decades of Preservation’s history — from their approachable on-site wheated bourbon to a world-premiere blend that hadn’t yet been poured for the public. Each pour added another chapter to the evening’s story, moving from distillery staples available in Ohio all the way to rare and distillery-exclusive releases that had members reaching for their phones to check inventory. Kyle Lloyd joined via Zoom for the final expression, making the evening feel less like a tasting and more like a backstage pass.
Wattie Boone & Sons Bourbon — 101 Proof
Preservation’s bread-and-butter entry point, named for Wattie Boone, who began distilling on what is now the distillery’s property in 1776 alongside Stephen Richey—making him the first documented master distiller in Kentucky. This five-to-six-year-old pot-still wheated bourbon is distilled entirely on-site and delivers a classic, accessible profile at 101 proof. Wattie Boone’s 250th anniversary arrives this year, with a commemorative Boone Family Reunion event planned at the distillery in June to mark the occasion.
Preservation Distillery Estate Pot-Distilled Kentucky Bourbon — 115.4 Proof (Cask Strength)
The flagship expression of what Preservation actually does differently. This seven-year, seven-month estate bourbon is milled, cooked, fermented, pot-distilled, and aged entirely on-site using three of four grains sourced locally from Affinity Farms in Bardstown—the only distillery currently working with that farm, and the only one using their Kentucky-grown rye. Single-pass through the copper pot still, cut into fresh heavy-toasted level-three char ISC barrels, and proofed with limestone water from the on-site aquifer. Viscous, velvety, and big on the palate—Shelby described it as “the Kentucky kiss”—with a warm, lingering finish that makes the 115-proof reality something of a pleasant surprise.
Old Man Winter — 109.8 Proof
One of the original Marci-designed eighties labels, reimagined as a near fifty-fifty blend of Preservation’s six-year pot-still wheated bourbon and eight-to-nine-year-old vintage whiskey sourced from legacy Kentucky distilleries back in the day (at those legendary three-to-four-dollars-a-gallon prices). Hand-bottled, hand-labeled, hand-waxed, and finished with a real wood top and snow-capped wax seal, Old Man Winter balances the brightness of younger juice against the depth of older stock in a way that earned it the evening’s “crowd-pleaser” designation. A cask-strength “2.0” version at approximately 115 proof—finished with a black accent dip—blends in slightly older vintage whiskey and is available distillery-only.
Rare Perfection 10-Year Kentucky Bourbon — 130.7 Proof
The evening’s show-stopper, released just six weeks before the COWS meeting and not yet available outside the distillery—certainly not yet in Ohio. This high-rye ten-year-old Kentucky bourbon is the product of barrels Marci Palatella and Kyle Lloyd acquired young and carefully shepherded through Preservation’s warehouse, moving them strategically to hit the right maturation. Previous Rare Perfection releases have carried fourteen and fifteen year age statements on special Canadian barrels; this Kentucky iteration at ten years has already attracted attention from whiskey writers calling it a potential whiskey of the year candidate. At 130.7 proof it pours considerably hotter than it tastes—a hallmark of the Preservation philosophy that the liquid should always present softer than its actual proof.
Immaculata — 118.2 Proof (Distillery Exclusive, World Premiere)
Presented via Zoom by Kyle Lloyd, Master of Maturation and GM, the Immaculata is a tribute to the fortieth anniversary of Very Old St. Nick, the very first brand Marci launched in 1986. This three-barrel blend was released publicly for the first time the Saturday following the COWS meeting—meaning our members were among the first people on earth to taste it. The blend consists of a majority share of Preservation’s eight-and-a-half-year estate pot-still wheated bourbon, a ten-year high-rye Kentucky bourbon from the Rare Perfection family, and a nineteen-year bourbon drawn from Marci’s vintage California stocks—barrels that spent decades aging in a uniquely arid climate before arriving in Bardstown. At 118.2 proof (one tenth of a point higher than the prior release), the pot-still element dominates the front and mid-palate with that signature viscous, high-ester character, while the nineteen-year component takes over on the finish with remarkable, lingering depth. Ohio distribution is expected within three to four months.
What made the evening genuinely memorable was not just the quality of the liquid—and it was exceptional—but the story threaded through every pour. Preservation is a distillery built on the conviction that the old-school depth of flavor that once defined Kentucky bourbon simply doesn’t exist anywhere else anymore, so you might as well make it yourself. Forty years of collecting, blending, and brand-building led Marcy Palatella to a former event center in Bardstown, and six years of patient pot-distilling later, COWS got to taste the result. We walked away with a much deeper appreciation for what it means when a bottle says “low and slow”—and with a very good reason to book a tour at the distillery before the Boone Family Reunion in June..
