“Making old-fashioned new.” That is the vision and motto of Jeptha Creed Distillery in Shelbyville. The Nethery family owns and operates the enterprise, which opened in November 2016. Their goal is to make the finest spirits using old-fashioned methods and a few modern techniques.
Although new to Shelby County, this craft distillery has been in the works for several years as Bruce and Joyce Nethery perfected their plan. Bruce, with a farming background, and Joyce, a chemical engineer, came up with the idea of turning their family’s farmland into a distillery, with ingredients used in the products grown on the property.
“We combined our skill sets and family history and gave our kids careers, too,” Master Distiller Joyce said. “Plus, we knew we wanted to be a part of Kentucky’s bourbon culture.”
Their daughter, Autumn, 23, is the marketing manager, and son Hunter, 18, helps out on the farm and is the beekeeper.
Armed with a master’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Louisville’s Speed School of Engineering, Joyce rediscovered her love of chemistry and developed an interest in distilling when she enrolled in a concentrated, five-day distillers course at Moonshine University in Louisville (see related story on page 24).
Joyce sent Autumn to Edinburgh, Scotland, for a year to study brewing and distilling at Heriot-Watt University. “I fell in love with the science and history of distillation, and I wanted to learn more, but I could not find a program in the U.S.,” Autumn said. “But one thing I learned is that Kentucky got most of their distilling practices from Scotland, anyway.”
Autumn returned stateside and finished up her marketing degree at the University of Kentucky. She now puts her education to use every day.
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The family chose the name of the distillery by digging into their roots. Three generations of Netherys have farmed the foothills of the area known as Jeptha Knob. The moniker came from none other than Squire Boone, Daniel Boone’s brother, back in the late 1700s. Squire Boone originally christened the hill Jephthah Mountain after a biblical warrior. Over the years, while the spelling was changed to Jeptha, the name stuck. The “Creed” in the name also comes from family tradition.
“We use superior ingredients—all natural—with no artificial anything. That is our creed,” Autumn explained.
The key ingredient to the spirits at Jeptha Creed is a deep red variety of corn called Bloody Butcher. The origins of this heirloom, non-GMO corn trace to the mid-1800s, when it was cultivated in the Appalachian Mountains. It is difficult to grow, as the plant gets tall and typically produces skinny stalks with a low yield. One wild and windy Kentucky summer thunderstorm can wipe out a field.
But the Netherys are willing to take that chance.
“A few years ago, I tried growing hybrid tomatoes on our farm,” Joyce said. “They looked nice but did not taste as good. So I switched to heirloom tomatoes, which taste so much better but don’t look so nice.”
The same holds true with the Bloody Butcher corn.
“We grew a test patch of this corn in a small field next to regular yellow corn. We watched as the deer and turkeys walked right through the field of yellow corn to get to the Bloody Butcher and eat it,” she said. “These animals have a choice, and even they know which corn is better.”
Despite its rather unsavory and even scary name, the Netherys determined the corn has an exceptional flavor.
The family has been at work for several years, but the bourbon is quietly aging on the distillery property and won’t be available for purchase until 2019. Luckily, Jeptha Creed has some flavors of vodka and moonshine available now, each more delicious than the next. The distillery produces and sells vodka in original, honey, blueberry and apple flavors, along with original, blackberry, lemonade and apple pie moonshine. The products’ ingredients are sourced from either the Nethery farm or from farms as close to Shelbyville as possible. In addition to the signature corn, the family grows apples and berries. Currently, they are experimenting with pawpaws and honeybees as well as other crops that may be used in future flavors.
When the family broke ground for the distillery in 2015, it certainly wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision: The plans had been formulating in Bruce and Joyce’s heads for several years.
“We used an architect, but we had plenty of design ideas ourselves,” Autumn said.
The distillery building, which sits on 64 acres alongside I-64 at exit 32, is as unique as the Bloody Butcher corn Jeptha Creed uses. The giant, red-siding-clad, barn-inspired structure where the products are created and distilled also houses a retail shop and a cocktail bar. Out back is a gorgeous patio area with comfy chairs, fire pits and games of cornhole just waiting to be played. Weekends in the summer bring live music, along with food trucks in the parking lot, making the venue even more inviting.
Tours are available of the production facility, where you can learn more about Bloody Butcher corn and the distillation process. You also can get an up-close look at the bubbling fermenting vats and the shiny copper still.
The Netherys are proud of where they are from but equally excited about where they will go. Of Scottish descent, they remain grounded by using the motto, “Ne Oublie,” a Gaelic phrase meaning “Do not forget.”
With her love of the family’s 1,000 acres of farmland, Joyce said she is proud to represent Kentucky and honor its history and heritage. She also looks forward to opening all those barrels of bourbon that sit on her farm, slowly aging as each season passes.
“Although I’m impatient for 2019 to get here, I’m sure we will find that the old-fashioned way will turn out to be the best way,” she said.
Philip Theobald
If You Go:
Jeptha Creed Distillery
500 Gordon Lane, Shelbyville
(502) 487-5007, jepthacreed.com
Tours are Tuesday-Sunday on the hour. The price is $10 and includes your choice of four tastings of Jeptha Creed vodka or moonshine. Those under 21 are invited to tour—with no tasting, of course—for $8.