In 1820, an illiterate Kentucky boy named John Lawrence escaped from an orphanage. When they could not find him, they wrote him off as dead.

 

They could never have guessed he had defied the odds and made his way hundreds of miles down the Kentucky River to Bourbon County. There, he talked his way into the company of a local distiller who taught him the art of making bourbon whiskey.

 

By 1842, John was in business for himself. He named his bourbon after his mentor, Martin Trammel, known by all as "Goat" for his distinctive facial hair. Around Bourbon County, the reputation of Old Goat grew.

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John was known around Bourbon County as a visionary yet fastidious distiller and a man of unshakable integrity. It was often said about him, "John Lawrence wouldn't take a thousand dollars to change his name to John Lawrence."

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When John's son, John Jr, came along, he showed him everything the Goat had once taught him. And John Jr. did the same with his own children.

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Today, John Lawrence V steers the ship, upholding his great-great-great-grandfather's legacy. He still tastes every batch himself. So does his son,  Steven, Old Goat's Master Distiller, who joined the company as a distiller's assistant in 1981 to learn the art.

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“Most bourbon today isn’t made right,” says Steven, whose daughter Melissa runs the marketing department. “The finish is too short, you miss half the notes. It’s compromised for a wider audience. It’s just not correct. If an old Bourbon County distiller from back before the Civil War like John showed up here in our time, they wouldn’t believe most of this stuff people are drinking and calling bourbon.”

 

His father Lawrence V jumps in, adding with a laugh, “He would know Old Goat, though. Because we still follow his exact recipes and methods. To the tee."

 

The secret, Lawrence V reveals, is in the roots. “First of all you need the best ingredients. You have to trust the farmers you're getting your grains from. We've been working with the same guys since before I was born.

 

"After that, you need to focus on the unaged spirit. The temptation is to hurry up and get it in the barrel and get it aging, thinking you can tinker with it along the aging process. That’s what the bigger distillers do now. But you can’t fake it. It'll show.”

 

That’s the core of the original John Lawrence’s method. “There are cheaper ways to do it. But there's also the right way."

 

For 170 years, through wars and Prohibition, Old Goat has remained an independent, family business making the same bourbon whiskey it always has. The distillery stands on the same piece of riverbank where John built his in 1842. They have had plenty of chances over these 170 years to compromise, to be more like the herd -- but that's not how John Lawrence raised them.

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Says John Lawrence V, "Old Goat isn't about being the most popular or the most stylish. It's about integrity. Integrity is timeless."

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