May 7—In Somerset, the name “Cheshire” is synonymous with delicious soft-serve desserts. Elsewhere in Kentucky, another side of that family has brewed a legacy built on bourbon.
But who says those two treats can’t go well together?
Wally Dant, president and Master Distiller at Log Still Distillery in Gethsemane, Ky., noted that his grandmother on his mother’s side was a Cheshire and thus he’s cousins with Gene Cheshire, who grew up near Dant and would come to build a family legacy owning and operating Dairy Queen here in Pulaski County.
“What goes well with bourbon? Good ice cream like Bananas Foster and things like that,” Dant told the Commonwealth Journal on Tuesday. “(Cheshire) can do the banana split, and we’ll bourbon over top of it.”
Dant was in town to speak at the May membership luncheon of the Somerset-Pulaski Chamber of Commerce, held as usual at The Center for Rural Development. Dant shared the history of his distillery as well as facts about the bourbon business, one of Kentucky’s most recognizable industries.
“It’s a $9 billion industry for the state,” said Dant, noting that bourbon has created over 23,000 jobs in Kentucky, with around 80,000 in and around Nelson County, where Log Still and numerous other distilleries are located. “… From a revenue perspective, all of us distillers are out there trying to do what we can do to really enhance what’s happening in the state itself.”
Dant has helped build Log Still distillery back up into a thriving business after an older version of it had fallen into ruins. He noted that the Dant and Cheshire families had been part of a number that came together in central Kentucky, “where a lot of Catholics settled back in the late 1700s.” He added, “In that time, we had a lot of frontier ingenuity. There was a lot of leftover corn from farming, and there was a lot of what we all called ‘moonshining’ on the side.”
Log Still got its name from the fact that some of the families located there couldn’t afford copper stills, and instead hollowed out logs to make spirits — a process called “stilling on the log,” noted Dant.
“As part of that stilling-on-the-log process, you’re running tubes up through that log, you run steam through it, and then you’re really getting alcohol out the top,” said Dant. “We just wanted to pay homage to that frontier ingenuity.”
Dant’s family operated an older distillery up until the 1960s, when many jobs moved to larger cities due to the arrival of the highway system, and it fell into ruin. In more recent years, a later generation of the family would get Log Still Distillery up and going, and rebuild not just a facility, not just a brand, but something bigger even than that.
“When we started Log Still, one of my goals was to rebuild community,” said Dant. “We talk about faith, God being the most important piece of our equation out there. We talk about family, (that) being the second-most important. God comes first. Third, we talk about building community. If we do those three things right, then the bourbon that comes out should be pretty good at the end.”
Log Still produces about 26,000 barrels per year, making it one of Kentucky’s larger craft distillers, and has different brands, including Monk’s Road bourbon — named in reference to the nearby Abbey of Gethsemani in Nelson County — and Rattle and Snap Tennessee whiskey, referring to a traditional Appalachian game of chance. The distillery also makes gin, which is fun because it’s easier to tell what it will taste like in a shorter period of time.
Dant noted that at Log Still, “we’re trying to … lift the boat about what a bourbon destination, a bourbon resort can really be like.” He mentioned working in an entertainment aspect, such as Log Still having acts like country stars Little Big Town perform there, and referenced how a community like Somerset has Master Musicians Festival, which has partnered with the in-progress Horse Soldier Bourbon already.
“(We’re) trying to create all of these experiences, where people go, ‘Hey, I want to come back there because I had a great time,’ much like you (in Pulaski County) have this great opportunity, and you’ve really done well with it when you have the resource of Lake Cumberland out there, where families are creating great memories,” he said. “When you create a great memory, guess what? (People) come back, and come back again.”
Learn more at www.logstilldistillery.com.
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