J. Mattingly 1845 Distillery in Frankfort, Kentucky, founder and sixth-generation distiller Jeff Mattingly, has sold his interest in the family run distillery.
Jeff Mattingly is a direct descendant of distilling pioneer John Graves Mattingly known for founding J.G. Mattingly Distillery in 1845 later renamed J.G. Mattingly & Bro., then J.G. Mattingly & Sons. Mattingly re-established his family’s legacy in the bourbon business when he founded Bourbon 30 in Georgetown, Kentucky in 2010.
In 2023, Mattingly joined forces with Andrew Varga and Carl Cordova of Gold Corn & Co. Together, they set their sites on growth by reviving the families historic name and moving from Georgetown to Frankfort, Kentucky, just a few hundred yards Buffalo Trace Distillery, a distillery that welcomed more than 600,000 visitors last year.
J. Mattingly 1845 Distillery Founder Sells Company to Gold Corn & Co.
In the latest news Jeff and Melissa Mattingly have sold 100 percent of the company’s ownership to Gold Corn & Co. Keeping the family name going, Cameron Mattingly, Jeff and Melissa’s son and Vice President of Production, will remain in his role at the company overseeing all bourbon making, blending, double staving™, and custom bottling processes. All other employees will also remain in their current roles.
“We are honored and thrilled to be a partner with Jeff Mattingly and his entire team for the past two years. Together, they built on the amazing ideas Jeff conceived in bourbon production and custom bottling. Our Double-Staved™ bourbons and unmatched custom bottling experience have been a unique and exciting innovation for the bourbon industry. We wish Jeff and his wife Melissa nothing but the best as they move into this exciting new chapter in their lives,” said Andrew Varga, Gold Corn & Co.
DistilleryTrail reached out to Andrew Varga to get some additional insights into the J. Mattingly 1845 Distillery acquisition and find out what’s next for this 15-year-old distillery.
The Keys to Success – Our Grand Story
“Things have been going great since we opened the J. Mattingly 1845 Distilling location in Frankfort in November 2023. Our visitor traffic has continued to grow sizably, which has been really encouraging. It’s grown well over 100% every month. Even some months far outpacing that. The launch of our classic bourbon has been an extraordinary success at $120. It was necessary to launch that to really get a foundational core item out there that best represents our bourbon making, our double staving process, and the extraordinary quality that 1845 bourbon provides. The critical acclaim has been amazing. We’ve been very pleased with the progress there.
“Our custom bottle experience has not only continued to do exceptionally well in Frankfort, but we also took that experience online in November of 2023 and that has continued to do well for our customers who want to continue with the custom bottling experience and want to have it shipped to them. And then the other business that has rapidly accelerated is our military business. It’s expanded in DTC (Direct-to-Consumer) offerings.
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“The location has been great. Buffalo Trace Distillery has been a great neighbor. We’ve been honored and privileged to be across the street from them and work with them on occasion. It’s been a nice relationship.
“I think the biggest overarching pillar of success has been our great brand story that goes back to 1845. It’s a story that had not been previously told.
“John Graves Mattingly started the second distillery of record. From 1845 to the time that Jeff and Melissa Mattingly restarted the brand name and the trademark and basically carried on that legacy from 2010 to today; that is a story which resonates with our guests and customers around the country. Everything that we do underneath that, custom bottle being one, the military offerings and the great donations that we give back to the military across the country being another, and finally having the classic bourbon offering that people can go and buy every day of the year, helps people understand that J. Mattingly 1845 stands for extraordinary double stave quality. It just all fits together nicely and has given us a great source of growth.
“We’ve got a great brand business that is growing. We have a great brand story that really fits with some of the most revered brands in the industry. And we really believe that with extra focus and attention on this initiative that we can make this one of the most special brands in the industry over time. Jeff and Melissa believe that, and we do as well. And so we are working hard on what we do well every day and believe that in the short, medium and long term, that’s going to pay off for us.
“Focus is literally the magic elixir to really liberating your growth. We are just going to keep doing what we do well and keep doing more of it.
J. Mattingly 1845 Distillery Founder Emeritus Jeff Mattingly added, “It’s been a passion of mine to always look at businesses in unique ways, and this has been no different with the building of the Bourbon 30 and J. Mattingly 1845 brands and distillery. Melissa and I have been proud to lead our great team for the last 15 years in building one of the most unique enterprises in bourbon distilling. We welcome Gold Corn & Co, Andrew Varga, and Carl Cordova to continue on with the Mattingly brand and continue their philanthropy working with veterans and first responders.”
Who is Gold Corn & Co.?
Gold Corn & Co. was founded in 2022 by beverage alcohol industry veteran Andrew Varga and private equity investor Carl Cordova, in partnership with other private investors, to provide capital and strategic support to Kentucky Bourbon entrepreneurs looking for accelerated growth of their brand’s business. Andrew Varga, as a former senior executive of Brown-Forman, one of the largest global beverage alcohol companies, and later as the Chief Marketing Officer at Papa John’s International, has an association with some of the world’s most recognizable consumer brands, including iconic global brands like Jack Daniel’s, Woodford Reserve, Old Forester and others.
Carl Cordova is a 30-year private equity veteran with a top-quartile track record in structured equity investments in diverse industries, including food & beverage, restaurants and retail, and has focused on pre-IPO, growth capital in rapidly expanding companies, including brands such as Steinway, Planet Hollywood, and LIDS.
How Much Did Gold Corn & Co. Pay for J. Mattingly 1845 Distillery?
The financial details of the deal were not disclosed. When J. Mattingly 1845 Distillery joined the Kentucky Distillers’ Association – KDA last year their press release said, “The new distillery is part of a $5 million investment by Mattingly and his new partners, Gold Corn Investors, LLC.” Beyond that, no financial details have been publicly released. The sale is expected to close in 90-120 days.
Starting in 1845 with John Graves Mattingly’s first distillery in Louisville, Registered Distillery #2, the Mattingly family has been involved in distilleries in Bardstown and St. Mary, Kentucky. The Mattingly family is connected to some of the most prominent distilling families in Kentucky, with ancestors having a hand in the development of at least nine separate distilleries in Kentucky including the Willetts and Samuels.
In 2010, Jeff and Melissa Mattingly started It’s Bourbon 30 in their garage, and in 2015 released Bourbon 30 Bourbon Whiskey. In 2017, Jeff & his team created an ultra-premium bourbon offering, affectionately named J. Mattingly, and then added the year 1845, representing Jeff’s ancestors, John Graves Mattingly & Sons Distilling.
Today, the Mattingly innovation lives on through a custom bourbon blending and bottling experience enjoyed by thousands of consumers along the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, as well as special military bottlings where $10 of every military bottle sold goes to various non-profit military organizations.
Learn more about J. Mattingly 1845 Distillery.
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J. G. Mattingly & Sons—Established 1845—(Successors to J. G. Mattingly & BRO.)
No name in the world has attained greater and wider celebrity, in connection with the production of tine whiskies, than “Mattingly,” a name everywhere accepted as a trademark attesting the purity and superiority of the goods; and for more than fifty years this favor, and pre-eminence has been maintained and recognized throughout the commercial world.
Established in 1845, by J. G. Mattingly, senior of the present firm, the founder was subsequently joined in the then small enterprise by his brother, Mr. B. F. Mattingly who, however, in 1878, sold out his interest in the concern, receiving a large bonus for the already famous brand of the house, the use of which now vests solely in the present farm, composed of the honored founder and his sons, who, having been brought up in the business and acquired knowledge in every detail, were admitted to partnership.
The inventive genius of the senior found practical expression in a device in the form of the elongated, boiler-shaped copper still, and minor improvements, now adopted and used by all the larger distilleries in the country ; but not so with the formula for the mixing of grain, discovered by the Mattingly’s. That remains a secret with the firm, one of the sons being the distiller in person, and to that exclusive knowledge is ascribed the universally-conceded superiority of the Mattingly whisky.
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