Louisville has a stellar roster of exports: baseball bats, fried chicken, bourbon—the list goes on. The city has long produced winners, too, from racehorses to boxing legends, plus an impressive number of G&G’s own Made in the South Award contestants. To celebrate derby season, here are five former Made in the South Award honorees hailing from River City.
Museum Bees
Decorative Wall Hangings
For Trace Mayer, a frame doesn’t just complement a work of art—it is the art. With pieces of antique frames or bourbon barrels arranged in tiny quadrangles to house a small ornament—like a tiny golden bee—Mayer’s pieces are incredibly collectible as no two designs are the same. As a nod to the company’s Kentucky roots, Mayer signs each Bee with the initials of the reigning Kentucky Derby winner.
Copper & Kings
Butchertown Brandy
At Joe Heron’s brandy distillery, rock music is blasting at any given moment. It’s not to entertain those working there, but to broaden the flavor of Heron’s grape brandies through a process called “sonic aging.” His Butchertown Brandy, which is named after the distillery’s neighborhood, is a blend of grape brandies that have been aged in used bourbon casks and new American oak. The jury is still out on whether you can taste the Kings of Leon.
Clayton & Crume
Messenger Bag
Clayton & Crume liken their products to barrels of fine Kentucky bourbon, emphasizing that their leather goods only improve with age. The Louisville company produces everything from belts to expertly crafted messenger bags designed to be handed down for generations, using full-grain leather from a famed Chicago tannery and U.S.–sourced brass hardware for timeless pieces with plenty of character.
Four Gate Whiskey Co.
Kelvin Collaboration VI
Four Gate Whiskey owners Bill Straub and Bob D’Antoni are Louisville natives, so naturally, their whiskey release schedule aligns with the state’s most wonderful time of the year: Kentucky Derby season. Four Gate’s Kelvin Collaboration series, now on its sixth iteration, is a blend of three straight bourbons aged in two rounds. The second round sees their whiskey aged in uniquely sourced barrels from a new location each year, selected in tandem with Louisville cask importer Kelvin Cooperage.
Stephanie Seal Brown
Hand towels
Stephanie Seal Brown considers the practice of weaving an intersection of form and function, a blend of mathematics and design that produces a beautiful, practical object. Her bright, striped hand towels capture an array of colors, with designs so perfect it’s difficult to believe they were woven by hand. Stephanie’s childhood spent on an Oklahoma pecan farm, many years in the forests of Kentucky, and new roots in New York’s Hudson Valley imbue her work.
