Old Taylor Distillery (Castle & Key Distillery)

Col. Edmund Haynes Taylor Jr., a Frankfort banker and distiller who later became known as the father of the modern bourbon industry, built Old Taylor Distillery in 1887 along Glenn's Creek in Millville, straddling the Franklin–Woodford county line. Taylor modeled the main building on a European castle, complete with turrets and a colonnaded springhouse, and landscaped the grounds with a sunken garden and reflecting pool — deliberately designed so visiting customers would associate the brand with taste and permanence rather than the working-mill look of a typical distillery.

The distillery operated under several owners through Prohibition and the twentieth century, closing for good in 1972 as bourbon sales declined nationally. For more than four decades afterward, the castle and grounds sat empty, overtaken by weeds and vines, its buildings stripped and vandalized; it became a well-known destination for local trespassers and, later, urban explorers documenting Kentucky's abandoned bourbon landmarks.

In 2012, co-founder Will Arvin and a small group of visionaries discovered the abandoned property and began a four-year restoration, later joined by investors including former Buffalo Trace-linked distillers. The site reopened to the public as Castle & Key Distillery in 2016 and released its own aged bourbon starting in 2020. The original 1887 castle building and much of the historic grounds are preserved and remain the centerpiece of tours today.