Tom Bulleit sits in an office that once belonged to Julian P. “Pappy” Van Winkle, laughing as he reminisces about the journey that brought him here. He had grown up around the whiskey business his whole life, working in distilleries off and on before joining the Marine Corps. After he returned from his service in Vietnam he used his G.I. Bill to go to Law School at the University of Louisville.

Bulleit practiced law for decades as he raised his family, but in 1987, the family lore of his great-great-grandfather Augustus Bulleit’s whiskey business finally got the better of…