The capital of Lake Cumberland, will soon become the southern anchor of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, and 2021 Horse Soldier Bourbon broke ground on its $200 million distillery in Somerset.

The company was founded by retired U.S. Army Green Berets, who served in Afghanistan and would later be named the Horse Soldier for fighting against the Taliban on horseback.

A movie was based on their story and it was released in 2018.

The same year, Somerset Mayor Alan Keck began his mission to bring Horse Soldier Bourbon to Kentucky.

Here's that story.

I was at fifth Special Forces Group at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and we were actually in a training exercise when we learned about the attacks.

And less than a month and a half later, Green Berets and Special Forces Group were inserted behind the lines in Afghanistan.

Their story was so unknown for so long, and it wasn't until the movie and maybe the books and everything out, they brought some notoriety.

But as I look back, we still would have done something together as friends.

It really started as just a hobby amongst friends, just to go see distilleries.

And then a veteran distillery led us, actually worked there.

And that's when you start thinking, maybe I could maybe we ought to.

When the movie came out, we finally put some of the bourbon we had been aging just for ourselves into a bottle, literally printed off the label horse soldier.

And that's how this brand began.

We were secretly looking for a location.

And if you want to be a good bourbon, you got to be a Kentucky bourbon.

So we had looked in Louisville and Lexington, and we got an email one day from the young mayor, Alan Keck, who just won, his mayoral race.

And it said, I would love to bring your distillery here to Somerset.

And he actually showed this downtown area we're in now.

And so we were buying a used truck in Indiana, and we just stopped by and we literally called him an hour out.

And that began probably a four month search for where we're building our distillery today.

Before I even got sworn into office, we filmed a bourbon pitch video, and as soon as it was done, I was send it to anybody who would listen.

And I learned of American Freedom Distillery.

You know, the Horse soldiers and now Horse soldier, Bourbon, from a podcast.

A buddy of mine heard about him on a podcast.

And so let's let's send him that email, and see what happens.

And that led to about a 11 month recruitment.

They announced they were going to build and then cut.

What happens and, you know, and then supply chain and then interest rates.

And it slowed things down.

But they never wavered in their commitment to our community.

They could have been anywhere.

And they said, we want to be in Somerset.

What makes Somerset different than any other location is its small town feel.

If you show up here in downtown, there's just a little bitty town square and a fountain, and it just brings you back to that emotional, small town America that most of us grew up in.

And we went to the property, out the distillery and we said, this is it.

This is our forever home.

Green berets are known as expeditionary entrepreneurs.

We go to remote places with very little funding.

We're a very tight knit team and we take on problems that are unexpected.

So when you think about how you start a business, maybe you just have this idea.

Then you put the team together, you look at the problem, you formulate a plan.

You decide how much resources and then you attack it every day.

The city of Somerset and the county and the state government has helped us every step of the way.

So I say this has been a world class example of how veterans can transition.

But yet with the power of the city and local governments, it makes our dreams come true.

The distillery's name is American Freedom Distillery, and all we wanted to do was live the American dream we've been defending.

Right.

And this country, as we defended it on its edges, is has given us life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

And the pursuit of happiness for us was to start our own business amongst our friends and families.

Find a small town, America, a place to settle back into and live out the rest of our days just believing in what we were defending.

The Horse Soldier Bourbon Distillery is scheduled to open on July 4th, 2026, to coincide with America's 250th birthday.