but first, world-renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly has chosen a small but well-known Kentucky town for his latest exhibition.

Nestled amongst the rolling hills of the Maker's Mark Distillery in Loretto, the vibrant colors and shapes of his work are truly breathtaking.

The exhibition will be up through December of 2025, and it all started with a simple handwritten letter.

[music playing] [music playing] It was this exhibition in Nashville at Cheekwood Botanical Garden in 2010 that first captured the imagination of Rob Samuels, managing director of the Maker's Mark Distillery and an eighth-generation distiller.

He was so moved by the experience that he began the process of trying to reach Dale Chihuly.

So, I started writing handwritten letters to artist Dale Chihuly, his wife, Leslie, never heard back, started writing letters to his public relations team, the business management team, and eventually, I got a phone call from Seattle.

It was Dale Chihuly himself who said he was going to be in New York and would love to have a conversation around why this could be a really powerful moment.

From that simple beginning, both a partnership and friendship was begun.

Samuels next went to see the Chihuly artisans at work in their Seattle studio, which led to a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

And Dale Chihuly tiptoed into the room where we were, and he said, “Rob,” he said, “I don't want to be rude, but would you like to come out to the hot shop and blow some glass with me?” So, we spent several hours together and actually created several of the pieces together that are placed within the Spirit of the Maker.

The Spirit of the Maker was the first Chihuly installation at the distillery.

The ceiling is often called one of the most Instagrammed places in all of Kentucky.

Dale Chihuly himself was adamant that we have that red weaving thread through the entire 40-foot length of the installation itself.

And it was a moment I'll never forget when Dale Chihuly and I unveiled The Spirit of the Maker, and we were surrounded by the bourbon barrels underneath all of the color coming down and the bourbon aromas wafting through the air.

And he mentioned to me, he said, “Rob,” he said, “I think this might be the most inspired environment that his artwork has ever been on display.” A few other Chihuly pieces were added to the distillery's collection over the years, such as the End of the Day Persian Chandelier, which hangs in the cellar rickhouse among the bourbon barrels.

But Samuels wanted to see more, and that started a multi-year process to land a full Chihuly exhibition at Maker's.

The artist's director of exhibitions, Britt Cornett, said Loretto quickly fit the bill.

He takes on projects of all different scale all around the world, so there's something specific that works for him, that resonates, where he can imagine his work being placed in the environment.

And I think anyone immediately coming to Maker's Mark realizes it's a special place.

Thus began a three-year process to get the exhibition off the ground.

Numerous obstacles had to be overcome.

Always lots and lots of hurdles.

I think with this one, given all of extreme weather we've had in Kentucky, just getting the insurance was not easy.

We had a full-time person basically exploring avenues for insuring millions of dollars of artwork in the elements.

Once insurance was secured, the massive project got underway.

Individually, some of the artworks may take a year from initial concept through the glassblowing process, where individual forms have to be blown, sometimes thousands of them.

And then we have a studio where everything is created full-scale, so we can determine all of the necessary things that are part of mounting large-scale artwork, but most importantly, so that Chihuly is seeing the work come together and he's ultimately comfortable.

Watching the piece Red Reeds on Logs being installed is like watching a choreographed dance.

Artisans move quickly with the giant hollow glass tubes to install them on poles placed strategically around the logs.

The transportation hurdles alone in moving these incredibly fragile pieces from Seattle to Loretto are immense.

Each piece is meticulously loaded into the special boxes, shipped across the country on typically 53-foot container trucks, and then our team unpacks and builds piece by piece here on site.

We have a lot of back-and-forth dialogue between the studio and the distillery team so that we're pretty aware, not only that, this is kind of like coming home to us, you know.

We've been here, we know the distillery quite well, but there were different locations that we were citing works in for their exhibition.

And you might have to take into consideration how the light moves across the day, if there's a tree that we didn't account for that we need to think about.

But again, it's pretty well determined before we ever get to this point, and it's, you know, a year, sometimes year-and-a-half, long process.

That 2010 Chihuly exhibition where Samuels first discovered the artist drew 360,000 visitors.

While the number of fans who come to Loretto remains to be seen, Cornett says all of them should walk away with an experience they won't soon forget.

For those people that are familiar with Chihuly's work, I think they'll, like all of us, like our whole team, be excited about how the work looks against the beautiful setting here.

For people that aren't familiar with Chihuly, there's a sense of their discovery and a little bit awestruck, because it's a, you know, immediate reaction to the artwork and the scale.

I think for all of us, we've all had those moments at points in our lives that resonate, right, that resonate, right, that stick with you into the future.

I think if we can create those moments and have people walk away with a lasting memory, you really can't ask for much better than that.

[music playing]