WES ANDERSON, founder of Saga Spirits and principal of TKC Distilling Co., LLC
By Scott White
Woodford Sun Staff
TKC Distilling Co., LLC, told the Sun that it is selling the 151 acres it purchased from the City of Versailles in 2024 during former Versailles Mayor Brian Traugott’s administration, which it intended to build a distillery to produce bourbon and other spirits under the name Saga Spirits and brand “True Story.” The Sun confirmed that Block + Lot Real Estate has been hired by Northbrook Advisors, located in Dallas, TX, as its selling agent. Northbrook is part of the investor group TKC Distilling put together for the project.
As part of the resolution of a land use fight involving the former owners of the Edgewood Farm, land preservationists, and others, the city purchased Edgewood Farm for approximately $2.5 million, and sold it in two parcels to TKC for approximately $7 million, netting the city nearly $5 million in profit.
“I’m very disappointed,” Wes Anderson, TKC’s leader who built and sold Angel’s Envy bourbon and a member of the Bourbon Hall of Fame, told the Sun. “The global bourbon market has flipped upside down in nearly an instant. It was a perfect storm of collapsing barrel values, tariffs, and an economic downturn. We had big dreams to put our distillery on the (Edgewood property within the Versailles urban service boundary [USB]). Unfortunately, those dreams are on hold right now as we struggle to weather the this bourbon storm.”
Anderson also confirmed that the troubled distillery project is completely divorced from the ownership and operation of The Kentucky Castle, owned by a related entity, TKC Hospitality Group, LLC. “The Kentucky Castle us and has been operating separately from the distilling company and will continue to be the amazing destination that it has been for a long time.”
The decision to sell the property now leaves 151-acres of undeveloped land inside the Versailles USB zoned Industrial-1 (light industrial). As Lucas Witt, the executive director of the Woodford County Economic Development Authority (EDA), said “This does give Versailles and Woodford County a good opportunity since there is very little industrial zoned land in Woodford County.” Witt also noted that the value and marketability of the property has significantly increased with the construction of the new road connecting the parcels to Versailles Road and the upcoming construction of Lowe’s and Publix.
This is the issue now presented to city officials which the Sun posed: what will become of the property now that it is no longer under the city’s control? Conceptually, any type of business or industry that conforms to the limits of I-1 is on the table.
Though the city holds a right-of-first refusal to repurchase the land, Versailles Mayor Laura Dake told the Sun she expects there will be no appetite by council, or her, to exercise that option given it would likely cost in excess of what it sold for in 2024 and simply puts the city back into the role of having to find another buyer.
The city also stands to receive $250,000 in a penalty from TKC for its failure to break ground by a date certain on the distillery, which was part of the terms of the sale of the property. Dake confirmed, which is corroborated by the Sun’s prior reporting, that the city did not give any economic development related incentives to TKC for the construction of the distillery, though some new job creation benchmark incentives were given to TKS by the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development, which will not be triggered since the distillery is not being built.
Dake first learned that TKC may be considering selling the property on January 26, 2026, when she received a call from Northbrook Advisors. “The call came from out of the blue, but given the situation of the bourbon industry and the economy, that selling was something they were kind of thinking about,” she said. “Recognizing that since the city had sold the property, that this private company was making a business decision, and the city no longer could directly or even indirectly control what would be built there, they asked me what type of industries I thought, as mayor the city, we would like to see go in and whether it should be sold as a single unit or dividing it into parcels.”
Though zoning law itself places significant restrictions on how a property can be used, Dake told Northbrook Advisors, “I told them pretty strongly we did not want a data center, a big warehouse operation, bourbon warehouses, a distribution center, or an attempt to rezone it to heavy industry.”
Dake said that though this was not necessarily good news for the city, it did present an opportunity in that if the property is sold in parcels versus a single unite, then “not all of our eggs are in the same basket so that down the road we wouldn’t have this same scenario where a business fails and there is no immediate replacement. This was a concern I had when we sold it in 2024 and now we can avoid this happening if the property is subdivided.”
As the transaction proceeds, Dake said the city will continue to make its views on possible uses and new businesses going in. One advantage the city has is that Northbrook Advisors has hired (Block + Lot which is a related company to the city’s economic development advisor via the EDA, MWM Consulting). “This means the seller’s own real estate agent and advisor will know, and be able to articulate, the city’s interests in those discussions with potential buyers to make sure our views are known.”
Lucas Witt, a principal of MWM which has a contract to provide economic development consulting services to the EDA, told the Sun, “as an independent third-party advisor, MWM Consulting, together with Block + Lot Real Estate, serves both private owners and local government, but in clearly separate roles. On this project, Block + Lot will serve as the broker for a privately owned property, while MWM Consulting’s economic development work helps Versailles, Midway, and Woodford County articulate their long-term goals and desired project types. We believe that perspective is a benefit, not a drawback, because it helps align private investment with public priorities, and if a conflict ever does arise, we address it openly with all parties.”
Given the city does not have any ownership currently and is highly unlikely to exercise its option to re-purchase the property, neither she nor Witt viewed the matter as creating a conflict of interest.
“At the end of the day, if the land is sold to a buyer who intends to do something on that land which is not in the best interests of the city and our community, then we will fight it tooth and nail.”
Dake expects to begin formal discussions about this matter with the city council in a special meeting on Tuesday, June 9.