The University of Kentucky’s Wildcask Bourbon is returning for its second release, and this time the students behind it had something the first class didn’t — experience.
Built inside the James B. Beam Institute for Kentucky Spirits, Wildcask is the only bourbon brand to come out of UK, and it’s put together entirely by students enrolled in the Commercialization of Distilled Spirits course. The two-semester program runs the full academic year, and by the end of it, students have touched just about every corner of the bourbon business — blending, branding, distribution, packaging, finance, and more.
The 2026 edition is already bottled and ready to go, with reservations open now ahead of a pickup date of April 27 at the Beam Institute on Nicholasville Road in Lexington.
A Completely New Blend
One of the biggest differences between this release and the 2025 debut is what’s actually in the bottle. The students didn’t just tweak the formula — they rebuilt it from the ground up using a four-source blend that brings together some well-respected names in Kentucky bourbon…