Friday January 23, 2026
Local Connection
Weather
Traffic
@LouisvilleDispatch
@LouisvilleDisp
SubscribeAngel’s Envy™, the super-premium Kentucky Straight bourbon whiskey of uncompromising character and quality, will officially open its new distillery and visitor center to the public for guided tours beginning Saturday, November 19. Online reservations, which are required, are now being accepted at www.angelsenvy.com. Admission is $15 per person and includes a tasting.
Located at 500 E. Main Street at Jackson, (the former Vermont American and Baer Fabrics Building), the new state-of-the-art facility is the first full-production whiskey distillery in downtown Louisville. Having completed a $27 million renovation since breaking ground in 2013, the brand home center houses the Angel’s Envy distillery operations (including everything from milling of grains to blending and bottling on site), as well as a visitor center and gift shop. From the exterior walls to the vaulted ceilings and arched windows, their architects worked diligently to preserve every possible feature of the original building. Their breathtaking, one-of-a-kind 35-foot-tall column still, pot still and doubler were sourced locally from Vendome Coppery & Brass Works—just four blocks away.
The small batch artisan bourbon is the culmination of the late Master Distiller Lincoln Henderson’s storied career. Each of the brand’s three current expressions (flagship Angel’s Envy Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey finished in Port Wine Barrels, Angel’s Envy Cask Strength and Angel’s Envy Rye finished in hand-selected Caribbean rum casks), exhibit his passion for experimenting outside of conventional norms by producing unique whiskey steeped in tradition, but finished with a twist.
“Opening the Angel’s Envy distillery and visitor’s center in downtown Louisville was a dream Dad (Lincoln Henderson) and I had,” said Wes Henderson, Co-founder/Chief Innovation Officer, Louisville Distilling Company. “He would be so proud of what we’ve accomplished in such a short amount of time. My sons and I proudly carry on his legacy. The distillery is a must-see experience.”
“We are delighted that Angel’s Envy chose downtown Louisville for its new distillery and visitor center,” said Louisville Mayor, Greg Fischer. “It is evident that Angel’s Envy is not only committed to quality craftsmanship, but also the greater Louisville community.”
The Angel’s Envy distillery and visitor center is open for tours every Monday and Wednesday through Saturday from 10:00am – 5:00pm, and every Sunday, from 1:00 – 5:00pm. Tours will not be available on Tuesdays.
For more information, please visit us at www.angelsenvy.com or on facebook https://www.facebook.com/AngelsEnvyBourbon and twitter https://twitter.com/Angels_Envy (@angels_envy).
Mayor Greg Fischer, TreesLouisville and the Community Foundation of Louisville announced today that an anonymous donor has contributed $1 million for tree planting throughout the city, and the community is launching an effort to match that donation.
“That’s an ambitious goal, but we know that trees are very important for our environment, our economy and civic pride, and if all citizens participate, we can get it done,” Mayor Fischer said.
Susan Barry, president and CEO of the Community Foundation, said her agency will accept donations to match the $1 million. TreesLouisville will manage the outreach and focus of the initiative.
“Now is the time for all of us to get fired up about planting and caring for trees,” said TreesLouisville Executive Director Cindi Sullivan, “We need trees if we want to have a healthy place to live, learn, work and play. So the question is: have you planted a tree today?”
While the city will continue planting trees on public land through city agencies such as Brightside, the Division of Community Forestry and Metro Parks, the Mayor stressed that the city also needs more trees on private land.
And to reach the city’s goal of a 45 percent tree canopy, he urged residents and businesses to plant trees in their yards and community greenspaces. (Louisville’s tree canopy is currently about 37 percent.)
“I’m asking residents and businesses to recommit themselves in growing our tree canopy by contributing their funds to this effort to buy trees, or their time to plant and maintain them,” the Mayor said. “I am grateful to the private and corporate citizens who have started this effort, and ask the community to match the contribution and more.”
Adding trees has many benefits for a community. Economically, the shade trees provide can lower energy costs and, because they are aesthetically pleasing, trees increase property values and attract business to the neighborhood. Environmentally, trees provide better air quality, a reduction in our city’s heat island effect and a habitat for wildlife. Trees also put more pride into neighborhoods and promote the beauty of city streets.
Local advertising agency Red7e has provided creative services for this initiative.
To donate to the tree planting initiative, please visit https://treeslouisville.org/
Mayor Greg Fischer announced today that His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama will return to Louisville in April 2017. And to spotlight the significance of the visit, the 22nd annual Festival of Faiths will move to April 19-24 and culminate with talks by the Dalai Lama.
The Mayor, joined by 2017 Festival chairman Owsley Brown III, made the announcement during a press conference today at the George Garvin Brown Garden, 415 W. Muhammad Ali Blvd.
The title of the 2017 Festival is “Compassion: Shining like the Sun.” His Holiness the Dalai Lama will deliver talks on universal human values and nonviolence at the Yum! Center on Sunday, April 23, and at a large youth event on Monday, April 24.
The visit is being planned by several local organizations involved in the city’s compassion initiatives, including the Mayor’s office, the Center for Interfaith Relations, Drepung Gomang Center for Engaging Compassion, and the newly formed International Center for Compassionate Cities.
Since taking office in 2011, Mayor Fischer has helped champion a city-wide campaign for compassion, including his Give a Day week of service, Compassionate Louisville and the Compassionate Schools Project. He has been a longtime supporter of Louisville’s signature interfaith event, the Festival of Faiths, and worked with the Festival’s Brown, as well as Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent, Dr. Donna Hargens, to launch the Compassionate Schools Project here in 2015.
The Festival of Faiths is a nationally acclaimed interfaith event of music, poetry, film, art and dialogue with internationally renowned spiritual leaders, thinkers and practitioners. It is designed as a platform for holding conversations on meaning in a time of multiple crises of meaning; and respecting the essential union between thinking globally and acting locally.
Theologian Richard Rohr calls the Festival “the Sundance of the Sacred,” and the Huffington Post included it among America’s top 7 spiritual travel destinations. www.FestivalofFaiths.org
Drepung Gomang Center for Engaging Compassion, a Tibetan Buddhist dharma center, hosted His Holiness in Louisville in 2013. Under the Dalai Lama’s advice and guidance, DGCEC’s Compassion Education Center provides presentations, workshops, retreats and classes that inspire everyday people to grow loving-kindness and deep compassion in the movement from understanding to personal engagement. Programming is based in universal human values using inclusive, non-religious and inter-religious language. www.DrepungGomangUSA.org
The International Center for Compassionate Cities (IC3) will launch with the 2017 visit. The IC3 will serve the ever-growing global community of cities that have signed the Charter for Compassion by providing tools to measure compassion, resources to help implement compassion-based city programing and a space to share stories. Overall, the center will serve to amplify compassion in cities around the world.
The site of today’s press conference announcing the 2017 visit was steps away from Merton Square, the historic site of Thomas Merton’s 1958 epiphany in downtown Louisville. He wrote of that event: “[I]n Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut [now Muhammad Ali Blvd.] … I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs. … There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”
Merton was a Trappist monk who is world renowned as a Christian writer, social critic and interfaith pioneer. In 1968 Merton met with the young Dalai Lama and forged an important kinship that continues to “shine like the sun.” Merton wrote that he felt “a real spiritual bond” with His Holiness. The image of the two at this 1968 meeting hangs over the door at the Center for Interfaith Relations.
Even today the Dalai Lama often speaks about Merton as THE Christian monk who broadened his understanding of the profound commonalities between traditions. His Holiness commented in a New York Times opinion piece in 2010: “The focus on compassion that Merton and I observed in our two religions strikes me as a strong unifying thread among all the major faiths. And these days we need to highlight what unifies us.”
More details about themes and programming, as well as ticketing, for the April event will be released in January 2017, and news and updates will be posted on the www.FestivalofFaiths.org and www.DalaiLamaLouisville.org websites.
The Kentucky Historical Society (KHS) will dedicate two new historical markers in November. One, in Jefferson County, marks the Kentucky Soldiers’ Home site. The other, in Paducah, recognizes a Boy Scout troop founded in 1910.
The Kentucky Soldiers’ Home was the only institution in Kentucky established for Union Civil War veterans. Its purpose was to provide a home for those who were aged, infirm and unable to support themselves. J.T. Boyle Post No. 109 of the Grand Army of the Republic proposed the home. It was chartered in 1890 and opened in 1891.
Former Union Gen.Speed S. Fry served as the home’s first superintendent and director. He died in 1892. Catherine E. Hirst of the Ladies’ Aid Society headed the facility until it closed several years later. During its brief time in operation, it housed 35 veterans. Five of them died at the home.
The Kentucky Soldiers’ Home marker dedication will be at 11 a.m., Saturday, Nov. 12, at 6319 Upper River Road, Harrods Creek.
In 1910, Rev. Clinton S. Quin, rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Paducah, organized Boy Scout Troop 1. The Boy Scouts of America was incorporated on Feb. 8 of that year. Troop 1 is the seventh-oldest troop in the United States. Grace Episcopal Church continues to sponsor the troop, providing meeting facilities and volunteer leadership. The troop is a member of the Lincoln Heritage Council, one of the older local councils serving both urban and rural areas in the nation.
The Boy Scout Troop 1 marker dedication will be at 11:30 a.m. (CST), Sunday, Nov. 13, at 820 Broadway, Paducah.
More than 2,400 historical markers statewide tell Kentucky’s history. More information about the marker application process and a database of markers and their text is available at history.ky.gov/markers. Also available on the site is the Explore Kentucky History app, a source of supplemental information about marker topics and virtual tours of markers by theme. KHS administers the Kentucky Historical Marker Program in cooperation with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.
The initial period for students to apply for enrollment in the Jefferson County Public School (JCPS) District for the 2017-18 school year is now underway. The application period launched October 31 and ends January 6.
Applications should be submitted for the following students:
- All children entering kindergarten
- Elementary school students who wish to apply to an optional/magnet program or school
- Students entering or currently in middle school or high school who wish to apply to an optional/magnet program or school
- Students for whom an application was previously submitted but whose family has since moved, thus creating a need to resubmit using the new address
- Students entering a Jefferson County public school for the first time
Families should register by visiting the JCPS website and clicking Register & Apply on the homepage. Applications can also be submitted at the JCPS Parent Assistance Center at 4309 Bishop Lane.
For the first time, JCPS has also launched a predictability tool for families to use when making their choice among elementary schools within their cluster. Parents can answer a few questions online and receive information on how likely applicants with similar circumstances received their first choice in the past.
Additionally, the JCPS Mobile Registration Bus will hit the road this week in an effort to help students and their families register for the 2017-18 school year.
The bus, which is equipped with laptops and Internet access, will make its first of 16 stops on Tuesday, Nov. 1, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., at the George Unseld Early Childhood Learning Center (5216 Ilex Ave.). A complete list of JCPS Mobile Registration Bus stops is available online here.
Families also have the opportunity to tour prospective schools during an open house or tour. The schedules for elementary, middle and high schools are available here.
Parents who have questions regarding the school registration process may call the JCPS Parent Assistance Center at 485-6250.
The city has awarded loans totaling $95,000 to two small businesses to help them renovate or expand. The loans have been awarded by Louisville Forward Economic Development’s Metropolitan Business Development Corporation (METCO) and the Department of Community Services’ Microbusiness Development Program.
METCO loans have been awarded to the following business:
- Two loans were approved for Cynthia Torp Properties, LLC for its property at 804 S. 5th Street. The loans will allow owner Cynthia Torp to renovate a warehouse in the SoBro neighborhood. Upon completion, the front of the building will house office space for Solid Light, and the back portion of the building will serve as its metal fabrication shop.
- $75,000 façade loan
- $15,000 accessibility loan
A microbusiness loan has been awarded to the following business:
- $5,000 loan to Abound In Grace, located at 1226 Krupp Park Drive. This loan will allow owner Nina Smith to purchase more book inventory and supplies. The business is expanding their new product line Abound in Grace Kid’s Corner and will host bi-weekly youth activities and events. One new employee will be added to handle operations during peak hours.
The Metropolitan Business Development Corporation (METCO) governs metro government’s small business loans, which include facade, accessibility and gap financing loans. Because metro government is not the primary lender, the loan program allows many public-private partnerships between government and private business ventures that further the vitality and quality of life in the Louisville community.
To learn more about the METCO loan program, visit https://louisvilleky.gov/government/louisville-forward/local-loan-programs
Brightside will hold its fall planting event Saturday, November 5 in the Parkland neighborhood. Volunteers will join Brightside, who has partnered with the Division of Community Forestry, UPS, Louisville Gas and Electric Company and The Nature Conservancy to plant approximately 120 trees on Virginia Avenue from 26th to 28th Streets.
“There are many benefits to plantings trees and I am glad that Parkland residents will soon be able to enjoy more greenery in their neighborhood,” Mayor Greg Fischer said. “Planting trees is a great example of compassion towards our neighbors and the world around us.”
Planting in this area can improve the overall aesthetic for businesses and residents, control storm water runoff, increase property value, reduce urban heat island effect, improve air quality and lower energy costs.
“By going out into the community and planting trees, Brightside hopes to start a ripple effect among residents,” Brightside Director Gina O’Brien said. “Brightside encourages community members to join in on beautifying their own neighborhood.”
Brightside’s recent plantings, as well as those of other Metro and non-profit partners, have been focused in west Louisville, where an increase in tree canopy is needed. In addition to 120 trees planted in Parkland this year, Brightside planted 150 trees on West Broadway in 2015 and 80 trees near Chickasaw Park in 2014.
On Saturday, November 5 at 9 a.m., Brightside will meet volunteers at the corner of 26th & Virginia in front of Pleasant View Missionary Baptist Church. A limited supply of shovels and other tools will be provided by Brightside, but volunteers are encouraged to bring their own tools. All ages are invited to attend the event.
There is still time for volunteers to register. To register, please visit https://louisvilleky.gov/government/brightside/community-wide-planting-day
