Women of Jeptha Creed

by Cindi Sutter, Founder & Editor Spirited Table®

Join us next week for The Truly Thanksgiving cocktail recipe!

The Women Behind Jeptha Creed Distillery

Jeptha Creed Distillery in Shelbyville, Kentucky opened in 2016. Family-owned and operated by mother-daughter duo Joyce and Autumn Nethery, Jeptha Creed barreled the first bourbon in Shelby County Kentucky since before Prohibition.

Jeptha Creed’s operation is small. The Nethery family, consisting of Master Distiller Joyce, her husband Bruce, and their children Autumn and Hunter, built Jeptha Creed from the ground-up, within miles of farmland that the Netherys have been tending for over three-hundred years. The family owns about a thousand acres around the Jeptha Knob, the highest point in the bluegrass region of Kentucky. 

As far back as she can remember, Joyce Nethery has had a passion for chemistry. She earned a master’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Louisville's J.B. Speed Scientific School and worked for 15 years as a process engineer in industrial distillation. After some years of teaching, her husband’s dream of opening a distillery reignited her passion for the distillation process.

Autumn comes by her love of distilling honestly—her mother is Jeptha Creed master distiller Joyce Nethery. It took a year at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, studying the craft with some of the best distillers in the world to truly ignite her passion. Now Autumn is among the youngest distillery owners in the country and an integral part of making Jeptha Creed one of Kentucky’s most innovative distilleries.

Jeptha Creed distills and bottles bourbon, a line of vodkas, a line of moonshines, and a pawpaw brandy. The Netherys grow or locally source the ingredients used in their spirits, from the heirloom Bloody Butcher growing alongside their barrel barns, to fruit trees, berry bushes, and herbs. There are beehives on-site, from which they harvest their own honey. They even pull famous Kentucky limestone water straight from the creek that visitors must cross to arrive at Jeptha Creed Distillery. 

Joyce and Autumn Nethery, the only mother-daughter distillery ownership team in Kentucky, are breaking ground literally and figuratively. Jeptha Creed’s first bourbon was released in 2019 to critical acclaim, and with this team leading the charge, we can’t wait to see what’s next.