Bourbon Geek Posted December 30, 2009 Share Posted December 30, 2009 Barrels are extremely well made these days. Only Buffalo Trace still claims to have people chase after leaks, and IIRC they only do that annually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bourbon Geek Posted December 30, 2009 Share Posted December 30, 2009 There seem to be a couple of answers to "what happens to bourbon gone bad?"Many of today's distilleries have quite a line-up of products ... some top shelf, and some bottom shelf. Frequently, off spec whiskey (for the top shelf products) is used for the bottom shelf products ... which have a much looser specification.For companies without a long product line, the issue becomes one of integrity and economics. Sometimes, if it isn't too bad ... and the product is not a single barrel product ... the offending stuff is mixed in to the good stuff at a very low rate ... say 5% or less per bottling batch.... hoping the consumer will not notice. Other times, the offending product is disposed of either by sending it to a waste water plant, or by sending it to a reprocessing facility that processes it for other uses.If my count is correct, I have personally sent off about 175 barrels of maturing spirit for reprocessing ... and about another 80 to 100 of off spec new make whiskey ... before it even hit the barrel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ethangsmith Posted December 31, 2009 Author Share Posted December 31, 2009 Very interesting info. I wondered what exactly made it into bottles and what didn't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kickert Posted January 2, 2010 Share Posted January 2, 2010 I was talking to a farmer who sold corn to one of the distilleries (can't remember which one) and he said that if the distillery rejected the corn because it was low quality then they would just take it down the street to the Corn Flakes factory. Could be rumor, but I would imagine Kellogg would have a lower standard for corn than a bourbon distillery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bourbon Geek Posted January 2, 2010 Share Posted January 2, 2010 I was talking to a farmer who sold corn to one of the distilleries (can't remember which one) and he said that if the distillery rejected the corn because it was low quality then they would just take it down the street to the Corn Flakes factory. Could be rumor, but I would imagine Kellogg would have a lower standard for corn than a bourbon distillery.Not hard to believe ... even bourbon distilleries have different standards for acceptance. I am aware of loads of corn we rejected that were then taken directly to another distillery ... and accepted.I can believe that a big user ... like a corn flake manufacturer ... would take it and maybe charge back a dockage fee for substandard quality ... because they need the volume and need to keep prices low ... because their margins are a lot tighter than for bourbon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spy247 Posted January 7, 2010 Share Posted January 7, 2010 Barrels are extremely well made these days. Only Buffalo Trace still claims to have people chase after leaks, and IIRC they only do that annually.Yes on my tour of Buffalo Trace the guide told of actively looking for leaks and fixing them. The smaller leaks tend to plug themselves, but the bigger ones required small splints of wood to be hammered in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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