Four Roses Distillery Tour

[dbk]

This is the second of three posts about a few tours I took this past weekend. This one specifically concerns the Four Roses tour. For context, see the first post.

The Four Roses tour was quite different from what I had expected in a number of ways. We first watched a video of the process. It was amazingly technical—great for many of the enthusiasts who frequent SB, but I worry that it lost some of the "romance" in the translation, and so might not be geared to the majority of the visitors. I suspect that they could marry the two approaches (technical and romantic) more evenly to get the best of both worlds. In any case, the video was quite informative.

Like Wild Turkey, we had good access to the fermenters. More amazingly, we also had access to a yeast tub, which was open, so that we could stick our faces right over it. (See attached photo.) I say this is amazing because most brewers would never let you near their yeast, lest you adulterate it with some microbes that you might be unintentionally carrying on your person. My brewing friend also tells me of a trick brewers would play on each other: when visiting someone else's brewery, they would wear a tie so that, when they leaned over the yeast tub, they could pick up some yeast on the tie and propagate it themselves back at their own brewery. Either way, given how important yeast is to Four Roses, it's pretty great that they let us get so close.

Given how technical the video was, it was interesting to see how "old-fashioned" the distillery still felt. The visitor's centre was a beautiful building (again, see attached photo), and the distillery had an old school feel to it. Very little was glitzy or high-tech.

The tour guide was very nice and patient. He answered our questions thoughtfully and, if he didn't have an answer for us, he admitted as much. Unfortunately, we did not get to see inside any rickhouses, as Four Roses stores their barrels off-site, at Cox's Creek. I guess that will have to wait for the next trip.

I'd highly recommend the Four Roses tour. It had a good level of depth and charm, and the tasting offered the basic range, which is quite good: Yellow Label, Small Batch, and Single Barrel.

[Bourbon Boiler]

Interesting how they showed the yeast, that surprise me as well. I've been to 4R three times, and taken the tour twice but each time was during their summer shutdown.

P.S. I like that tie trick.

[dbk]

Yeah, I guess the trick is to come to KY during whiskey-making season, and preferably on days when the distillery's actually operating. It was just lucky timing on our part.

I loved the tie trick, too. What a clever way to cheat your competition. :slappin: