Holiday trip to KY

[smokinjoe]

Here are just a few of the many pictures we took along the way:

1. Four Roses mash tubs

2. Four Roses tasting

3. Woodford's pot stills

4. Old Taylor distillery

5. 4R1B labels in the tub, waiting for bottles

I have many more, rickhouses, bottling lines, 4R barrel filling and dumping, the filter used for small batch, the SW distillery (not great), etc. Just let me know if you want to see more.

See more? Of course! Post away. BTW, nice shot of the Woodford stills. Different angle than most you see.

[jcg9779]

See more? Of course! Post away. BTW, nice shot of the Woodford stills. Different angle than most you see.

I second this...very cool pics!

[Young Blacksmith]

The WR tour guide says they had to cut a hole in the wall to bring the stills in, you can see the archway and resulting hole. Interesting fact I though.

I'll do more tonight then, just cherry picking the best, some are blurry, etc, but I may end up posting them too.

[Young Blacksmith]

Four more from Four Roses:

1. The main still

2. The doubler

3. The insides of a still, showing the plates on the bottom and I forget what the top is, bubble caps?

4. Tanker truck on the scales leaving for Cox Creek

[Young Blacksmith]

At of Woodford, we have an empty mash tub with city water circulator tubes to cool the mash in the summer, a wall covered in barrel staves showing off their single barrel purchasers, this wall was opposite the stills.

Third is empty barrels stenciled ready to be filled, filled in the rickhouse, and finally bottling.

[Young Blacksmith]

More shots of Old Taylor, I think this place was really cool, would love to get a quick tour or more history on it. It sits right on the road as you can see in the last picture.

[Young Blacksmith]

Four Roses Cox Creek shots, which are:

1. barrel filling, they can do 8 at a time but he had a ton filled waiting to be trucked off to the rickhouses, so was only doing it slowly one at a time. Empty barrels are on the right, filled exit on the left. The tanker truck unloads about 100 feet behind him into stainless tanks, one recipe/batch at a time. They do about 2-3 tanker trucks full of white dog a day.

2. after the barrels get filled they are moved using machinery, and stenciled. They weigh about 500 lbs! Guys do roll them on the floor though to move them into and out of the rickhouses. All those barrels behind the red stenciler are full at 9:15 am. I think they were doing OESO that morning.

3. Getting ready to dump, the silver things are breathers that allow the whiskey to pour out instead of glugging. (Technical term...) I know they were dumping 10 year old stuff, not sure of the recipe. You can see the barrel filling behind the dumping.

4. Really blurry shot of dumping into the trough, charcoal and bungs hanging out, and the tour guide dipping a shot glass full of barrel proof juice, complete with charcoal bits. It was really good, but gave me a bit of heartburn at 9:30 am and no breakfast. :grin:

5. The filter system for small batch, very similar to yellow label. Each grid is filled with a filter medium which starts out white and soaks in bourbon overnight, before being put in the metal. Without pre-soaking the bourbon comes out very colorless according to the tour guide, whose name escapes me right now, Shannon, Sharon?

[wmpevans]

Great photos, and very informative of the process.

[Young Blacksmith]

And more Four Roses Cox Creek,

1. All the products they bottle at the plant, Yellow Label, 1B, Mini's, 1BLE, forget what the next two are, LESmB, SmB, Super Premium, and Black Label. All bottles come from Italy.

2. All bottles are hand labeled, the SmB labels have to match up to the 4 roses emblem in the bottle! Corks are placed by hand and machine pressed down. The wooden forms hold the bottles while labeling, a specific form for front and back. QC check is at the end. They were doing inventory so no bottling was taking place, but they will put you to work when bottling! All labels are kept in a climate controlled area.

3. 10 year OBSV set aside for 1B, they mark on the barrel where it comes from and this gets kept all the way to the bottling. 1B is dumped into a different trough, only one barrel big, separate shorter chill filtering using only 25 filters instead of 50 for everything else, and less time at 20 degrees.

4. the one story rick houses. You can see the numbers on the verticals, then it's 1-6 high, and A-W deep, you'll never see an X, Y, or Z 1B as they're only 23 deep. Also, most of the houses are oriented N-S, with only 4 or so oriented E-W, so you won't see many E or W 1B's.

[Young Blacksmith]

Last one, just a few odd pictures:

1. Heaven Hill's rick house, 3 barrels high to a floor, 6 or 7 floors high depending on how new the house is. Newer construction can't go over 6 high without some sort of steel structure is what we were told.

2. how cold it was in there that morning.

3. SW Distillery gates. Gates were closed with no one in sight at 3 pm on a Wednesday. No Bulleit experience notices.

4. Old Fitz smokestack at the SW distillery.

5. Same

[T Comp]

More shots of Old Taylor, I think this place was really cool, would love to get a quick tour or more history on it. It sits right on the road as you can see in the last picture.

Hey Young Blacksmith, Here's is how another Texas Boy, gburger, got his own little tour back in the spring. His inside the fence photos can be viewed from the Bourbon Sampler 2011 thread #132, on his site, at pages 7 and 8. Nice photos yourself.

I went back up to Buffalo Trace on Saturday afternoon to pick up a couple of things.

While there I asked where the Old Taylor Castle was. The girls could not find an address online only the road name. So I started looking for it, after awhile I said screw it. I decided to head back to the Woodford Reserve area to take some more photos. I plugged in the address on my GPS and it took me down a small road near a creek, then all of a sudden bam, there it was on my right.

I got out of my car and began taking some exterior photos of the place. I noticed a guy in a red pickup truck across the road watching me.

I saw all the No Trespassing signs all over the place. Then I climbed up on the wall to get another angle, I guess he thought I was going to jump over it because all I heard was this varoom. He pulled up right next to me in front of the big iron gate of the place.

He started saying that he would call the police and I would get a $250 ticket if I went on the property.

I then began chatting him up, I asked who he was and why he was watching the place. He said kids come there all the time and destroy the place. Also the main castle building is full of asbestos and is dangerous.

I said ok and told him I was just taking photos. He asked where I was from and I said Texas. Then he said, "do you want to go in since you came such a far distance?"

At first I thought he might take me in and I would never come out.

But I said sure. He climbed out of his truck to unlock the gate and then his truck began to slowly roll towards the gate. I said, "your truck is rolling".

In the mist of catching me he forgot to put his truck in park. Then his truck hit the gate and stopped. I thought great there goes my tour.

But he just said no problem and get in his truck.

He took me inside and let me take photos of the springhouse and other areas. He told me the history of the place while we drove through the property. Once outside the gate he park his truck and began giving me a verbal tour of the Bourbon Trail and the rules of bourbon. Of course I already knew the rules, but I listened and acted like I never knew about 51% corn, new oak charred barrels and such. Then I look at his scratched up front bumper, thanked him and drove off.

It was a very cool tour that I got just by happen chance.

[Young Blacksmith]

There were already a few kids there when I was. I say kids, probably mid 20's, but they were taking pictures too. I asked if they were bourbon nerds, and they just giggled and said no, just taking some pictures of cool buildings.

I wondered if the brick house/mansion across the street was part of the place, it's about the right age and is falling apart about the same.

Going through gburgers photos now! Good stuff there!