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Cowdery Blog on Bourbon Distillery Stills


smokinjoe
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A very informative piece by Chuck Cowdery regarding beer still sizes at various distilleries.  He really gives pointed perspective to what is there, comparitively.  Since most of the beer stills at the legacy distilleries aren't all pretty and polished, tour guides tend to pass through that part of the tour quickly and give the info to mostly deaf ears.  Plus, it's usually hot and loud there, so most everybody just wants to get the hell out...  :D But, that's the motor of the car, and Chuck breaks the size part of these machines down well.  The Jack Daniel's capacity is stunning, while BT does a lot with one behemoth, and Turkey seems surprisingly small.  

 

http://chuckcowdery.blogspot.com/2017/03/size-matters.html?m=1

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When I was at the Four Roses Distillery tour, part of their renovations is a second beer still. I have ADD, so I don't recall much about it, but@fifeman may remember details about the second still.

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Great post by Chuck that I read a few days ago when he posted it on facebook. There was some interesting discussion that followed.

Thanks for posting this Joe.

That monster at BT is one of my favorite parts of that tour because it's almost forgotten in the background.

Relative to size of still being the indicator of capacity, one of the interesting things I learned last year is that the new still at the Bulleit distillery only has capacity to provide half of their current bourbon volume so for the foreseeable future they will continue to source a lot of bourbon and all of their rye.

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I took the Estate tour at Barton last year, which I highly recommend, and our guide showed us their main still, but also pointed out 3 neighboring stills. When I asked I'd they ever run those, they said they are currently limited by warehouse space and there was no way they could house the barrels the additional stills would fill.

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1 hour ago, heydobro said:

I took the Estate tour at Barton last year, which I highly recommend, and our guide showed us their main still, but also pointed out 3 neighboring stills. When I asked I'd they ever run those, they said they are currently limited by warehouse space and there was no way they could house the barrels the additional stills would fill.

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That's interesting. It seems that they should be able to store barrels in other Sazerac warehouses unless the BT output is maxing those out. More evidence that the distilleries are cranking out whiskey as quickly as possible these days.

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58 minutes ago, mosugoji64 said:

 

That's interesting. It seems that they should be able to store barrels in other Sazerac warehouses unless the BT output is maxing those out. More evidence that the distilleries are cranking out whiskey as quickly as possible these days.

BT is maxed out and can't build new warehouses fast enough.

 

 

2 hours ago, heydobro said:

I took the Estate tour at Barton last year, which I highly recommend, and our guide showed us their main still, but also pointed out 3 neighboring stills. When I asked I'd they ever run those, they said they are currently limited by warehouse space and there was no way they could house the barrels the additional stills would fill.

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Bulleit has warehouse space and is happy to benefit from some of that Barton still capacity.

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3 hours ago, heydobro said:

I took the Estate tour at Barton last year, which I highly recommend, and our guide showed us their main still, but also pointed out 3 neighboring stills. When I asked I'd they ever run those, they said they are currently limited by warehouse space and there was no way they could house the barrels the additional stills would fill.

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Interesting.  I did not know that.  Do you recall their size, and when they last ran them?  An out of my arse guess would be that the current still replaced those.  Then, besides warehouse space, there are probably a host of other kinks in the chain in getting them on line.  Remember, it was just a few short years ago when Barton was only running very infrequently.  

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Interesting.  I did not know that.  Do you recall their size, and when they last ran them?  An out of my arse guess would be that the current still replaced those.  Then, besides warehouse space, there are probably a host of other kinks in the chain in getting them on line.  Remember, it was just a few short years ago when Barton was only running very infrequently.  

 

 

I found an article (linked below) that shows two out of use stills and the current one. I'm don't recall all the sizes or time frames when they were used

 

https://distilledopinion.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/barton-1792-distillery-bardstown-kentucky/amp/

 

 

 

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13 hours ago, smokinjoe said:

Interesting.  I did not know that.  Do you recall their size, and when they last ran them?  An out of my arse guess would be that the current still replaced those.  Then, besides warehouse space, there are probably a host of other kinks in the chain in getting them on line.  Remember, it was just a few short years ago when Barton was only running very infrequently.  

 

I vaguely recall the tour guide telling us the other 2 stills were deemed to produce inferior bourbon and were last used for vodka maybe?  Something along those lines is ringing a bell.  Also she could of just been spewing BS who knows.

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