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Question About Plant #’s


Chefjohn
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Please forgive me if this is a dumb question but I’m reading a book on the history of bourbon plants in Kentucky and I’m noticing that some of the plants have a RD# while others have a DSP#. Can someone explain these #’s to me and the difference between the two?  

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I believe that DSP (Distilled Spirits Plant) replaced RD (Registered Distillery), sometime after prohibition.  From this page on the pre-pro site it would suggest that much of the documents and records of RDs did not survive, so I would guess they started fresh with DSP Number system upon repeal.

 http://www.pre-pro.com/midacore/distillery_index.php
Sam Cecil in his book, Bourbon, The Evolution of Kentucky Whiskey uses RD exclusively, particularly as he traces several distilleries back to their early roots before prohibition.  While cross-checking some DSP numbers that I know (DSP-KY-16 for Stitzel-Weller for instance) he IDs it as RD 16.  It also looks like the RD system of identification also placed the distilleries into geographic districts, and numbered them as such.  The DSP just went to putting the state abbreviation as part of the moniker.    Probably a lot of details on The Who, why, where, and how’s with this, but this is my stab at an answer!  ?

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Thanks Joe.  ?  I was gonna grab my copy of Sam Cecil’s book and take a look, but I reckon now  I don’t have to. 
 

Biba! Joe

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36 minutes ago, smokinjoe said:

I believe that DSP (Distilled Spirits Plant) replaced RD (Registered Distillery), sometime after prohibition.  From this page on the pre-pro site it would suggest that much of the documents and records of RDs did not survive, so I would guess they started fresh with DSP Number system upon repeal.

 http://www.pre-pro.com/midacore/distillery_index.php
Sam Cecil in his book, Bourbon, The Evolution of Kentucky Whiskey uses RD exclusively, particularly as he traces several distilleries back to their early roots before prohibition.  While cross-checking some DSP numbers that I know (DSP-KY-16 for Stitzel-Weller for instance) he IDs it as RD 16.  It also looks like the RD system of identification also placed the distilleries into geographic districts, and numbered them as such.  The DSP just went to putting the state abbreviation as part of the moniker.    Probably a lot of details on The Who, why, where, and how’s with this, but this is my stab at an answer!  ?

Hey thanks so much Joe. I just Ordered Sam’s book The Evolution of the Bourbon Whiskey Industry in Kentucky.  I appreciate your input. 

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13 minutes ago, Chefjohn said:

Hey thanks so much Joe. I just Ordered Sam’s book The Evolution of the Bourbon Whiskey Industry in Kentucky.  I appreciate your input. 

Hey, it was a fun exercise.  One thing on the Cecil book...It’s all over the place!  Great information, but the Distillery info is organized in a manner that makes it difficult to search out a Distillery.  He organized it by County.  So, if you want info you need to know what county the Distillery you’re searching was/is in.  Or, you can go to the Index in the back  and look up that way, but there is a lot of overlap in names.  Regardless, the book is a treasure as a resource.  

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3 minutes ago, smokinjoe said:

Hey, it was a fun exercise.  One thing on the Cecil book...It’s all over the place!  Great information, but the Distillery info is organized in a manner that makes it difficult to search out a Distillery.  He organized it by County.  So, if you want info you need to know what county the Distillery you’re searching was/is in.  Or, you can go to the Index in the back  and look up that way, but there is a lot of overlap in names.  Regardless, the book is a treasure as a resource.  

I saw he had two and wasn’t sure which was the better one to get. I will eventually get the other one you mentioned as well. Right now I’m  going through Chet Zoeller’s book. 

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I just remembered that Rughi put together a spreadsheet several years ago that helps navigate Cecil’s book.  Please see this thread:

 

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12 minutes ago, smokinjoe said:

I just remembered that Rughi put together a spreadsheet several years ago that helps navigate Cecil’s book.  Please see this thread:

 

Thanks so much. This is awesome. 

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