Buffalo Trace, Maker of Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon, Will Double Its Whiskey Production

[fishnbowljoe]

Here’s the latest news from BT.  

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/foodanddrink/cocktails/buffalo-trace-maker-of-pappy-van-winkle-bourbon-will-double-its-whiskey-production/ar-AA11kcJ1?li=BBnb7Kz

[Richnimrod]

Well, not exactly stunning news, eh?   Been in the works for a while, right?   Their ability to distill and age Bourbon will again be unsurpassed with the coming online of an additional 'giant' column still to match the one they've used for decades.   ...Not to mention the aggressive building program as regards aging warehouses.   All of this is good news for Bourbonians.    ...Unless we hit that glut situation again.    But, that seems unlikely in the near term and maybe for many years hence.    The Buffalo will be making loads of Bourbon (as well as loads of money) pretty soon, eh?   Hell, they've been doing both for a long time already!

[Jazz June]

It would be very interesting to see what the production capacity of the majors was in say 2012 and what it will be in the near future. And the craft distilleries are individually small, but I’d imagine their overall production is meaningful. While I don’t wish for a true glut, it would be nice if only the truly limited (by design) releases were difficult to find. For example, CEHT SmB in regular supply at its $40 MSRP would be a nice development. Also hope that BT can reach their established quality level with all of their new equipment. And bring the age back up on some of their products.

[BottledInBond]

Hopefully they can run wheated and rye a lot more often now. My understanding has been that it was considered a significant pain to change over from one mashbill to another often, so when they only had the one big boy they would only run wheated at certain times of the year, and only run due at certain times of the year, etc. If we assume they run Mashbill #1 the most, maybe now they can have one running that all the time, and rotate the other still through the other mashbills much more frequently than they used to now. 

[fishnbowljoe]

It's been a while since I've been in touch with the folks at BT. Last I knew, the wheated mash bill was approximately a six week run. Not sure about the rye. I seem to remember someone posting they thought that the rye was now distilled at Barton. Don't hold me to that. 

 

Biba! Joe

[BottledInBond]

18 hours ago, fishnbowljoe said:

It's been a while since I've been in touch with the folks at BT. Last I knew, the wheated mash bill was approximately a six week run. Not sure about the rye. I seem to remember someone posting they thought that the rye was now distilled at Barton. Don't hold me to that. 

 

Biba! Joe

My best recollection is that the EHT rye mashbill is distilled at Barton, but the Saz rye mashbill was still made at BT, but I certainly could be wrong 

[Kyjd75]

On 9/1/2022 at 9:15 PM, fishnbowljoe said:

It's been a while since I've been in touch with the folks at BT. Last I knew, the wheated mash bill was approximately a six week run. Not sure about the rye. I seem to remember someone posting they thought that the rye was now distilled at Barton. Don't hold me to that. 

 

Biba! Joe

Historically, Rye distilled at Barton has been considered to be outstanding rye.

[Bourserker]

I've been following this and the news of the change in distribution.  It all sounds like maybe good news, but probably won't change anything in my local area anytime soon.  I really miss sipping on BT and ER, but core range BT products are the only thing you can't just walk into a store and buy in VA.  All other legacy distiller products are fairly well represented on shelves here, and I find it interesting that this is the case. 

 

The "drop system" they instituted includes BT and ER as "allocated" items.  So they have created the illusion that these are premium products thus driving up the demand for them.  Therefore, even if these were to go back on the shelf I doubt they'd make it there anyway (people would be looking at online inventory and clearing shelves, Yada Yada yada).

 

This makes me wonder in general, are BT products really in that high of a demand (there's stories of BT products being in short supply in other areas too) or is there some other funny business going to to create demand by holding back supply?  Who knows, I've read many articles and watched videos on differing opinions as to what exactly is going on here.

 

Anyway,  I'm sure this story has been shared here many times before by VA residents and I'm just preaching to the choir.  One thing this has done is gotten me to explore other bourbons and branch out into other stuff (mostly scotch).  Also thank goodness for Wild Turkey products as those are now my goto, if anything happened to those I'd definitely be very sad.