Master Distillers, old and young

[bourbonmed]

The AP wire ran a nice story about master distillers over the weekend. Here's the link, you may have to fill out the newspaper's free sign up form.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/national/10767845.htm

Cheers, Omar

[Hedmans Brorsa]

It worked fine for me without any passwords or registrations. Thanks!

[cowdery]

I, too, got it without registration. A well-done article. My hat is off to Bruce Schreiner for doing some actual reporting.

But how could he have missed Elmer?

[musher]

One question . . . .

When the article is talking about Jerry Dalton at Jim Beam Brands, they refer to his mentors as Parker Beam and Booker Noe II. Shouldn't that be Baker Beam? Or did he do some work over at Heaven Hill before going to Beam Brands?

[boone]

Jerry Dalton, worked at Bartons. He has not worked at Heaven Hill.

Bettye Jo

[cowdery]

I'm quite sure Jerry knows Parker, but the only Beam still actively distilling when Jerry joined Jim Beam was David, Baker's younger brother and the last of the Beam distillers at Jim Beam. Booker was still around in his "ambassador" capacity. Jerry may have had a little overlap with Baker and may actually have been Baker's replacement, but I'm not positive about the timing. Baker retired in 1992 and I thought Jerry left Barton for Beam a little later than that.

Baker, David and Booker all learned how to make whiskey from David and Baker's father, Carl Beam, who was master distiller there for many years. Carl's brother, Earl, went to Heaven Hill after Bettye Jo's grandfather got fed up and...I mean, after he left there. Parker is Earl's son.

Carl and Earl's father was Park Beam, Jim Beam's younger brother.

The house you can tour at Clermont is where Carl Beam lived and where Baker and David grew up.