Guest **DONOTDELETE** Posted October 9, 2000 Share Posted October 9, 2000 Labrot & Graham sits on Glenn's Creek amidst beautiful throughbred horse farms. It is the most difficult of all to find, but well worth the hunt. L&G is the jewel in Brown-Foreman's crown. They have put some seven million dollars into it's restoration, and it shows.The visitor's center is well appointed, and contains some excellent exhibits as well as a nice gift shop. The tour starts here with a fairly well done viedo.Probably the most important event to occur on this site was the employment of Dr. James Crow and his invention of the sour mash process. The video claims this as fact and then continues as if this were a minor thing. L&G is arguably the birthplace of modern-day bourbon. The visitor's center should contain an exhibit/shrine to Dr. Crow but does not. He is mentioned only briefly. There are probably some legalities at work here as Jim Beam owns the Old Crow label (a.k.a. "the dirty birdie"). Also I can see not wanting to have any linkage to what is now very much a bottom shelf brand.However I think it does the casual visitor a disservice.Next comes the wonderful old stone stillhouse. Steping inside is like being magically transported back in time. Life slows down to a mellow pace. The tour gives the visitor a good grasp of all the steps involved in distillation. Three of the four cypress fermenters were full of mash. The forth was freshly cleaned and ready for Mondays fresh batch of mash. L&G maybe the only distillery practicing the true sour mash process. A portion of each vat of mash when it is ready is used to sour the next batch of mash.A portion of stillage (spent mash from the still) is also added to the new batch of mash. Most if not all other distiller's use stillage only as set back to sour the next batch. It is far more expensive to do it L&G's way.The center piece here is of course the three copper pot stills imported from Scotland. They are magnificent indeed. It is a spiritual experience just to be near them. It is far more expensive to distill in the traditional copper pot method than the continous column stills every one else uses.L&G triple distills, and the final distillate comes off at just under the legal limit of 160 proof. This unusually high proofage insures far fewer impurities. The white dog is then diluted and barreled at 110 proof.At the barreling station the Jack, our tour guide, gave a good description of what barrels are and why they are so important. A glass of white dog was passed around and everybody took a sniff. I took a good stout snort and promptly pronouned it delicious. Those around me gasped in horor. One wiff told me that this was very diluted and not the 158 or so proof. It was more like 50 proof, but quite good. After that a few of the women stuck their fingers in to get a tast and then made amusing faces. Only one other man took a drink. What a bunch of sissies!Next came a walk through one of the stone rackhouses, and then the small bottling line. Since this was Saturday the line was not in operation.The grounds here were beautiful with lush Kentucky blue grass and Glenn's Creek running swiftly. If can only visit one distillery this is the one.Linn SpencerHave Shotglass. Will Travel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitzg Posted October 9, 2000 Share Posted October 9, 2000 They go passing a little white dog under the nose of Jo and I and we're going to draw some from it. That's the beauty of bourbon -- the nectar from which the barrel operates, the foreplay to making love in the barrel, the.... I guess I'd better quit. ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest **DONOTDELETE** Posted October 9, 2000 Share Posted October 9, 2000 Lincoln Henderson is doing everything right on the whiskey end at L&G. This should be some supurb bourbon when they get around to putting it in the bottles. I know I'm going to buy some.Linn SpencerHave Shotglass. Will Travel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest **DONOTDELETE** Posted October 9, 2000 Share Posted October 9, 2000 Labrot and Graham is a great distillery tour. Everybody who has an interest in distilling should visit this showplace of distillation. I too have had the white dog from this distillery and found it to be very interesting. I am also interested in the aged product. I know that they are distilling at a lower proof and they are also experimenting with different mash bills. There are many fun things to look forward to from that distillery.Mike Veach Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest **DONOTDELETE** Posted October 10, 2000 Share Posted October 10, 2000 Let us hope that of the experiments with positive results will be both delicious and reasonably priced.Linn SpencerHave Shotglass. Will Travel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest **DONOTDELETE** Posted October 10, 2000 Share Posted October 10, 2000 ... and not finished in used cognac barrels.=John=http://w3.one.net/~jeffelle/whiskey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest **DONOTDELETE** Posted October 10, 2000 Share Posted October 10, 2000 John I wouldn't think O.Brown would fall for such a risky bourbon scheme as was foisted upon Jim Beam by their maketing nazis.Linn SpencerHave Shotglass. Will Travel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest **DONOTDELETE** Posted January 10, 2001 Share Posted January 10, 2001 While searching the web for something else tonight, I discovered a great site that gives a full video guided tour of Labrot & Graham (using RealPlayer). The tour is given by Sherman Dozier and pretty much covers everything. Of course being there is better, but not everyone can get to go to Kentucky and it's a pretty good substitute. The site is Kentucky Connect - Bourbon Tour =John=http://w3.one.net/~jeffelle/whiskey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cowdery Posted January 10, 2001 Share Posted January 10, 2001 I had not seen that video tour. Pretty cool. Thanks for the tip.--Chuck Cowdery Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest **DONOTDELETE** Posted January 10, 2001 Share Posted January 10, 2001 Chuck,I know you must own your "Made and Bottled..." video, since you sell it. But would there be any restrictions (from KET for example) that would prevent public showing? Specifically, I was hoping you might be able to work out something either with the musuem or maybe as part of the StraightBourbon tailgate party, to show the video at the next Bourbon Festival. Do you need to get releases from all the participants the way some other shows do, or does that just apply to network-produced works? Even though some of it is no longer up to date (in fact, maybe because of that) I think it would be well-received and probably sell a few tapes as a result. The scenes of pre-restoration Labrot & Graham are worth it all by themselves, and the master distillers and what they have to say in the interviews haven't changed.=John=http://w3.one.net/~jeffelle/whiskey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest **DONOTDELETE** Posted January 11, 2001 Share Posted January 11, 2001 John,The Getz Museum does have a copy of Chuck's video in the video room. They also have the Buffalo Trace video and a KDA video on bourbon and the Barton video. The problem is that the Heaven Hill fire video seems to be the one that is always stuck in the machine. I am sure Heaven Hill would be very happy to see us view other videos during the festival. After all they would like to put the fire behind them and move on.Mike Veach Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cowdery Posted January 11, 2001 Share Posted January 11, 2001 As Mike mentioned, the museum has MBKY and shows it there, with my permission. As it is an hour long, it is a bit much for most tourists to sit through. As for any restrictions on its use, I control all the rights so that isn't an issue.--Chuck Cowdery Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ken Weber Posted January 12, 2001 Share Posted January 12, 2001 I know this is goofy to mention under the L&G thread, but... We just finished taping Elmer and it looks outstanding. He spends the majority of the time describing the bourbon business, from a Master Distiller's perspective. Would this make for public tv fare?Ken Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MashBill Posted January 13, 2001 Share Posted January 13, 2001 It would in MY house!Bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest **DONOTDELETE** Posted January 13, 2001 Share Posted January 13, 2001 You betcha! When do "selected" people get to audition the tape and write reviews and stuff?~Linda~http://w3.one.net/~jeffelle/whiskey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cowdery Posted January 16, 2001 Share Posted January 16, 2001 Would this make for public tv fare?Don't know. Why don't you give a shout over to the folks at KET and ask them?--Chuck Cowdery Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts