My Memories of Kinsey Distilling Part VI

[dave ziegler]

The Bottle house which was built from the only Barrel warehouse that was one floor the rest are three floors 14 of them not counting the 3 old wood and Brick ones, was designed inside and built in 1965/66 opening in 1966. The front of the building had rail beside it for loading box cars and docks also. Inside in the middle is where a seris of Lines ran from above and down till the final end it went through a hole in the wall to where the finished case would be put on a pallet and then put in groups for whatever the Tax sticker said the state was. If you have ever seen pictures the building ran 2/3rd of the front of the plant. The back wall was where the Labs and Nurse for the bottle house, they had their own nurse in there, QC was also along the back side and Maintance also. They had a state of the Art Lab and one in Philadelphia. At the end going south was where all the big Stainless tanks were inside all the buildings were built Explosion Proof and fully Sprinkled even the old DSP # 12 Still had working sprinklers when I worked there and right up till 1986 when it closed forever. The 14 warehouses had 115,000 Sq feet of space in each one and the bottle house had around 180,000 Sq feet. The floors of the warehouses had limitless weight when they were built the place was 200 acre with a total of 2 million feet of storage space. The ceilings in the warehouse on all 3 floors were 17 to 22 feet high! solid unpitted floors reinforced concrete 12 inches thick. All the walls are double Brick and then Concrete a couple of feet thick and when I worked in the warehouses even in mid summer it could be 90 outside inside sometimes you would wear a jacket! All the lights and conduit were explosion proof also and the wiring was pure High grade Copper! And the blubs lasted for years good thing to as some were near impossible to get to with the metal racks. In the 14 newer turn of the century ones the elevator had a special cradle and you would just roll barrel after barrel in through the open door and it kept a continous circle. The 3 Old brick ones had a regular and very old 1900's elevator and you dare not get to much weight as you would flip the lever and find yourself going down express and hitting the bottom floor the floors and racks in these warehouses were all wood dampest place you could be but I was told by an oldtimer that the best Whiskey came from them. I have seen where people say they never used the still well they did till about 1959 I think as I have a picture of a daily Production thing that says 11/59. So I am guessing around 1959 Old Number DSP-Pa 12 made its last Whiskey my Dad worked there for a bit after I was born and they distilled there then! If I can ever figure how to post pictures to this site I have a few pictures of #12 in 2001 it was standing yet and of all the Mash tanks including of course the one we saw all the fish in. I also have pictures taken as the years went by and the place got more ruined sadly. In 1986 they had a broshure out called Linfield Industrial Park ( The place With Space ) Publicker had intended to keep the place and turn in into a large indurtrial use place. The broshure which is rare but I am lucky to have a couple well worn but ok ones says there is 2,000 to 1,000,000 Gallon Stainless steel capacity tanks available for long or short term use. Sadly as Publicker planned this they sold all their 40 acres of Property in Phila to a wrecking company for next to nothing 3 Million Dollars and that company caught the place on fire and quickly went bankrupt and the Epa qiuickly decided that even though they had sold it for next to nothing with the Promise of it being cleaned up right, that Publicker would pay for all cleanups anyway, which caused them to abandon Kinsey sadly. For over 16 years the buildings were not to bad but when a company came and got the place on auction they claimed they were going to fix it up and build a Power plant well that never happen and they robbed the place of every bit of Copper they could first of course the still then they said they were fixing the warehouses turns out they were pulling all the wiring out, and even when they took down the heat lines that were wrapped in asbestos it was to get the solid copper pipes sadly. About 4 or 5 years ago they took out the railroad bridge into kinsey they had their own bridge accross the river into the plant and could move box cars all the way back to the last warehouse before the steer pens and House by the river. The blend house was way back there too! Now I see it is for sale again but the sad Part if someone had thought about it the Original part with the still as late as 2000 could have been fixed and made into a museum and they could have made the buildings into whatever they wanted. I was amazed to see the Electric company must now own the place as it is for sale by them. It figures as the powerplant takes up about half of Linfield now and they control everything around there! If someone can tell me how to send pictures to this site I will send some of my Kinsey Pictures, Including pictures of Old Number 12!

Dave z