On my way back from Alabama I made a little detour in Kentucky to stop at the Buffalo Trace distillery. They are the makers of some local favorites such as Sazerac, George T. Stagg, and the Van Winkle line. Figured I would share some pictures from my tour.
Entrance to the distillary
Water tower
Entrance to gift shop
Grain storage silos
Mash cooker
Cooked mash cooling in cooker
Fermenter
Small batch still
Distiller testing station. The beer is distilled twice through two different stills. The stream from each still can be seen inside the barrels. Tasty 140 proof moonshine. First still is about 40ft tall.
The alcohol comes out of the second still at about 140 proof and gets put into the barrels at 125 proof.
One of the many storage houses. This is the original bonded warehouse.
Machine filling
All the good stuff is hand filled
They were filling a special edition of the 23yr Van Winkle in those pictures. Comes in a crystal decanter with two crystal glasses all in a nice wooded box. Anyone in for a HC group buy?
Great tour and great people down there. Highly recommended if anyone finds themselves in the area. Wish I would have had more time to check out some of the other distilleries.