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.

Edited November 14, 200916 yr by naamanf

Awesome, pictures there Naaman. I'm in for the group buy as long as its only exorbitantly priced and not ridiculously exorbitant.

Did you get a trunk-full of the decanters? Nice pics, thanks for sharing.

I have been to the Budweiser plant near here, and to Glenmorangie in Tain, Scotland. I should make it to a few more tours myself.

Were you able to talk them into doing some audio casework? Beautiful!

Nice pics Naaman. Hope you had fun!

thanks for posting pics! i've only ever been able to go to Maker's Mark, but i want to do the American whiskey tour in its entirety at some point.

what's the price point of that special version?

Definitely want to be able to do the entire tour at some point.

MSRP was $350. They were selling the regular PVW 20 and 23 at the gift shop but nothing else. I was hoping they would sell my one but no luck.

Did you get a trunk-full of the decanters? Nice pics, thanks for sharing.

The guy pulled a full one off the filling line and jokingly handed it to my wife. Jokes like that are not funny.

Golly, that's almost enough for everybody at HC.

Here's Naaman loading his purchases.

Very nice Naaman, I think you picked the next meet site for Dan Jam 2010. I think I can get a hall pass for that one.

Hey CanJam organizers...buffalo trace should do a tasting...

Hey Peanut Gallery .... we are already working on a brown liquor event.

Edit: Upon careful reconsideration; Thanks for volunteering. I'll provide the room.

Edited November 15, 200916 yr by morphsci