Early this year I was lucky enough to tour two bourbon distilleries: Woodford Reserve and Buffalo Trace. I will post about Buffalo Trace in the near future; today I will try to stay on topic and pay homage to my dad's favorite bourbon.
The Woodford distillery is located in Versailles, Kentucky (7855 McCracken Pike Versailles, KY 40383-9781, to be exact) along the Bourbon Trail. It's also close to the Greatest Tradition in College Basketball in Lexington, Kentucky (damn, I already got off-topic). The grounds of the distillery are small and beautiful, built on a rolling landscape in the valley of a creek which I believe is called "Glenn's Creek." The main building is very modern with a gift shop, some historical exhibits and a tasting area (for after the tour!). Pretty much the rest of the facility is in its original shape, with a few modern touches and additions. Below left is the main building, and to the right is one of the aging buildings (they age the bourbon there, although I guess you could say the buildings themselves are aging as well) where you can see the old stone and the bars that were added to the windows around prohibition.
The Woodford distillery is located in Versailles, Kentucky (7855 McCracken Pike Versailles, KY 40383-9781, to be exact) along the Bourbon Trail. It's also close to the Greatest Tradition in College Basketball in Lexington, Kentucky (damn, I already got off-topic). The grounds of the distillery are small and beautiful, built on a rolling landscape in the valley of a creek which I believe is called "Glenn's Creek." The main building is very modern with a gift shop, some historical exhibits and a tasting area (for after the tour!). Pretty much the rest of the facility is in its original shape, with a few modern touches and additions. Below left is the main building, and to the right is one of the aging buildings (they age the bourbon there, although I guess you could say the buildings themselves are aging as well) where you can see the old stone and the bars that were added to the windows around prohibition.
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Below are several shots of the architecture from the "L & G" stacks to the rails where they roll the barrels around. The stacks say "L & G" because the distillery was at one point known as "Labrot and Graham Distillery". The rails are used to this day to roll the barrels with the help of this new technology called "gravity." The rails allow the barrels to be rolled gently and easily from the stills where they are filled to the aging building (where they sit for an average of 7ish years) and finally to the bottling room.
The copper still room is pretty much their showpiece, and for a good reason; the old copper stills are beautiful and had to be disassembled and reassembled to bring them in the old stone building (they were made in Scotland!). Basically the stills take the mash that has fermented and they refine it into a drinkable liquid, eventually reaching the approximately 90 proof clear alcohol that people call "white dog" that fills the barrels. The liquid is drinkable, but it is very strong and biting (hence the "dog" part of the name) and has none of the color, flavor or aroma that the charred oak adds to make bourbon. Copper is a fantastic metal for any type of cooking because it adds nothing and takes nothing away in terms of flavor or substance. From the third and final still they fill barrels that are rolled out onto the rails you see in the above pictures to go into a storage building to be aged. Before I show you that next step I have a few pictures of a beautiful wall inside this still room that they commemorate folks that purchase a very special bourbon experience. It involves choosing your own barrels that you keep after it is aged and some even more behind-the-scenes time with the master distiller; while it is very expensive, keep in mind you get to keep a TON of bourbon, so it is like buying in bulk; you get almost your money's worth just in the final product. Anyway, the sign you see has names of people and companies that have experienced this and it is decorated with wooden slats from barrels, something I would love to try to add to a custom home I'd like to build when I get older...
The barrels all weigh a different amount when they are taken out than when they are put in, because over approximately 7 years (on average) some product evaporates through the wood and out of the barrels; this is what you smell, a sweet, vanilla, oakey aroma which we call the "angels' share"
From the aging building the barrels are taken to be bottled; the bottling room was also pretty cool, and a prime example of where they have upgraded technology. It is also testament to how small the distillery is (more on that later). The bourbon is basically ready to drink straight out of the barrel, but it is put through one basic filter which acts basically as a decanter. If you don't know what a decanter is, click on that link for photos. Their purpose is to pour wine or whiskey from their original bottle, where there was still a small amount of particles that had settled. These particles came from the wood of the barrel and any other impurities in the form of solids, and when you poured the liquid into a new, clean glass vessel the impurities are left behind in the old vessel; modern filtering techniques almost entirely eliminate the need for decanters nowadays, as far as I can gather.
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Final Thoughts
The tour was outstanding and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves bourbon (so everyone reading this, right?). The grounds are beautiful, the architecture rich in history (as well as aesthetically pleasing) and they even hand everyone small headsets for the tour guide to speak to you via radio. This is especially useful when you can't directly see the tour guide or any machinery is operating, because the tours usually attract a small crowd. You learn all about how bourbon is made as well as some of Kentucky's rich history, and you even get to taste some at the end! The downsides are few but are worth mention. Unfortunately, it isn't free (many distilleries give free tours), but it is very cheap (less than $10 a head if I recall, which is more than reasonable). Also I felt that the tour guide was very much a salesman in that he mentioned that Woodford Reserve is a small-batch super-premium craft bourbon about 87 times. While that is true, it was a bit annoying hearing him say it more than once or twice. They make Woodford bourbon in small batches and it is priced at near top-shelf, so I figured it mostly spoke for itself. That's just my opinion. Other than that he was a great guide and was very knowledgeable which made this trip worth it. If you aren't from Kentucky you can plan to visit all the major distilleries in a weekend as the ones furthest from each other are only a few hours apart (see Bourbon Trail, above at top), but if you are from Kentucky then visit them early and often!
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