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Jim Beam’s Newish Distillery Tour
I've been to the Beam distillery three times now. I wrote about my first visit in 2008 here, with an additional post about the bottling line. Then I stopped by for another brief visit in 2012 where I got a preview of some of the outdoor displays as part of the new visitors' center.

In early 2013, I revisited the Jim Beam distillery during my visit for the Bourbon Classic, held in Louisville. In 2014 the Bourbon Classic will be held on January 31 and February 1.

This time, the new visitors' center, called the Jim Beam American Stillhouse, was fully operational and we went on a really cool tour. I'm not sure if this is the same tour offered to everyone or not, but it quite likely was.

As I learned on previous visits, the actual distillery is quite industrial and not super pretty, so they built a new microdistillery where they do small batch versions of bourbon. It makes 1 barrel batches at a time.

They took us through a room where we'd put a scoop of grains into the cooker and saw the small column still, so we were able to see the whole production process though not the actual equipment used to produce Beam for the most part.

But anyway, here are some things I learned:
- The mash is 6% ABV after fermentation
- They use 41% sour mash. Other distilleries I visited used roughly 33%. I do not know what the difference that makes in the flavor of the final bourbon.
- The cooked mash goes through over a mile of pipes before fermentation to chill it without using tons of electricity.
- The fermentation process takes 3 days.
- Their fermenters are closed-top rather than open
- The big column still has 23 plates. It is 5 feet wide and 5 storeys tall.
- They distill to 125 proof in the column still, then to 135 proof in the doubler.
- They fill 300,000 barrels every year and have 1.8 million barrels in storage.
- They give their barrels a #4 char
- The whiskey goes into barrels at 125 proof, which is the maximum
- There are 72 warehouses where they age whiskey, 28 of them are on-site at the distillery
While this post focuses on production, between the microdistillery, outdoor displays, visitors' center, and new restaurant on site, the Jim Beam distillery has gone from an industrial distillery to a great tourist attraction.
December 12, 2013
Four Roses Bourbon Distillery: A Second Visit

In 2008 I first learned about Four Roses Bourbon and its history. Then in 2010 I had the chance to visit the distillery and wrote it up here.

In early 2013 on a trip to the Bourbon Classic event in Louisville I had a chance to visit a second time. These are some notes from that visit.

Four Roses fills 280 barrels per day, a drop in the bucket compared with other bourbon brands.

Their corn currently comes from Indiana and rye from Denmark. The grains are smashed up with a hammer mill before cooking. In the cooking process first they add corn and cook it, then cool it and add rye, then cool it more and add malted barley.

They have 23 fermentation vats and ferment for 75-90 hours depending on the season. About 25 to 30 percent of the fermenting mash is "backset" aka "sour mash" – the solids that come out of the still of the previous batch.

The water they use comes from the local river, and they have to stop production if the river water gets too low or too hot in the summer.

They distill it to 132 proof in the column still, then up to 137-140 proof in the doubler (which is like a continuous pot still – see this post for more info). Unlike other bourbon distilleries I've seen, the doubler at Four Roses looks like a traditional pot still with a lyne arm rather than just an oval container with no swan's neck at all.

The whiskey is then diluted to 120 proof before aging in the barrel. 125 proof is the legal limit for this.

So hopefully with this post, plus the previous ones on blending and brand history, a fuller picture of Four Roses comes to be.

December 10, 2013
Distillery Visit: Town Branch Distillery in Lexington, Kentucky

In early 2013 I visited the Town Branch Distillery in Lexington, Kentucky. At the time it was the newest addition to the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.

My visit was part of the Bourbon Classic, a great event that is taking place in 2014 on Jan 31 and Feb 1.

The distillery goes by a lot of names, so let me try to clarify as best as I understand it. The Town Branch Distillery is owned by the Lexington Brewing & Distilling Company, which is a division of Alltech.

Alltech is a huge international company dealing with yeast and I believe that yeast is primarily used in animal feed supplements. The company was created by Dr. Pearse Lyons, who studied brewing at Guinness and Harp in his early days. So the yeast connection all makes sense.

Before the distillery part of the operation was created, they began making beer here. The flagship brand is Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale, which is aged for six weeks in ex-bourbon barrels. It's only available in a handful of states, and I recommend trying it if you can get your hands on some.

Model display of brewery/distillery

Distilling

The distillery was added on to the small brewery and is the stills are housed in a glass-walled room with gleaming copper pots.

With the exception of Woodford Reserve, all the major bourbons in the US are made in continuous column stills. At Woodford, they distill three times in copper stills. The first distillation primarily separates the solids in the fermented mash from the liquids (alcohol and water), then the second and third distillation separate most of the water and impurities from the alcohol.

At Town Branch, there are just two pot stills. The reason they don't need a third distillation is that the mash (beer) doesn't contain solids. (Note that in Scotland they also distill twice, but they have a step where they remove the solids from the beer that they don't usually do in the US.) Town Branch uses something called 'gelatinized corn' as a raw ingredient that they don't have to grind up and cook, unlike most distilleries.

The Town Branch Bourbon uses a grain recipe of 72% corn, 15% malted barley, and 13% rye. In the fermentation process they use enzymes and after this is done there are almost no solids left in the mash.

The Pearse Lyons Reserve in a single malt, so it uses all malted barley.

The beer, which is fermented to around 8% alcohol, is distilled to 28-30% on the first distillation and up to 67-68% on second distillation.

After distillation, the Pearse Lyons Reserve ages in new barrels, used barrels, and wine barrels. The cool thing about the used barrels is that they were the ones used for the beer, so in fact they were used once for bourbon, then once for beer, then again for the single-malt.

The Pearse Lyons Reserve single-malt is aged for nearly 4 years, and the Town Branch is aged for 3.5 years at minimum. They also make a coffee-infused bourbon called Bluegrass Sundown. They use this in a version of the Irish Coffee at the on-site tasting room by adding boiling water and cream on top.

This visit was a great chance to see a small-batch distillery making American whiskey a different way along the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.

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December 9, 2013
Drink Books Published in 2013 in Consideration for Gifting or Reading
I have a to-read backlog of more than 40 cocktails and spirits books in my house, and that's just the print ones. So while I haven't read the majority of these books released in 2013 yet, I want to list them all together in case you want to buy something for yourself or a liquor fan by the end of the year.

Notable Cocktail and Spirits Books Published in 2013:
- The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create the World's Great Drinks [link] [Alcademics review]
- The Art of the Shim: Low-Alcohol Cocktails to Keep You Level [link]
- American Whiskey, Bourbon & Rye: A Guide to the Nation’s Favorite Spirit [link]
- Under the Table: A Dorothy Parker Cocktail Guide [link]
- Shake: A New Perspective On Cocktails [link]
- Reasons Mommy Drinks [link]
- diffordsguide Cocktails: The Bartender's Bible, 11th Edition [link]
- Architecture of the Cocktail: Building the Perfect Cocktail from the Bottom Up [link]
- Handcrafted Cocktails: The Mixologist's Guide to Classic Drinks for Morning, Noon & Night [link]
- Tequila Mockingbird: Cocktails with a Literary Twist [link]
- Cocktails for a Crowd: More than 40 Recipes for Making Popular Drinks in Party-Pleasing Batches [link]
- Cocktail Culture: Recipes & Techniques from Behind the Bar [link]
- The Cocktail Lab: Unraveling the Mysteries of Flavor and Aroma in Drink, with Recipes [link]
- Winter Cocktails: Mulled Ciders, Hot Toddies, Punches, Pitchers, and Cocktail Party Snacks [link]
- Whiskey: Instant Expert [link]
- Drink More Whiskey!: Everything You Need to Know About Your New Favorite Drink [link]
- Aphrodisiacs with a Twist [link]
- Shake 'Em Up!: A Practical Handbook of Polite Drinking [link]
- Drinking with Men: A Memoir [link]
- The Wet and the Dry: A Drinker's Journey [link]
- Apothecary Cocktails: Restorative Drinks from Yesterday and Today [link]
- True Brews: How to Craft Fermented Cider, Beer, Wine, Sake, Soda, Mead, Kefir, and Kombucha at Home [link]
- Happy Hour at Home: Libations and Small Plates for Easy Get-Togethers [link]
- The Curious Bartender: The Artistry and Alchemy of Creating the Perfect Cocktail [link]
- Sherry, Manzanilla, and Montilla [link]
- Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey: An American Heritage [link]
- World's Best Ciders: Taste, Tradition, and Terroir [link]
- The Deans of Drink [link]
- Down the Hatch: One Man's One Year Odyssey Through Classic Cocktail Recipes and Lore [ebook] [link]
- Professor Cocktail's Zombie Horde: Recipes for the World's Most Lethal Drink [ebook] [link]
- Raise the Bar: An Action-Based Method for Maximum Customer Reactions [link]
- Adult Milkshakes [link]
- Planet of the Grapes Vol 3: Wine Cocktails (ebook) [link]
- Beachbum Berry's Potions of the Caribbean [link]
If you know of any I missed or want to promote your own, please do put them in the comments!

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December 5, 2013
High-Tech Bar Equipment on PopSci.com

In a slideshow for Popular Science, I wrote about ten pieces of bar equipment you not know about as they're hidden behind the scenes.

The story includes equipment used by some of the world's most innovate bartenders and includes equipment including rotovaps, machine-engraved ice, sous-vide cooking, and many others.

Check it out on PopSci.com!

December 3, 2013
Liquid Gift Guide on Details.com

Hey, I wrote up a gift guide of spirits for Details.com.

It includes rum, tequila, gin, vodka, scotch and other whiskies, brandy, and a liqueur. Go get it.

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November 27, 2013
Breakfast Cereal in Cocktails is as Pretty Big Thing

In my latest post for Details.com, I took a look at the multitude of ways that people are using breakfast cereal in cocktails.

Initially I thought I'd only find it in a few places but I think there are more than a dozen mentioned in the story and they're located everwhere from London to Bordeaux to Miami to San Diego. Some folks are serving them up in bowls with a spoon, while others are infusing cereal into milk or directly into liquor.

Check it out over at Details.com.

November 22, 2013
All About Absolut Elyx and “Sacrificial Copper”

Absolut Elyx is the newish, high-end expression of Absolut vodka. On a trip this past winter to Ahus, Sweden, where Absolut is made, we took a day to learn about Elyx.

Elyx is a single-estate vodka made in Absolut's old distillery (the new one is only 5 years old), in amazing copper column stills dating to 1921. I wish I had more pictures to share but they weren't allowed on our tour.

The winter wheat for Absolut Elyx is grown on an estate named Rabelof. Rabelof is located near Ahus, and everything for the vodka comes from within a 25km radius of the town. Here's a picture of a wheat field.

Like regular Absolut, the water comes from the large aquifer beneath Ahus.

The first distillation of the wheat is actually done at Absolut's newer distillery in Nobbelov. There, they use the same yeast and the same two first columns to distill Elyx.

The old distillery, scanned from a brand book they gave us.

Sacrificial Copper

In the tops of the column stills, they add "sacrificial copper." I recently learned and shared how in column distillation, copper is very important, but only needs to be present in certain parts of the distilation process in a column still.

From my understanding, the first stage of distillation is stripping out the liquids from the solids, and then the alcoholic vapors are refined often within the same column. This happens at the top of the column in a bourbon still, where you'd find "bubble caps". Bubble caps are a method of adding more copper into the process, and copper combines with sulphurous compounds so that they don't make it into the final spirit.

Beyond bubble caps, some distillers use a version of Brillo pads (shredded copper) in their stills. At Absolut they use small segments of copper pipe that are further punctured increase surface area exposed to the alcohol. They use this sacrificial copper in regular Absolut, but apparently for Elyx they use new ones for every distillation run.

After the first distillation (in the first two columns) at Nobbelov, the 85% alcohol spirit then travels to the old distillery at Ahus. There it is rectified in column stills dating to 1921. This part of the distillery is rather gorgeous, with huge tall copper columns with wooden insulator jackets surrounding them. The building is filled pre-computer analogue dials, gauges, old pumps, leather belts, and big piston engines.

Here, the spirit is distilled in one extraction column, two rectification columns, and in two methanol columns. As at the new distillery, there is also a recovery column that recycles waste products.

Absolut Elyx is bottled at 42.3% ABV.

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November 19, 2013
The Wide Variety of Irish Whiskey Made at Midleton
Jameson, Redbreast, Green Spot, Midleton Very Rare, Powers John Lane, Paddy: These Irish whiskeys and more are all made at one distillery: Midleton in County Cork, Ireland.

On a recent trip the distillery for a big celebration (I wrote about that here), I learned more about the differences between various products, and gained some perspective on where Irish whiskey sits in with other products.

To hugely oversimplify what are the constants and what changes in different types of whiskey:
- Single-malt scotch whisky is made from 100% malted barley and distilled in pot stills. They typically make one distillate, and the single malts that come from a single distillery are differentiated by how long they're aged and in what type of barrels they're aged (ex-bourbon, sherry, etc.)
- Many bourbon distilleries focus on a single mash bill (blend of grains) that they distill in column stills into a single distillate. Since it's all aged in new American oak casks, the various bourbons that come out of a single distillery are differentiated by their length of aging and final proof of the spirit.
- For Japanese whisky, they use many different shapes of still as well as many different types of barrels and often buy grain at different peating levels. They have a lot of different whiskies aging that they blend to make both blended and single-malt products.
There are big exceptions to all of the above.

For Irish whiskey, there are three main distilleries. Midleton makes triple-distilled malted/unmalted pot still whiskey (called "pot still" on its own and "single pot still" when it comes from one distillery) as well as column distilled grain whiskey. Bushmills makes triple-pot-distilled malt whiskey ("single malt") that they sometimes blend with Midleton's column still whiskey. And Cooley makes double-pot-distilled malt whiskey ("single-malt") and column still grain whiskey. [See this blog post for a handy chart.]

But just looking within Midleton, they don't make just one triple-distilled pot still whiskey; they make four. I believe these are designated internally as light, two different medium ("mod pot"), and a heavy. These are made by different variations on the mash bills (ratio of malted to unmalted barley), how high they distill to, and where they cut heads and tails in the distillation.

They use these distillates in different ratios in the final products. That's why the Single Pot Still Irish Whiskeys made at Midleton can have such distinct personalities, despite all sharing certain characteristics such as apple and butter notes. They're made from any of four malt/unmalted pot still whiskies, aged for a different number of years in different types of barrels, and bottled at different proofs.

From one distillery comes many options.

Blends:
- Jameson
- Jameson 12 Year Old
- Jameson 18 Year Old
- Jameson Gold Reserve
- Jameson Signature Reserve
- Jameson Select Reserve
- Jameson Rarest Vintage Reserve
- Paddy
- Midleton Very Rare
Single Pot Still
- Redbreast 12 Year Old
- Redbreast 15 Year Old
- Redbreast 12 Year Old Cask Strength
- Green Spot
- Yellow Spot
- Powers John's Lane Release
- Midleton Barry Crockett Legacy
November 13, 2013
A Doubled Jameson – A Return Visit to the Midleton Distillery in Ireland
A couple of months ago I returned to the Midleton distillery in Cork, Ireland, for a party they were throwing to celebrate the newly-expanded facility.

I wrote a one-page story about it for November's issue of Tasting Panel magazine, which you can read here (digital magazine, go to page 149), but I have more to say than just that.

I last visited the Midleton distillery in early 2011 (as well a a stop into the former distillery and current visitor's experience in Dublin). A write-up on that visit is here on Alcademics.

The Midleton Distillery looks like it did a few years ago with the exception of gleaming new column stills and the new Garden Stillhouse. These are the new column stills:

(On all pictures on this post, click the thumbnails on top for a larger picture below)
The existing stillhouse (where the pot stills are based) holds four pot stills, which are used to make all the triple-distilled pot still products, as well as the pot still part of the Jameson blended whiskies.

The brand new Garden Stillhouse, enclosed in glass, holds three new pot stills so that they can nearly double capacity- and it has room for three more to be installed within a few years. (That's how fast Jameson is growing, folks.)
Each of the copper pot stills holds 80,000 liters. As you should be able to tell from the pictures, they're pretty huge. The stills are used for the same thing each time: there is a Wash still, a Feints still, and a Spirit still for the first, second, and third distillation.

I was curious as to how they're all the same size, since they're cutting heads and tails during each distillation. It turns out that they collect the result of each distillation in holding tanks before moving it to the next still, so they could add the results of 1.5 runs from the first still into the second distillation, for example.

In addition to the distillery expansion, they added an archives and a Whiskey Academy. We didn't get a chance to do an in-depth training but the Academy was really cool – there are a wall of mini-stills so students can actually distill whiskey there.
A second major reason for the celebration was that it was Master Distiller Barry Crockett's last official function. After 32 years with the company, he was retiring and handing the reigns to Brian Nation. Crockett was instrumental in moving the distillery operations from Dublin to Cork in the 1970s, as well as developing the Single Pot Still range that includes Redbreast, Green/Yellow Spot, Midleton Very Rare, and others.

To honor his career, they renamed the older stillhouse the Barry Crockett Stillhouse.

During the day of the celebration, they had guided whiskey tastings, food carts by local purveyors, inspirational talks by the likes of David Wondrich and Nick Strangeway. At night, they threw a hell of a party inside a barrel warehouse with food and music including The Chieftans.
So yeah, that was one heck of a party and a great return trip to the Midleton distillery. In a future post, I'll write a little more about the process of making Irish whiskey.

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November 11, 2013