DISTILLERY
correct sensory standards. The quality manager must sign-off on every drop before it hits the barrel. Bulleit has some busy maturation operations for sure. The 70% ABV high wines are reduced to 62.5% ABV (the legal maximum entry barrel entry level for bourbon) with reverse osmosis water. The distillery is designed to ll six barrels at a time and is currently lling 800 barrels per day. The barrels are char 4 American white oak, though Dwayne declined to tell me the name of the cooperage. After we left the barrel lling station, we walked a few steps over to one of the seven maturation warehouses. (Construction is currently underway on another two.) Each warehouse is designed to hold 55,000 barrels, all palletised. I’ve walked through quite a few barrel warehouses in my day, but some- thing about Bulleit’s warehouse number 1 just hit me like a bourbon-soaked brick. When we walked in every physi- cal sense in my capacity was assaulted with bourbon. The aroma was thick with oak and vanilla and hung in the air like an invisible fog. It was the perfect pairing to the Kentucky summer heat. The end of the day And that was the end of the journey through Bulleit’s newest distillery. Interestingly, the day I visited was supposed to be the rst day that the distillery was going to be open to the public. They had just nished work on the new visitor centre and were going to offer tours to the interested imbiber. Unfortunately, best laid plans and all that – the opening had to be delayed for another week, so I didn’t get to see the new attractions. I would’ve loved to pick up some Bulleit-related tchotchkes but no such luck this time around. I grew up in the southern United States, so perhaps I’ll risk a bit of bias here when I say, there really isn’t another whiskey quite like bourbon. Million-dollar marketing and brand blitzing aside, it will always seem to be an honest and humble spirit, perfectly content to be sipped on with an ice cube on a hot summer’s day. And maybe that’s why the Bulleit brand appeals to me so much. It’s not trying to play the expensive, rare and old brown liquor game that so many of its contemporary brands have thrust them- selves into. Instead the company seems perfectly content to make good bourbon really well, and that’s just ne by me.
The distillery is currently lling 800 barrels per day
Each of the seven warehouses is designed to hold 55,000 palletised barrels
Bulleit Bourbon Co. opened its tech- lled visitor center on the 25 th June
54 ● BREWER AND DISTILLER INTERNATIONAL I october 2019
i bd.org.uk
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