Beverage Dynamics

Beverage Dynamics May/June 2015

Beverage Dynamics is the largest national business magazine devoted exclusively to the needs of off-premise beverage alcohol retailers, from single liquor stores to big box chains, through coverage of the latest trends in wine, beer and spirits.

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www.beveragedynamics.com May/June 2015 • Beverage Dynamics 11 TRIP REPORT BY JEREMY NEDELKA In March I traveled to Louisville, Kentucky, where I had the chance to learn about Old Forester, Woodford Reserve and some other Brown-Forman brands, as well as tour the company's headquarters and cooperage. This was my third trip to Kentucky over the past few years, and it's always one of my favorite places to visit when covering the beverage alcohol industry. While I was there, I met with Campbell Brown, the great- great-grandson of George Garvin Brown. Campbell is president of Old Forester, a brand the company is spending $50 million on for new line extensions and the opening of a distillery in Lou- isville on Whiskey Row, the original site for Old Forester. The company expects to open the new distillery, which will include a visitor area, sometime in 2016. "This Bourbon renaissance is driven by curiosity – consumers have a love affair with the spirit and want to learn what makes each product different," Campbell Brown says. "If we can create a home location for the brand, customers will continue to fall in love once they can see it, smell it and meet the people behind it. Then they become lifelong consumers." Later I traveled to the Brown-Forman Cooperage in Lou- isville, where the company "raises" nearly 600,000 barrels per year, all used for its own brands. Most of the barrels are used for Jack Daniel's, but since the company opened a new cooperate in Alabama to exclusively supply the Lynchburg-based brand, more inventory is available for other spirits like Herradura, El Jimador, Old Forester and Woodford Reserve. Chad Ruch, the Production Manager at the cooperage, walked our group through the process of making a barrel, all the way from drying the staves outdoors to the fi nished product rolling down the line onto a truck making its way to one of the company's distilleries. VISITING WITH WOODFORD Later at the Woodford Reserve distillery in Versailles, Kentucky, Master Distiller Chris Morris showed off the brand's new visitor center. The distillery site was originally built by Oscar Pepper in the 1830s. Later, his son James sold the Old Crow brand his family created to Brown-Forman in 1941. The distillery was sold in the 1950s, but the company bought it back in the 1990s to serve as a homeplace for Woodford Reserve. "When we opened the visitor center in 1996 it was designed for 80,000 people," Morris says. "Once we reached 130,000› (which doesn't include minors since they only count the number of samples given out at the end of the tour) we felt it was time to renovate the building and expand." Morris also explained that Woodford Reserve was designed with fi ve distinct fl avor sources – grain, water, fermentation, dis- tillation and aging. Woodford Reserve is created using a specifi c combination of these variables, and each variant of the whiskey BOURBON AND BARRELS Partially completed barrels make their way through the cooperage. The mash is fermented at the Woodford Reserve distillery. Bung holes are added to the barrels and they're tested for leaks.

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