Page 36 - Beverage MasterAprMay 2021

Craft Distillery

ex-slave-turned-master-distiller, Nathan Nearest some palletized storage as well as floor dunnage.
Green, neither could have imagined that the whis- The Woodford Reserve Distillery, for example, has
key created would become synonymous with the warehouses with wooden ricks and others with
tradition and preservation of some of the most heavy iron rails. Woodford also has some palletized
historic distilleries in the world. Brown-Forman is space and floor dunnage.
the keeper of that tradition, in the form of four dis-
tilleries, three in Kentucky and, of course, the Jack
Daniel’s Distillery in Tennessee.

With some 130 years of warehouses spread across
four distilleries, the barrel ricking found in any
given Brown-Forman warehouse depends upon
many variables. Chris Morris, Woodford Reserve
Master Distiller for Brown-Forman, explained that
while a modern distillery can install all one type of
ricking, the historical distilleries of Brown-Forman
have operated on a different premise.

“The date of construction for the numerous
warehouses at our distilleries ranges from 1890
through 2020. Needless to say, this means we have “While our ricks are made of various materials,
many types of barrel rick material, from wood to they are all using the same design that was patent-
metal. Within those two groups, we find different ed in 1879: the ‘open rick’ design. Now, this again
types of wood and metal in use over the years. will vary in length and height, based on the size of
That depends on the era an individual warehouse the warehouse. Some wide houses will have a rick
was constructed and who built it. We also have that holds 31 barrels, while others may only hold

34 April - May 2021 BEVERAGE MASTER

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