“We had all this space in the back that wasn’t being used because we don’t have printing presses anymore.”
Media innovations that eventually become commonplace are often first introduced at the Games.
Just how much bourbon is Jim Beam producing? Here’s one answer: It just filled its 1 millionth barrel since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. And production is accelerating at the James B. Beam Distilling Co., it says.
Last week, it says it celebrated filling its 17 millionth barrel of bourbon since Prohibition. The company says the 1 million barrel production milestone during the coronavirus outbreak holds special significance
The $1 trillion infrastructure bill the Senate passed and sent to the House contains important provisions to address drunk and impaired voting.
Nineteen Republicans joined Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R.-Ky.) and all 50 Democrats to pass the bill, 69-30.
It’s prospects are more complicated in the House, where Democrats say they won’t vote for the measure unless a $3.5 trillion antipoverty and climate measure also pass.
The bill includes several provisions to address drunk and impaired driving, Chris Swonger, president, Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S. noted in praising passed. Those provisions include:
Swonger asserted “Impaired driving is 100% preventable and installing advanced prevention technology in new vehicles will bring our nation one step closer to ridding our highways of these dangerous drivers.
“Efforts to design vehicles that prevent impaired driving have been underway for more than a decade and this legislation will finally make it a reality resulting in more than 9,000 lives saved each year.
“Crash risks increase exponentially when drivers are impaired from multiple substances, and this issue is a growing problem for states. Preliminary NHTSA data show a rise in total traffic deaths during the pandemic, including impaired driving fatalities. Enacting the traffic safety measures included in this bill is the aggressive action needed to end impaired driving. We urge the House to join the Senate in passing this life-saving legislation.”
In addition to the drunk and impaired driving provisions, tastrhe measure includes $110 billion above previously project federal spending for roads and bridges, $66 billion for raise and $40 billion for transit, $65 billion to expand access to broadband, $65 billion for improving the electrical grid and energy production, $50 billion for making infrastructure more resiliant to floods and wildfires, $7.5 billion to fund replacement of school buses and ferries with lower-emission requirements.
Buffalo Trace Distillery said it continues to make great strides with its $1.2 billion expansion, including more barrel warehouses, construction of an additional still, additional fermenters, expanding the dry house operation, and much more over the past year.
But it will still be a few years before bourbon supply catches up with demand. “The bourbon category continues to grow at a rapid rate, and while we have been increasing production across our portfolio for the last several years, we are still catching up to consumer demand,” said Sara Saunders, vp-marketing, Buffalo Trace Distillery.
“While we are producing and shipping a record amount of product, we understand the frustration from fans that our brands aren’t easy to find or readily available. We take pride in the quality of our product above all else, and we believe that there is no substitute for aging. Unfortunately, this lengthens the lead time of getting product into consumers’ hands.”
In the past year, this National Historic Landmark made headway on a number of projects, including a second still house, located adjacent to Buffalo Trace’s existing 1930’s still house. The addition of a second still house will double the production capacity for the Distillery, with a duplicate 60,000-gallon still standing 40 feet tall.
Eight additional fermenters were added and went online in January 2021, joining the four new fermenters added in December of 2019 and bringing Buffalo Trace’s total fermenter count to 24. The new fermenters are 93,000 gallons each, slightly larger than the twelve older fermenters Buffalo Trace still uses, which have been in place since 1933.
One of the more interesting construction projects started in the past year involves repurposing the oldest aging barrel warehouse on property, Warehouse B, to a new dry house.
Warehouse B was built in 1884 but has sat empty for two decades after it was determined that it was not ideal for aging the quality whiskey Buffalo Trace requires with today’s rigorous standards.
An all-brick warehouse, its location at the back of the distillery near the cookers and fermenters made it an ideal location for drying spent mash to sell to farmers for livestock feed and it allows the Distillery to repurpose the building while maintaining its historic integrity.
Buffalo Trace’s existing dry house will continue to operate once the new dry house is complete, but the additional dry house is necessary for the increased production. The Distillery’s dry house operations ensure that none of the Distillery’s byproduct goes to waste.
A new cooling system is also underway, which includes mash coolers, chillers and cooling towers, all necessary to cool the mash down after cooking so it can be transferred to fermenters as needed.
The Distillery has broken ground on a $40.0 million wastewater treatment facility, allowing it to be self-sufficient in its treatment of wastewater. Comprised of a moving bed biofilm reactor, the new treatment facility will allow wastewater to be treated efficiently and maintain water quality standards. Wastewater will be treated and disinfected clean enough to release into the Penitentiary Branch, which leads to the Kentucky River —ensuring both remain high-quality waters.
New barrel aging warehouses HH, II, and JJ have also been added in the past year and LL and MM are under construction now. Warehouses KK and NN are in the planning stages.
A total of 10 new barrel warehouses have been built to date since 2017, each holding 58,800 barrels and costing about $7 million each to build and another $21 million each to fill with barrels.
The progress made over the past year joins previous expansion items as part of Buffalo Trace’s $1.2 billion investment, such as four new 22-foot tall cookers, four new fermenters, a 110,000 square foot bottling hall, and an expanded Visitor Center which triples the size of the former retail, tasting and event space.
Buffalo Trace resumed tours over a year ago after a brief shut down due to COVID-19 and visitation has rapidly picked up pace, while maintaining safety protocols. Since re-opening last July, Buffalo Trace has seen more than 235,000 visitors, despite some capacity restrictions still in place.
Upcoming infrastructure projects for this 246-year-old Distillery in the near future include a new mill house, which will be located close to the original location of the hammer mill from 80 years ago. The mill house will increase the grain grinding capacity to match new distillation capacity by replacing the current hammer mills. Corn, wheat, rye and barley are trucked into Buffalo Trace from various non-GMO farmers in the region, but then must be ground on site before the grains can be used to make bourbon.
More barrel aging warehouses are also planned for the future, as well as another craft bottling hall which will allow Buffalo Trace to produce more single barrel and small batch bourbons.
“We’ve made great strides in our expansion so far, but we still have a long way to go in order to meet the needs of our fans,” said Master Distiller Harlen Wheatley. “We continue to take all the proper steps to ensure every barrel is of the highest quality as we increase supply.”
Heidelberg Distributing was picked to service the Kentucky market.
Volley is now available in New York, New Jersey, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Arizona, and South Carolina markets at a suggested retail price of $14.99 for a four can variety-pack or single flavor four-pack, or individually at $3.75 per 355ml can. Additionally, Volley ships nationwide through their new ecommerce platform, https://drinkvolley.com/pages/
3 Badge Beverage Corp., a boutique wine and spirits négociant, added Guinigi Prosecco Rosé D.O.C. to its Guinigi Wines portfolio, reflecting the skyrocketing consumer demand for the hot new Italian wine category.
The United States remains the leading Prosecco export market, and Prosecco rosé is expected to account for 10% of the half-million bottles of Prosecco produced this year according to the New York Times.
An Italian label, Guinigi Wines was introduced in September 2020. The lineup of wines honors the Italian heritage of 3 Badge proprietor and fourth-generation vintner, August Sebastiani.
The Prosecco Rosé joins Guinigi’s two single-varietal expressions of Prosecco D.O.C. from Treviso ($17) and Pinot Grigio D.O.C. from Delle Venezie ($14). All three labels appeal to lovers of crisp, clean wines with refreshing acidity and low levels of alcohol and residual sugar.
Both the name “Guinigi” and the label art are inspired by la Torre Guinigi, a historical landmark in the town of Lucca, Tuscany, where ancestors of the Sebastiani family resided. Built in the Middle Ages, the Romanesque fortification overlooks the city to this day, distinctly adorned with a unique aerial garden at its topmost outlook. There, the tall Holm oak trees which decorate the tower’s pinnacle symbolize rebirth and renewal, paralleled in each new Guinigi vintage.
