Touring the Mini Cooperage - Whiskey Wednesday

Live here at Buffalo Trace Distillery for another episode of Whiskey Wednesday. Today we have tour guide Laura Sell and we're going to be talking about some barrel repair and lots of history here. So Laura, what are we getting into today? Well, we're going to look at a little barrel repair and recouperaging. We have a couple of our warehouse and aging warehouse technicians repair a couple of barrels for us. And before we do that, we're going to talk about the building where we used to do that. It was Warehouse J. It's kind of nestled in here between the road that runs kind of through the main part of the distillery and a walk pathway that goes to Warehouse D. The building, which is right here in front of me, is little and in the summertime when there's leaves out on the trees you kind of walk by it and you don't even know that it's on the property. It's called Bonded Warehouse J. At the time it was built, it was built in 1935, which was part of Albert Blanton's post-prohibition expansion to the distillery. It was probably situated here on purpose. It's got really good proximity to what you're looking at right now, which is Warehouse D, which was completed in 1907. And then this very large warehouse next to it, which is Warehouse I, and it was also completed in 1935 as part of the expansion. Another warehouse that was being used at that time was the ever-popular Warehouse C over here that was completed in 1885. So whenever barrels were to develop leaks, problems while they were in the rick, they could easily be moved to this location where we could repair them. And I'm noticing, too, that the brick on this warehouse and the brick on our little repair building over here, which we'll get into in a second, is the same or at least looks the same. Oh, it is. And if you look throughout the back part of the distillery, all those warehouses were from that very same expansion, all using that yellow, yellow brick. Okay, let's go check it out. Okay, let's do it. So in case anybody's been to the distillery, I just want to show them here. This is the Blanton's Bottling Hall to my right, and the gift shop is down past that stop sign. So if anybody's been here, that's a familiar sight. So next time you're here, just take a little peek down past the bottling hall, and this little building that's hidden away is where we're headed. It sure does look a lot different in the spring. Oh, yes. This is cold today. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, the flowers and all the plants are all blooming. And as we go by, you can see some of the renovations that have taken place to the visitor center if you haven't been here in some time. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I'm real excited about it. It's huge. It is. It is very, very nice. All right, so we're kind of at the entrance to Warehouse J. And I find it interesting you call it Warehouse J when it seems like it's just a little building that we'd roll barrels in to repair, but I guess everything's a warehouse, right? Well, this is a bonded warehouse, and at the time that it was used to repair the barrels, of course you were taking a bonded barrel from a bonded warehouse. And I guess if the barrel needed to remain in the building overnight for whatever reason, they would have to be stored in a bonded warehouse. So I'm going to go with that as why this is also bonded. The awning around this, the porch, wasn't added to the building until 1951. So it's undergone some changes with time. Currently, when it quit being used, I guess I should backtrack. As the quality control developed in the Cooperages, which are the companies that build the barrels, the need for this facility on site diminished. We now have leak hunters, and we don't have as many problems with the barrels. And so we're able to go into the ricks and repair those barrels right then and there. And this has now become more of a self-guided tour on what you would see or notice at a Cooperage. Gotcha. So it's not used that much now. If there's a leak, if it's in the rick, in a parking lot, in the back of a truck, they can fix it right on site. Exactly. And that little opening under the road right over there used to have a barrel run, had rails. And they were able to get the barrels from particularly these two large warehouses, and they would just roll them in here, repair them, roll them back. Okay. So designated repair shop, but not used in the same way today. But yeah, it is interesting that it's a bonded warehouse. Here's all of our little history plaques. Warehouse J, it's got dates and what it was used for. Yeah, built in 1935. Okay. Yeah, come on in. Is it still a self-guided tour or no right now? No, we've not used it in quite some time. Sure. Yeah. It does have some really, really interesting equipment in it. The one you're looking at right now is the Fairbanks scale. There are several of those on the property, and the point of those were to weigh the barrel and inevitably to find out how much tax you needed to pay. What they would do is weigh the barrel, and then they would empty it, and then they would weigh the barrel again, subtract, and you knew how much liquid you had in there that you were going to tax. Yeah, that makes sense. I'm seeing a lot of texture on the floor. It looks really cool. My guess is they painted the hoop with that. So it looks like this is more of an educational room. It's got some examples here. You've got the tree example, the white oak over here. Yeah, they would show how they would start to cut the staves, and of course, in our case, they're going to weather for six months, and then they're going to build a barrel. This is how they do that. They pick different size, different width staves, between 30 and 35, put them in this ring down here at the bottom, and we'll close it. They'll use steam to tighten the barrel up and give it shape, and then they'll add the rings after that, and it becomes like this. And I think it's interesting, too, because what I've learned and what you've taught me, too, is you normally start with the largest stave, and that becomes your bung stave. Exactly, yeah, and for us, we put poplar bungs in the barrels, and after they're formed into a barrel, which the barrel is a wonderful thing to store stuff in because you can move it around so easy. You realize those things, this is like 120 pounds, but you put the 53 gallons in this container, and it jumps to 550 pounds, so the ability to roll one of these is essential. It gets them around easy, but after this is formed as a cooperage, and they will use a gas flame, and they will put a number four char in the barrel for this distillery. It's 55 seconds of flame, and it's called a gator char. It kind of looks like the back of an alligator. The barrel heads... That's actually answering a couple questions we had already, was the weight. You know, it's like once these things are full, how much does it weigh? So quite a bit. It does, and they're very difficult to move around. And then there's the barrel heads, and they start out with pieces of stave that are tongue and grooved joints, and then they're going to cut it into a circular piece of wood. I think it's so interesting too, just the bevel fits so perfect. It is, it's smooth. Yeah, in the barrel. So everything, there's no nails, no screws, none of that. It's just all on the wood. You can see the groove there that it pops into. Yeah, it's really cool. Okay. And then they char the head with a number two flame. It's about 20, approximately 25 seconds. That's really neat. So yeah, I'm just going to see if you can pull that. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah, that's perfect. We got, you know, a little example up here of the bones and things like that. But yeah, really interesting. I think, you know, just seeing some repairs, what we do here is going to be great because if you ever get a chance to go to a full cooperage, it really is a... Oh, that's a wonderful tour. Yeah, it really is. And you get to see, we got some big photos on the walls here, but you get to see the barrels getting charred. You see the big stave yards, things like that. So, but again, here at Buffalo Trace Distillery, it's not like we're not making our own barrels here. No, we don't. We do not have a cooperage on site. Yeah, but we do repair. We do repair them. Do a lot of repair. And currently we're getting a lot of barrels. Yeah. Okay. All right. Let's go see. Let's get some. This is going to be fun. We're going to have a couple of our, like I said, aging warehouse technicians repair a couple of barrels. Kenny and Dylan have been here for quite some time, and they're very skilled at what they do. And they should be getting the barrels out for us. Yeah, I'm curious. I'm wondering, I mean, this is just me, and this is a couple of questions we got on Facebook, was just how many barrels we may have to repair per day. But that depends on the day. We get about, on average, between 1,200 and 1,500 barrels a day. So over time, I don't know how many that translates into repairs. But we do have leek hunters that travel around and look for them. That's a pretty cool title, a leek hunter. A leek hunter. So hopefully our service doesn't go out walking through this tunnel. There they are. We'll get lucky enough. Maybe they'll have a few for us. Looks like they've already found a couple. It's like unfortunate that they're leeking, but at least you got a few folks here to work on them. So Kenny and Dylan are going to show us how this is done. Hey. I'm going to repair a barrel. All right. Yeah. Fix it. Okay. Yeah. Tell us what tools are what. Perfect. That's better. Yeah. And when you guys on the pegs, can I see those? Do they have to be white oak as well? These are actually cedar. And they're all cedar. Yep. Okay. A couple leaky barrels. How many barrels do you think you guys fix on any given day? Is there a certain amount of leeks you might find on any day? It's different every day. Every day is different. So that's a pretty common. Oh, okay. Get it flush. Perfect. All right. Got a little waste on the floor on the pavement. We don't want that. That's why you guys are here. Okay. And it looks like that barrel came out when? It was filled on... 2014. Oh, 14. 2014. All right. Okay. And where is this barrel? Basically, these barrels come out, you find the leek, and will they get dumped right away? Or they get put... They'll be dumped tomorrow. Yeah. Okay. Well, this one here will be dumped tonight, probably. Tonight. Okay. Great. And we got another... Yeah, this one looks like it's been leaking a while, maybe. Oh, wow. Yeah. Look at that edge down here. So that's out there. That there has sealed up, was still leaking right in that area right there. Okay. That looks pretty significant. Okay. Let's see what we can do with it. What's the strategy on trying to fix something like that that's not like a pinhole leek? It looks like a crack. Okay. So you're sort of... You put the wedge on each side to tighten up that crack or that seam. Okay. You give it a shot. So now you're using... Yeah. So basically, you're making a spot in there, and that wedge... Okay. It's like a shim goes in and spreads it out. Yeah. Gotcha. You sew it up like you would a stitch. Sew it up like a stitch. Oh, okay. So wedge is going in. Like a shim. You're just going to push in more wood than was originally there and tighten it up. That's interesting. Before you hammer that, I want to kind of see. It's a little cedar shim. Okay. Yeah. I see what you mean now by like a stitch. Okay. Yeah. Put four or five in there just to make sure it's tight. Okay. Now, you guys can do this in the warehouse, in the parking lot, in the back of the truck. Yeah, so anywhere. I wonder how many gallons of whiskey you boys have saved over the years just by being repairmen. Probably more than I've drank in my entire life. I mean, if we didn't repair these, they'd be empty. Yeah. So it's a really important piece to catch these early. Even catch them late. So when you're rolling around, you're not losing them. How long have you all been repairing the barrels? I've been out here in this department for nine years. Yeah, nine years. I've been out here over three and a half years. Three and a half years. Wow. Okay. Yeah, you've saved us a lot of whiskey, I'm sure. So thank you boys so much. I appreciate it. It's great. Thank y'all. All right. Yeah, it's a good spot to see where we are too. So we just kind of did a little loop there, Laura. Yeah, we did. That was a lot of fun. Yeah. I think they enjoyed it too. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Okay. All right. Well, we've got several questions. We'll get to them on the... We'll just type out some answers for everybody. Okay. But when it comes to self-guided tours, that's one of the questions. We're not really allowing that right now. We're not until this settles down. Yep. And then we always have some questions about getting bottles and more product. But one thing we always know is that expansion is happening. It's a good thing. Yeah. It's a good thing. Yeah. Give it some time. That's right. Making more whiskey every day. Oh, yeah. Laying down more barrels every day. Keeping these guys busy. Oh, yeah. And you busy on tours. Oh, it's a lot of fun. Yeah. So on tours, is it still reservation only? It is. And they're still limiting them to eight people per tour. And there's still tastings happening. Yeah. Just go to buffalotrace.com tours. Yeah. Real easy process. Okay, great. And one thing I did notice, I wanted to just bring up, is I walk through the gift shop every time I'm here, which is quite often. But every time I'm in here, there's always new products. And I've noticed they've really, like you guys, have really added a lot of new products. Oh, we've gotten more apparel that represent more brands that we offer, like Weller, Eagle Rare. And Stag. Stag. That's a cool one. I know. Oh, yeah. And it's just some brand new coasters and glassware. We really increased our offerings. Yeah, yeah. All right, Laura. Well, we've got some traffic here, so I'm going to get out of the road. But thank you so much. Thank you. It's always a pleasure going on tour with you. So I appreciate it. And thanks. Thanks.