Saturday, I got a peak at what we now know is called Charles Medley Distillers Kentucky (CMDK), the restoration of the old Medley Brothers Distillery in Owensboro by Angostura. More about my trip is here and here.
I spent some time with the plant manager, Derek Schneider, who is overseeing the refurbishment now and will run the place when it opens. He said it has been slow going and they hope to be fixing up the still house in earnest by fall. Roof repair has taken a lot of attention, as almost every building sustained roof damage in Hurricane Ike last fall. They've been doing a lot of that sort of thing. To rebuild the interiors of the warehouses, they are getting ricks from the Lawrenceburg, Indiana, distillery Angostura also owns. They have two steel clads that are getting new skin.
About half of what they need to get the distilling part itself going is there, the rest will be new. They need new milling and grain handling, many new fermenters (Charles sold all of the cypress ones to Maker's Mark years ago), new boilers and a new beer well. The old cookers are still good, as are the beer still and doubler. They need all new modern process controls.
It would appear that they are planning to get tourism going about the same time they get distilling going. They aren't going to wait until they have some product to sell.
I'll post some more as I look at my notes.