by samkom » Thu Mar 29, 2007 7:45 pm
Thanks for your take on this topic, Gary. I have laid out all I know about Dillinger in my fist listing on the subject, and it contains what I consider to be virtually irrefutable evidence of post-Prohibition pot stills producing rye whiskey. In no particular order, they are:
Fully separate and independent facilities for column and two-stage pot distilling under one roof, in a distillery built after Prohibition primarily for the production of rye whiskey. In fact, the continuous side of the distillery contained both a rectifying column AND a doubler, already more than most might consider necessary at the time. The pot still side had its own fermenting house, mash tun, wash back tank, and low AND high wine tanks dedicated to this end of the operation.
A Federal Registry of Stills not only describing the pot stills themselves, but listing their use as being for production of "Whiskey or spirits." In addition, this document lists the 24 hour charging capacity of each still, and that they were, in 1947, registered "for use."
Blueprints dated 1946 showing two classic scotch-type coal-fired pot stills in place, fed by automatic stokers.
A cost differential of +50% over the average competing product upon the return of production after Prohibition.
Now, in answer to some previous speculation, there is indeed evidence that this facility produced both brandy and gin. In fact, there is listed on an earlier Registry of Stills a dedicated gin still, which must have been removed prior to the 1946 blueprints and 1947 Registry, as it does not show up in either. As for brandy, this was first and foremost a rye distillery. Why would a company incur the cost of perhaps the only two-stage batch distillery in the U.S. for an afterthought like brandy, especially when brandy production would seem to be possible with a single still? And I remind you that the still registry lists their use as for "Whiskey and spirits."
Does this mean that I am 100% certain that the scenario I have described dictates the two-stage production of straight whiskey in pot stills? No, but I'd bet next month's paycheck that this was the case.
Do I hope that this might be the only post-Prohibition pot distillery in the country? It certainly would be cool for this to have occurred only in the backwoods of my Western Pennsylvania. However, I put it to you all that if it could have happened under the radar in tiny Ruffs Dale (albeit in a substantial distillery), where else might it have occurred? I, too, was under the impression that whiskey was strictly column-distilled in the U.S. after 1933, until I purchased the Dillinger blueprints. I opened the pages showing pot stills and felt like I had been thrust into the Twilight Zone!
It took me months of research and analysis of their setup, and the acquisition of additional papers from the distillery proper to come to my conclusions. To my mind, this has changed the way I approach modern American distilling, and I look forward to hearing from someone else someday that they have found the same evidence elsewhere, as this would validate my findings.
Your finding the site listing the sale of the warehouse materials saddens me, but I'm glad that I got in there (barely) before this happened. Those warehouses were phenomenal buildings, and they will be missed, at least by me. I also look forward to the time when I will have a sip of legal, 21st century Pennsylvania rye whiskey. I am convinced it will happen, and Sam Dillinger would be pleased.