Two Historic Distilleries Are Threatened

There's a lot of history and 'lore' behind bourbon so discuss both here.

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Unread postby BSS » Thu May 26, 2005 6:32 pm

What year is the Old Taylor photo, most of the buildings in that picture are not there. But there are other buildings in their place. I have the other post card, and it shows about 4 warehouses that were torn down in the 90s. If you look closely you can see the grain in the bins behind the still house.
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Old Taylor photo

Unread postby jbohan » Fri May 27, 2005 8:40 am

This picture was taken sometime around 1916. Maybe Mike Veach or Chuck knows when the castle was built. OOh, that might be a good question for the trivia challenge !

:3rd:
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Unread postby jbohan » Fri May 27, 2005 1:55 pm

Amy Bennet has some of her work on this project out on a web site http://www.oldtaylor.com. There are some great pictures she took on the site. Several of the links and pages on the site don't work but it is definitely worth a look.

Amy, :urock:
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Unread postby cowdery » Fri May 27, 2005 5:17 pm

Amy is the authority on Old Taylor, but the picture must be earlier than 1916. By then, distilleries were shutting down, not building up. Most distilling stopped years before Prohibition actually went into effect.

One thing I have learned from Amy is that OT was built over time. In about 1879, E. H. Taylor built a distillery on that site called the J. Swigert Taylor Distillery, named for one of his sons. At the time he was in a dispute with George Stagg about the use of the Old Taylor name and even his own name, E. H. Taylor. It had been my understanding that in about 1887 he demolished that distillery and built old Taylor. From Amy I have learned that when the dispute with Stagg was resolved he simply renamed the existing distillery and started to renovate it. The castle, if I remember correctly, was built in about 1906.
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Another Post Card of Old Taylor

Unread postby jbohan » Thu Jun 02, 2005 9:59 am

A later picture, maybe Mike Veach has copies of these and can tell us when they were made.

On the back of the card is says " Old Taylor, Bottled in Bond Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey, gets its name from Col. Edmund H. Taylor, Jr., in his day the Nation's leading distiller. The distillery itself, on the outskirts of Frankfort, Ky., was founded just after the Civil War; the first of the present buildings was built in 1887. Vistiors from every land come to see this turreted home of the one of the world's greatest whiskies."

This one, like the Old Crow post card was printed for National Distillers Products Company New York, NY
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Unread postby bourbonv » Thu Jun 02, 2005 4:39 pm

I have not seen this photgraph yet, but there is still a lot of material to go through in the collection. I would say that it looks to be a 1960's photograph, but I would not bet money on that without seeing the photograph in person.

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Unread postby bunghole » Wed Jun 08, 2005 1:49 pm

bunghole wrote:Ima going to buy Old Taylor if owners will sell. Still looking into it. Have financing.

:arrow: ima :!:


Well Shit; Shit, Shit! Ima been in contact with some venture capitalists to finance the aquisiton of Old Taylor.

NO FREAKIN' DICE!


They want 100% profit in TWO EFFFIN YEARS!

I offered them full repayment in ten years and 100% profit in twenty.

No-one understands the long term nature of distilling - except the distillers themselves.

Now I need a drink!

Pants Away!

Linn
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Unread postby jbohan » Wed Jun 08, 2005 2:01 pm

bunghole wrote:
bunghole wrote:Ima going to buy Old Taylor if owners will sell. Still looking into it. Have financing.

:arrow: ima :!:




No-one understands the long term nature of distilling - except the distillers themselves.




Linn,

I go back to my comment about DISCUS starting something with Old Taylor just like they did for Mt. Vernon.

John

:smilecigar: :drink:

:clapthumbsup: Keep on trying to save this distillery !!
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Unread postby bunghole » Thu Jun 09, 2005 3:42 pm

jbohan wrote:
bunghole wrote:
bunghole wrote:Ima going to buy Old Taylor if owners will sell. Still looking into it. Have financing.

:arrow: ima :!:




No-one understands the long term nature of distilling - except the distillers themselves.




Linn,

I go back to my comment about DISCUS starting something with Old Taylor just like they did for Mt. Vernon.

John

:smilecigar: :drink:

:clapthumbsup: Keep on trying to save this distillery !!


Well Thank You John! I tried my damnest to make this happen. I have what I consider to be some unique ideas to make this distillery profitable again, but it takes more time than is acceptable to wealthy risk takers. Simply buying the distillery isn't good enough, you have to have enough to refurbish, and run until you can go to market. You need a great marketing plan to sell several great bourbons at a decent profit. It's not the amount of money involved, but rather the wait. There is no 'patient money'. Everyone wants a quick 100% turnaround. You just can't do that with whiskey - vodka - yes. Bourbon takes it's own sweet time.

Pity.

:arrow: ima :think:
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Unread postby BSS » Thu Jun 30, 2005 4:22 pm

Hate to inform you all of this, but all they have removed all shutters from the 4 oldest warehouses at Crow within the last 3 or 4 days.
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Unread postby bunghole » Fri Jul 01, 2005 5:50 pm

BSS wrote:Hate to inform you all of this, but all they have removed all shutters from the 4 oldest warehouses at Crow within the last 3 or 4 days.


So what else is coming down? Who's taking it down? No photos?
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Unread postby bourbonv » Fri Jul 01, 2005 7:06 pm

Eddy Russell was saying a couple a weeks ago he was pulling the last of the Wild Turkey from Old Taylor. He said they had nothing but trouble since Cecil Withrow died, including barrels being taken from the warehouse. He is glad to be gone.

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Unread postby bourbonv » Thu Aug 18, 2005 6:58 pm

Amy Bennett spent the last day and a half at the Filson doing research on this site. Even though the collection is still very much a work in progress, I was able to help her find many things in the collection that were of use to her. She is a fine person and I wish her the best of luck on her thesis and urge her not give up hope yet on saving the site.


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Unread postby BSS » Sat Nov 26, 2005 7:58 am

The two warehouses on the right side in jbohan's picture are having work done to them. The work looks to be tearing them down. The roof of one is already removed. They have put a fence up around the administration building and these warehouses. They have also put new board up on many of the castle and administration building windows.
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Unread postby BSS » Sat Feb 25, 2006 2:21 pm

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