Castle & Key Distillery Tour - Millville, KY

there's a key part of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail join us at Castle and key distillery in Millville Kentucky fans of historic distilleries are sure to enjoy castle and key castle and key Distillery is a recent addition to the Kentucky Bourbon Trail craft tour the impressive grounds and buildings that had once fallen into disrepair have been brought back to life once again you can take a relaxing walk on the Botanical Trail or check out Glenn's Creek informative tours are available that end with samples of craft spirits taylorton station provides walk-up bars on site with delicious cocktails or flights have your drink near the Spring House where tourists did over a hundred years ago The Distillery was established in 1887 by Colonel Edmund Haynes Taylor Jr he was an instrumental figure in the history of bourbon and whiskey in America you're probably familiar with some of his earlier distilleries by their modern names Buffalo Trace in Woodford Reserve among others castle and key is not affiliated with any of Colonel Taylor's previous projects but has a shared history originally called the old Taylor Distillery company this was the final Distillery that he worked on in his life and career it was the only one built to be a bourbon destination unlike today that idea was unheard of they were factories not the kind of place you want to come and hang around Colonel Taylor had taken a trip to Europe shortly before this property was constructed he fell in love with the German beer gardens he loved the sense of hospitality and knew he could bring that back to Kentucky it took about fears for primary construction to be completed he knew that if he built a castle for a Distillery people would want to come and see it if he built a Roman style bath house around the spring that he was using as his water source people would want to party around it if he built beautiful english-inspired gardens people would want to take a stroll as they sip on their bourbon he was right they had a solid 20 years producing top-notch Bourbon and throwing huge extravagant parties here as part of Colonel Taylor's forward-thinking marketing techniques spared no expense he even built a private railway from here to Frankfurt to bring guests by the train load Colonel Taylor started modern bourbon tourism as we know it today on this property [Music] in 1920 prohibition stopped the party at 90 years old he decided to retire to his cattle farm where he passed away a few years later [Music] after prohibition his son sold the property to a company called National distillers they expanded the operation at one point they were capable of producing anywhere from 600 to over a thousand barrels of bourbon a day here a considerable amount even by today's standards the late 60s and early 70s brought about changes in culture and tastes age bourbon was dad's drink and clear Spirits were in this caused the large operation to close up shop and sell in 1972. Jim Beam bought the spirit division their main interest was the barrels Aging in the rickhouses Hillary ended up under the ownership of a salvage Reclamation company that was after as much scrap metal and pre-depression brick as they could get luckily they missed a lot and the 2008 housing market crash caused them to vacate the property [Music] in total the castle and the property was left abandoned for 44 years [Music] enter Mr will Arvin a lawyer from Nicholasville Kentucky in 2012 will was enjoying a day at the Keeneland race track in Lexington and began to think of his career path he wanted to find a passion not just a job as he looked down at the glass of bourbon that he was sipping he thought to himself I wonder what it would take to do that so naturally he googled this hell near me and this was the one that popped up [Music] he was intrigued and thought it would be a shame to let this property slip further into ruin and obscurity he knew that he couldn't restore it alone though and was introduced to a friend of a friend named Wes Murray Murray ran a hedge fund out of Lexington and was interested in startups together they purchased this property in 2014 for just under a million dollars a lot of work had to be done to restore the property asbestos lead paint animal residents and most of the structures were missing their roofs in late 2016 they were able to begin production in the castle crafting their first spirits and getting them into barrels [Music] in September of 2018 they were able to open Castle and key to the public it was named for the castle and the keyhole shaped Spring House the tour provides details of the production cycle the process begins at the back of the castle that's where they received their grain deliveries there are four different grains across all of their Mash Bill recipes wheat corn malted barley and rye [Music] the truckloads of grain are pulled in through a pneumatic tube system that delivers that grain to the silo next the grain is dropped into the Roller Mill below the silo the milled grain is delivered to the scale Hopper room the scale Hopper machines act as giant measuring cups they will weigh out the mill grain and drop them down in very specific amounts into the cookers below them water is added and the cook begins the mixture breaks down all the starches and produces simple sugars installed by national distillers in 1936 back then it would have taken a large crew using a complex series of pulleys and levers to operate all of the machines today they are retrofitted and run off iPads [Music] after the starches have turned into sugars the mixture is scented to Castle and Key's huge fermentation tanks yeast is added to the mash the yeast will begin to eat the sugars producing three byproducts heat CO2 and alcohol after about 80 hours the result is called distiller's beer the distiller's beer mixture is about eight percent alcohol and is ready to be run through the stills they run sweet Mash but is adding sour mash capabilities the difference is what is done with the leftover salads called stillage the sour mash system would use some of the stillage during fermentation sweet Mash would not the stillage is donated to a local farmer that feeds it to his cows very happy cows in Kentucky column Stills are used for the primary round of distillation they have a series of metal perforated weights that run throughout the middle the distiller's beer is put in about two-thirds of the way up and will begin to Cascade down the plates spreading across them as it passes through hot steam injected from the bottom of the still rises up interacting with the distiller's beer extracting the alcohol is vapor it is collected as it condenses back to a liquid at the top of the still the resulting liquid is called Low wine the low wine is about 125 proof and is sent into their doubler room for a second round of distillation about 135 proof at that point it can be called high wine numake white dog or distillate just don't call it moonshine The Next Step depends on which Spirit the distillate is to become [Music] the bourbon distillate is sent to their cistern building to bring down the proof put into barrels and sent to age if they are creating vodka the distillate goes through a third round of distillation before being proofed down from 190 proof and bottled the Rye Whiskey distillate goes through the same process as the bourbon distillate or is turned into their gin like the Vodka there is a third round of distillation though this time the vapors pass through gin baskets the juniper berries and other Botanicals give the Gin its unique flavors [Music] the tour continues outside where you can see the Castle's moat which is fed by natural springs unfortunately it was pretty dry on our visit the sunken garden is the next stop it is modeled after the gardens outside of Windsor Castle in England that Colonel Taylor visited on his travels there was a second Garden but National distillers built a warehouse there Arden has an interest ing history back in 2014 the garden was buried it became known as the pit of McCracken locals used to drive by the walls and toss their garbage over into this area excavation and restoration of this part of the property was top priority it was quite a transformation into a beautiful garden that is now capable of Hosting weddings and events [Music] one person to thank is Kentucky local Mr John karloftis known for Designing rooftop gardens in Manhattan Mr karloftis created another great design here one of the contributions that John made are the white hydrangeas that line the side of the garden shortly after they were planted they discovered through newly uncovered historic documentation that Colonel Taylor had the exact same species of white hydrangeas planted along that wall over a century prior the sidewalks in the garden are the original poured concrete sidewalks from the late 1800s the mix they poured is a much heartier mixture than what we would do today this gave a great staying power but it was also expensive it is estimated that it costs more than it did to cut out all of the Limestone for the entire Castle one building they would like to restore but haven't yet is the old bottling facility it was once a very beautiful building with a glass Atrium on top of it had a fountain in the middle that the bottling line would run around restoration is Complicated by zoning laws and Road access Warehouse e is one of their two vintage rickhouses Rick houses are used to age bourbon and whiskey Warehouse e is different than many other Rick houses in Kentucky because it is a poured concrete structure when this building was built in 1953 Kentucky was giving tax breaks to businesses willing to create structures that could serve as public bomb shelters if the big one hits there's no place I'd rather be than surrounded by 58 000 barrels of bourbon and rye whiskey we were then led to their current Tasting Room at the tasting we were able to sample the castle and key restoration rye whiskey their small batch Bourbon and a drink made with their Harvest gin the knowledgeable guides will walk you through the process after the tasting you are back at the Boiler Room the converted building has some cool architecture and features here you can buy their Spirits clothing and more castle and key is a great place to learn history and have a drink [Music] from a castle in Kentucky to the farm fields of Wisconsin you all might like this video [Music]

Channel: Road Less Traveled

Views: 4,404

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Id: cgcbpbiOTL0

Length: 13min 34sec (814 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 16 2023