Inspections of affected barrels will take time after distillery flood

By Bruce Schreiner | Associated press

Frankfort, Ky. -Signs of Renewal are underway in the Buffalo Trace distillery in Kentucky since the waters of the floods that flooded the whiskey manufacturing campus retreated. But executives say that the thorough task of inspecting any barrel of Bourbon touched by high water will take time.

The historic distillery has resumed the shipping spirits and hopes to clarify their bottling operation in the next few days, Jake Wenz, CEO and president of Sazerac Co. and the distillery said on Friday. The campus could go to visitors soon with a limited basic, but for now it is closed to the guests until Sunday.

“The restoration of this national historical milestone is our highest priority to guarantee a quick return to making award -winning whiskey, awarded and welcoming guests from all over the world,” Wenz said in a statement.

Frankfort headquarters, based in Kentucky, which produces some of the most sought after Bourbon brands, was flooded by flooding waters of the nearby Kentucky river after days of downspouts rivers on parts of the BLATE record.

Now that the murky floods are gone, cleaning in Buffalo Trace is progressing. Teams of engineers and restoration experts have been evaluating damage to the buildings that were flooded.

The general amount of damage is still being determined, said the distillery.

These damage evaluations include some of the barrels full of aged whiskey. Bourbon obtains its flavor and aging of the duration of gold brown. The workers were able to move some barrels of Bourbon to the upper floors of the storage stores before prolonged rains produced floods.

The inspections of any barrel touched by the Banden Thorsday flood and will continue until each is carefully evaluated, a process that could take several weeks to complete, said the distillery. He has said how many barrels they were affected, but said he does not expect any significant loss of inventory.

“This is a very involved process, including barrel inspection, as well as a rigorous quality test that we do with all our products,” said Harlen Wheatley, teacher distiller of Buffalo Trace.

According to his experience of previous floods, the distillery is “safe from our process” and that successful recovered the barrels affected by the flood, said Wheatley. The distillery has markers of several high water brands of previous floods within its buildings.

“A lot of heart and soul enters each product we make, so our team is dedicated to trying with great scrutiny each possible barrel affected by the waters of the floods to ensure that there are no problems,” he said.

The teams began to clean the distillery visitors center, where the flood reached the first floor. Duration repairs, the distillery said they plan to roop them a modified version of its visitors center as soon as possible.