THE RECORD / STUDY 07
A farm distillery on Glenn's Creek.
The three stills in Study 07 stand inside limestone walls raised around 1838, on a farm where the federal government says grain has been turned into alcohol since 1812. This is the record behind them: the Pepper family and the Scottish distiller who worked their stills for twenty years, the French and Irish partners whose initials are still on the stacks, the Louisville company that bought the plant twice, the decision in the 1990s to put Scottish pot stills into a Kentucky bourbon house, and the law that says what may be called bourbon at all.
Elijah Pepper, Oscar Pepper and the stone still house
The National Park Service dates the site to 1812, when Elijah Pepper, "a farmer-distiller" in the words of the Landmark nomination, settled a 350-acre farm on the Grassy Springs Branch of Glenn's Creek, six and a half miles from Versailles. His log house still stands on the hill above the distillery. Distilling was a farm business carried on "only four to five months of the year using copper stills".
Elijah died in 1831. His son Oscar Neville Pepper replaced the log still house with stone. The nomination deduces the 1838 date from an 1883 photograph of a barrel head reading "Old Oscar Pepper Distillery 1838" and from the centennial the later owners kept in 1938. The 60 by 75 foot stone walls of that building are the core of the still house today.
Labrot & Graham's Old Oscar Pepper Distillery, National Historic Landmark Nomination (NPS Form 10-900) · Labrot and Graham Distillery · Woodford ReserveJames Crow and the sour mash method
James Crow was born at Dirleton, east of Edinburgh, in 1787, reached Kentucky by 1823 and, according to Oscar Pepper's court deposition, distilled for Pepper every season from 1833 to 1855 except 1837 and 1838. The nomination credits him with the hydrometer, saccharometer and thermometer and quotes Gary and Mardee Regan: "Crow probably was the first to make what we would recognize today as bourbon." He died in 1856.
Whether Crow invented sour mash is another matter. The nomination says he "perfected" it. The Kentucky Historical Society holds a hand-written sour mash recipe from Casey County dated 1818, from the household of Catherine Carpenter, fifteen years before Crow started at Pepper's. Michael Veach writes that "the process is much older than James Crow". The Old Crow brand carried his name after his death.
Labrot & Graham's Old Oscar Pepper Distillery, National Historic Landmark Nomination (NPS Form 10-900) · The Sour Mash Whiskey Recipe of Catherine Carpenter · Early Sour MashOld Crow, E. H. Taylor and Labrot & Graham
After Oscar Pepper died in 1865 his widow leased the plant to Gaines, Berry & Co., whose partners included Edmund H. Taylor Jr., and it traded as the Old Crow Distillery. Taylor failed in 1877; his creditor George T. Stagg took the property and in 1878 deeded the 33-acre distillery site to James H. Graham of Louisville, who at once sold half to Leopold Labrot, a French wine producer who had come to America about 1870.
Labrot & Graham held the plant for 62 years, the longest tenure on the site, as Registered Distillery No. 52. They sealed ten stone buildings at Prohibition, rebuilt after Repeal with three tile warehouses, a gravity barrel run and, in 1934, a column still. A trade writer notes the letters L & G are still faintly visible on the three stacks.
Labrot & Graham's Old Oscar Pepper Distillery, National Historic Landmark Nomination (NPS Form 10-900) · A Day on the Trail: Woodford Reserve Distillery Will Have You Seeing Double with Expansion to 6 Gorgeous Copper Pot StillsBrown-Forman, twice
The Woodford Sun announced the sale to Brown-Forman Distillers Corporation on 18 July 1940, at $75,000 for the whole plant; the company usually gives 1941, when it dammed the creek. After the war the bourbon market slid. The nomination says production stopped in 1957, storage by 1965, and that Brown-Forman conveyed the site in 1973 to Freeman Hockensmith, a farmer who used it for storage. Trade accounts say mothballed 1968, sold 1971.
Late in 1994 Brown-Forman bought it back to make a premium bourbon "using traditional methods". The rehabilitation, done to the Secretary of the Interior's standards with federal tax credits, cost $7.4 million by the nomination's account and opened for tours on 17 October 1996, the year Woodford Reserve was launched. National Register listing followed in 1995 and the National Historic Landmark plaque in 2000.
Labrot & Graham's Old Oscar Pepper Distillery, National Historic Landmark Nomination (NPS Form 10-900) · A Day on the Trail: Woodford Reserve Distillery Will Have You Seeing Double with Expansion to 6 Gorgeous Copper Pot Stills · Woodford Reserve expansion to double production · Labrot & Graham Distillery (National Historic Landmark plaque) · National Park Service, National Landmarks Committee meeting noticeThree pot stills, three passes, then six
The 1996 fit-out put three copper pot stills where the column still had stood: a 2,500-gallon beer still and two 1,650-gallon stills for high wine and spirit, per the nomination. Trade press attributes them to Forsyths of Scotland, "something unusual for the Bourbon industry"; Forsyths' own site lists no clients. Chris Morris says chairman Owsley Brown II wanted a bourbon to sit beside Cognac and single malt, and calls the third pass "the Irish style of distilling".
Spirit comes off at about 80, 110 and 156 proof and is barrelled at 110. In March 2021 Brown-Forman announced it would double capacity; by September 2022 a mirror set of Forsyths stills, again 2,500, 1,650 and 1,650 gallons, stood on pads cast in 1996, fermenters had doubled to sixteen, and the boiler plant sat in a new building beside the protected walls.
Labrot & Graham's Old Oscar Pepper Distillery, National Historic Landmark Nomination (NPS Form 10-900) · Kentucky Pot Still Bourbon · A Day on the Trail: Woodford Reserve Distillery Will Have You Seeing Double with Expansion to 6 Gorgeous Copper Pot Stills · Woodford Reserve Distillery Announces Plan to Double Distillation Capacity at its Versailles Distillery · Woodford Reserve expansion to double production · Pot Stills · WR Potstill house.png (Woodford Reserve pot stills)Henderson, Morris and McCall
Three people have held the title. Lincoln Henderson led the Brown-Forman team behind Woodford Reserve, Gentleman Jack and Jack Daniel's Single Barrel over four decades, left in 2004, founded Angel's Envy with his son and grandson, and died in Lexington in September 2013 aged 75. Chris Morris joined Brown-Forman in 1976 and, by the company's account, served as Woodford Reserve Master Distiller "for 20 years, from 2003-2023"; one trade timeline puts the handover in 2006.
On 6 February 2023 Brown-Forman named Elizabeth McCall Master Distiller, "the third in Woodford Reserve's 26-year history", with Morris as Master Distiller Emeritus. McCall joined the company's research and development team in 2009, became Master Taster in 2015 and Assistant Master Distiller in 2018. In 2026 Brown-Forman marked Morris's fifty years by reviving the Kentucky Boy bourbon name.
Lincoln Henderson: 1938-2013 · Our Distillers · Woodford Reserve Names Elizabeth McCall Master Distiller · Brown-Forman Revives Kentucky Boy Bourbon, Honoring Master Distiller Chris Morris' 50-Year Legacy · Woodford Reserve Distillery Celebrates 20 Years of Making BourbonThe Kentucky Derby
Woodford Reserve has been the "Official Bourbon of the Kentucky Derby" since 1999 and sponsored the Turf Classic Stakes from 2000. On 25 October 2017 Brown-Forman and Churchill Downs announced a five-year agreement making the brand presenting sponsor of the Derby from the 144th running on 5 May 2018, succeeding Yum! Brands. Bill Carstanjen of Churchill Downs said Brown-Forman had been "an incredible partner of our company for more than 30 years".
On 11 January 2023 the partnership was extended through 2027, with Old Forester as the official mint julep, and the distillery laid oak in the Winner's Circle to season for a barrel marking the 150th Derby in 2024. A commemorative bottle is issued each year with commissioned artwork; the 2026 bottle, for the 152nd running, carries a design by the Chicago artist Anna Murphy.
Woodford Reserve Bourbon to Be Presenting Sponsor of the Kentucky Derby · Woodford Reserve Partners with Churchill Downs to Become New Presenting Sponsor of the Kentucky Derby · Woodford Reserve Extends Partnership with Churchill Downs as Presenting Sponsor of the Kentucky Derby · Kentucky Derby BottleWhat bourbon means in law
The federal standards of identity, 27 CFR 5.143, define the class "whisky" as a distillate "from a fermented mash of any grain distilled at less than 95 percent alcohol by volume (190° proof)", stored in oak and "bottled at not less than 40 percent alcohol by volume (80° proof)". Bourbon must come from a "Fermented mash of not less than 51%" corn, be distilled at "160° or less" and be stored in "Charred new oak barrels at 125° or less". Straight bourbon adds two years in those barrels.
The regulation allows either spelling, "whisky" or "whiskey", and bars the word bourbon from "any whisky or whisky-based distilled spirits not distilled and aged in the United States". Nothing in it requires Kentucky, a pot still or any number of distillations; Woodford's three passes are a house choice, not a rule.
27 CFR § 5.143, Whisky (Standards of Identity for Distilled Spirits)Made at Versailles
- Woodford Reserve Kentucky Straight Bourbon (Distiller's Select)
- The core bottling, launched in 1996, at 90.4 proof (45.2% ABV). The company describes "more than 200 detectable flavor notes"; an independent reviewer gives the mash bill as 72% corn, 18% rye and 10% malted barley. Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
- Double Oaked
- The straight bourbon finished in a second barrel, in the company's words "deeply toasted before a light charring", bottled at 90.4 proof. Double Oaked
- Rye, Wheat and Malt
- Three further straight whiskeys from the same pot stills, listed by the distillery as "Pre-Prohibition Style Rye", a wheat whiskey with a "Unique & Historical Recipe" and "The Malt Whiskey for Bourbon Drinkers". Our Whiskeys
- Master's Collection
- An annual limited release built on finishing rather than new distillates; the 2024 edition finished bourbon, rye and wheat whiskeys in Madeira casks under Elizabeth McCall. Master's Collection
- Kentucky Derby bottle
- A commemorative liter of the straight bourbon issued each spring with commissioned artwork; the 2026 bottle marks the 152nd Derby with a design by Anna Murphy. Kentucky Derby Bottle
- Batch Proof, Distillery Series and Baccarat Edition
- The distillery's higher-proof, experimental and luxury tiers, the last described by the company as "The Ultimate Expression of American Whiskey". Our Whiskeys
Questions people ask
Why does Woodford Reserve use pot stills instead of a column still?
The company's account, given by Chris Morris in 2022, is that Owsley Brown II wanted a bourbon that could compete with Cognac and single malt, both made in copper pot stills, and so chose pot stills for the 1996 restoration. The Landmark nomination frames it as returning "the original copper still process" to a building where a column still had run since 1934. Both are attributed; the geometry study does not test either.
A Day on the Trail: Woodford Reserve Distillery Will Have You Seeing Double with Expansion to 6 Gorgeous Copper Pot Stills · Labrot & Graham's Old Oscar Pepper Distillery, National Historic Landmark Nomination (NPS Form 10-900)How big are the Woodford Reserve stills?
The National Historic Landmark nomination lists a 2,500-gallon beer still and two 1,650-gallon stills for high wines and spirit. Trade visitors in 2015, 2016 and 2022 give the same figures, one rounding to 1,600. The unit is presumed to be US gallons, about 9,460 and 6,250 litres, and no source says whether the figure is vessel volume or working charge. No height or diameter is published.
Labrot & Graham's Old Oscar Pepper Distillery, National Historic Landmark Nomination (NPS Form 10-900) · A Day on the Trail: Woodford Reserve Distillery Will Have You Seeing Double with Expansion to 6 Gorgeous Copper Pot Stills · Kentucky Pot Still Bourbon · Checking Out Woodford Reserve's DistilleryIs Woodford Reserve triple distilled?
Yes, at the Versailles distillery: beer still, high wine still, spirit still, coming off at about 80, 110 and 156 proof by the master distiller's account. An independent reviewer adds that the bottled Distiller's Select also contains column-still bourbon from Brown-Forman's Shively distillery in Louisville, in a ratio the company has not disclosed.
A Day on the Trail: Woodford Reserve Distillery Will Have You Seeing Double with Expansion to 6 Gorgeous Copper Pot Stills · Woodford Reserve Distiller's Select Bourbon (2017) ReviewWho made the Woodford Reserve stills?
Trade press and trade visitors say Forsyths of Scotland made the original three in the 1994 to 1996 restoration and the three added in 2022. Forsyths' website describes its hand-made pot stills and its Rothes address but does not name Woodford or any other client, so the attribution rests on the press, not the maker.
Kentucky Pot Still Bourbon · A Day on the Trail: Woodford Reserve Distillery Will Have You Seeing Double with Expansion to 6 Gorgeous Copper Pot Stills · Pot StillsDid James Crow invent sour mash?
The Landmark nomination says he "perfected" the sour mash method at Oscar Pepper's distillery between 1833 and 1855 and brought instruments to the work. A sour mash recipe from Casey County dated 1818 is held by the Kentucky Historical Society, and the bourbon historian Michael Veach writes that the process "is much older than James Crow". The fairer claim is that Crow standardised it.
Labrot & Graham's Old Oscar Pepper Distillery, National Historic Landmark Nomination (NPS Form 10-900) · The Sour Mash Whiskey Recipe of Catherine Carpenter · Early Sour MashWhen did Woodford Reserve double its capacity?
Announced 22 March 2021, running by September 2022. Three more Forsyths pot stills of the same sizes went onto pads cast for them in 1996, fermenters went from eight to sixteen, and a new boiler building was put up beside the protected still house. Write-ups that give 2019 are quoting the year the brand first passed one million cases.
Woodford Reserve Distillery Announces Plan to Double Distillation Capacity at its Versailles Distillery · A Day on the Trail: Woodford Reserve Distillery Will Have You Seeing Double with Expansion to 6 Gorgeous Copper Pot Stills · Woodford Reserve expansion to double production · Woodford Reserve Plans To Expand Distillery, Add Three Copper Pot StillsSources are linked under each section. Company statements are attributed as such. Where sources disagree, the page says which figure it uses and why. Corrections: hello@stillbound.ai.