Facilities
Located in Shively, a section of Louisville with a legendary whiskey heritage, Michter's Distillery is a 12.8 acres, 87,000 square foot facility. A fully-licensed distilled spirits plant (DSP KY-20003), the Shively facility is currently home to all of Michter's processing and bottling operations as well as two of its small pot stills and a custom-built 32 inch diameter, 46 foot high copper column still with a distinctive copper pot still doubler.
At Michter's, we believe that in order to make the highest quality whiskey you have to start with the highest quality grain. At our Shively distillery, all of the grain we use is non-GMO, USDA grade#1, and sourced from within the United States.
Prior to production, we use a pneumatic probe to take are presentative grain sample of the day's grain delivery. The sample is then tested to ensure that our grain meets all USDA #1specifications. Our Distillery Quality Control Lab houses equipment and many sophisticated and costly instruments that are integral to ensuring that we are producing the highest quality product possible in each step of the production process.
Michter's has two custom made cage mills located under the grain storage silos, one for corn and one for smaller grains like rye, malted barley, etc. We selected cage mills rather than other common types of mills because our cage mills are able to consistently mill our corn, rye and malted barley to our desired particle size distribution for each grain without scorching the grains, thereby contributing to a consistent, high quality product.
Our cooker and fermenters were made by Vendome Copper & Brass Works, in the opinion of many, the finest custom distillation equipment manufacturer in the United States. Our cooker is set to our expectations to yield the highest quality mash. Our mashes and yeast are added to our fermenters for a particular number of days at monitored temperatures to ensure the optimal environment for reactions to occur in order to create fermented beer for distillation.
Our 100% copper column still is 46 feet tall and is 32 inches in diameter. It has 19 trays and, above them, 4 levels of extra copper grids custom designed by our distillers for the production of an even more extraordinary distillate. This distillation system is comprised of approximately 11,000 pounds of copper and was built by Vendome Copper & Brass Works. Our 250 gallon pot still doubler is made of pure copper and is 9 feet tall by 5 feet 6 inches wide. This is where our second distillation occurs. The first distillation is where the distillate’s flavor starts to develop, and the second distillation removes certain impurities that remain after the distillate has left the column still.
We believe that making great whiskey is part science and part art, and we use both quantitative and qualitative methods to ensure consistency in the quality of our products. We use a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer (GCMS) and ahigh-performance liquid chromatography system(HPLC) to identify specific compounds in our distillate and maturate and we rely on our team of trained sensory panelists to review and evaluate the various aromas and flavors in our whiskeys. Prior to entry into a Michter's barrel, the distillate must pass not one, but two tests: the chemical analysis and the human organoleptic analysis.
All Michter's whiskey is aged in Kentucky rickhouses. The Bluegrass State is an optimal location for aging whiskey because of its dramatic seasonal temperature fluctuations, but Michter's takes the extra step of aging its whiskey in heat cycled warehouses despite the significant extra cost of greater "Angel's Share" evaporation. We do so to maximize the amount of flavor the whiskey extracts from the barrel during aging.
