Limestone Branch Distillery Tour

Limestone Branch Distillery
Lebanon, KY

Last Friday we stopped by Limestone Branch Distillery. It had been a while since we had previously visited them. When I last had seen Stephen Fante, their Whiskey Ambassador Extraordinaire, he had told me that they had doubled their capacity, so I was eager to see what was going on. Limestone branch is a small operation, so by doubling their capacity they went from producing one barrel of whiskey a day to two, but that’s still cool!

You may be familiar with Limestone Branch’s Yellowstone Bourbon, but they also product a rye, Minor Case Rye, a rye whiskey finished in cream sherry casks and named after founders Steve & Paul Beam’s great-grandfather (Minor Case Beam). There’s also Bowling and Burch Gin, made with 18 different botanicals. What’s also interesting is that they have an ongoing production of interesting experimental whiskeys, and one or two of these are usually available in the tastings and for purchase.

Check out our short video of Limestone Branch Distillery

I took a tour while I was there and did a tasting. The tasting included their flagship products as well as a few experimental ones.

While the distillery may be small, they have quite the operation. There’s a single mash tun, or cooker, but that produces plenty to keep their 6 fermenters filled. Three different stills are used: a stripping still and finishing still for all of the spirits, and a gin still, well, for making gin. Their gin production is very interesting. They don’t just toss the botanicals directly into the spirit or have a single basket alongside the still’s column. No they don’t. They put their botanicals in baskets on 3 different plates in the column allowing the vapor to pass through them, picking up different flavors along the way. It took extensive experimentation, but eventually the botanicals used and at which level to place them in the column was finally arrived upon. After tasting the gin, I can say that the time was well spent.

We will be doing a full write up about Limestone Branch Distillery soon on BourbonObsessed.com, but for now we hope you enjoy this video of our visit. Stay safe you all! Cheers!?

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