Thousands of bourbon barrels spill from collapsed Barton 1792 warehouse

Show Caption Hide Caption A Google Earth view of the Barton 1792 distillery warehouse collapse A warehouse holding approximately 18,000 barrels of bourbon collapsed Friday.

UPDATE: A day later, thousands of bourbon barrels still scattered by warehouse

Part of a bourbon warehouse at a Bardstown distillery collapsed Friday morning, sending thousands of bourbon barrels spilling out of the building.

About 9,000 of the roughly 18,000 barrels held in the affected warehouse at Barton 1792 Distillery were involved in the collapse, reported just before 11 a.m., according to Nelson County Dispatch Director Milton Spalding.

No one was injured, but officials are investigating if any of the barrels are leaking Kentucky’s signature spirit into the ground or waterways.

The distillery property abuts Beech Fork River and fires at distilleries in the past have caused the water to become contaminated, officials said. Alcohol floating on the surface of the water has also caught fire.

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The cause of the collapse has not yet been determined. "It may be several days or weeks before a full assessment of the damage ... is fully complete," according to a company news release.

“It was just a regular kind of morning with light rain, cloudy skies,” Spalding said. “… So we’re not sure what triggered it.”

Spalding responded to the distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky, but couldn’t see whether there was damage to the barrels, which lay amid the rubble of the building.

“Of course, there was the smell of bourbon in the air, but that’s kind of common in the warehouse facility, anyway,” he said.

"We are assessing how many of the impacted barrels can be recovered," said the company's news release. "A mix of various distilled products at various ages were stored in that warehouse."

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Barton bourbon is owned by the New Orleans-based Sazerac company, which also owns the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort. Barton 1792 Distillery, established in 1879, is the oldest fully-operating distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky, according to its website.

Kentucky distilleries are aging a total 6.8 million bourbon barrels, according to the Kentucky Distillers' Association.

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Engineers were on site Friday to secure the remaining warehouse structure and contain what was involved in the collapse. The Kentucky Department for Environmental Protection was also there to evaluate any impact the spill had on the warehouse surroundings. Initial water samples came back clean.

The warehouse was built on a concrete foundation and had a wooden structure with aluminum siding, Spalding said.

It’s one of 29 barrel aging warehouses on the distillery’s 196 acres, which also feature 22 other buildings, including a still house. The distillery employed 392 full-time employees in 2017, according to a Kentucky incentives database.

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Kim Huston, president of the Nelson County Economic Development Agency, said the warehouse had stood on the property for decades.

Spalding wasn’t aware of the last time the warehouse was inspected and referred questions to the company.

The company, through the news release, stated the distillery is expected to be open for tours on Saturday and it will resume normal business operations on Monday. Barton 1792’s normal summer shutdown, which is when bourbon distilleries shut down for a short time period in the summer for repairs and routine maintenance, began last week.

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What is a Rickhouse?

Rickhouses or rackhouses are whiskey aging warehouses where barrels are stored in “ricks,” or racks that stack barrels three high and store them on their sides, according to whiskeyadvocate.com.

How much bourbon is in one barrel?

The typical bourbon barrel is 53 U.S. gallons in size, which is the de facto standard whisky barrel size worldwide. Some distillers transfer their whisky into different barrels to "finish" or add qualities to the final product.

Supriya Sridhar: 502-582-4078 or SSridhar@gannett.com; Twitter: @Supriyasridhar. Darcy Costello: 502-582-4834; dcostello@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @dctello. Bailey Loosemore: 502-582-4646; bloosemore@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @bloosemore.