Barton Brands

Barton Brands of Kentucky logo

Barton Brands, Ltd. was a company that produced a variety of distilled beverages and liqueurs and is now part of the Sazerac Company, which is headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana, and has its principal offices in Louisville, Kentucky. The Barton distillery, currently known as the Barton 1792 distillery, was originally established in 1879, and is located in Bardstown, Kentucky.

Some of Barton's better-known brands and products have included the 1792 Bourbon, Kentucky Tavern, and Very Old Barton bourbons; Fleischmann's, Skol and Wave Vodkas; the 99 line of schnapps (99 Apples, 99 Bananas, etc.); Calypso and Barton rums; Capitan, El Toro and Montezuma tequilas and Mr. Boston and Fleischmann's gins.

In 1993, Barton was acquired by Canandaigua Wine Company, later Constellation Brands.[1] In 2009, Constellation sold Barton to the Sazerac Company.[2]

List of products

The Barton 1792 Distillery

The distillery currently known as the Barton 1792 distillery was originally established in 1879.[7] As of June 2018, it comprises 51 buildings – most of which are rickhouses for barrel aging.[7]

Rickhouse collapse in 2018

In June and July 2018 one of the 29 rickhouses at the Barton 1792 Distillery collapsed in two stages. The rickhouse had a storage capacity of about 20,000 barrels,[8] and contained about 18,000 when the first collapse occurred,[7] with each barrel having a capacity of 53 US gallons (200 L).[8] On June 22, 2018, about half of the building collapsed and caused about 9,000 barrels of spirits being aged there to fall with the structure, although about two-thirds of the barrels remained intact.[8][7][9][10] The facility had a 12-foot (3.7 m) deep basement to help contain spills, but some bourbon and brandy leaked into the nearby Withrow Creek and Beech Fork River, and about 800–1000 fish were killed.[8][7][9] The building had been constructed in the 1940s,[7] and one of the walls had been in the process of being repaired when the collapse occurred.[8] Sazerac was given a notice of state law violation for the spill and for failure to properly notify the authorities.[10] About two weeks later, on July 4, 2018, the remainder of the building collapsed. No one was injured in either collapse.[11]

See also

References

  1. ^ Lazarus, George (April 29, 1993). "Deal Is Uncorked For Barton Brands". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  2. ^ Lawrence, Keith (January 13, 2009), "Constellation Spirits sold in Sazerac deal" (PDF), Messenger-Inquirer, archived from the original (PDF) on March 20, 2009
  3. ^ "Barton 1792's New Thomas S. Moore Bourbons Go the Extended Cask Finishing Route". 10 December 2020.
  4. ^ "Flatboat Bourbon – Liquor Barn".
  5. ^ "El Toro Tequila". El Toro Tequila official web site. Sazerac Company. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  6. ^ "Coulsons Vodka". Sazerac Company official website. Sazerac Company. Archived from the original on July 6, 2018. Retrieved July 6, 2018.
  7. ^ a b c d e f "Kentucky warehouse collapses, sending thousands of whiskey barrels crashing to the ground". MSN. June 23, 2018. Archived from the original on June 23, 2018. Retrieved June 23, 2018 – via New York Daily News.
  8. ^ a b c d e Archie, Ayana; Gast, Phil (June 22, 2018). "9,000 barrels of bourbon fall in Kentucky distillery building collapse". CNN. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
  9. ^ a b Costello, Darcy (June 25, 2018). "Hundreds of fish killed in leak from bourbon warehouse collapse". MSN. Archived from the original on June 26, 2018. Retrieved July 5, 2018 – via USA Today.
  10. ^ a b Ansari, Maira (June 25, 2018). "1,000 fish killed: Bourbon distiller given state violation notice for pollution after warehouse collapse". WAVE-TV. Retrieved July 5, 2018.
  11. ^ Warren, Beth; Shipman, Bobby (July 4, 2018). "The rest of the Barton bourbon warehouse collapsed. Here's what we know". Louisville Courier-Journal. Retrieved July 5, 2018.