Barton 1792

In 1889 Thomas S. Moore built the facility known today as Barton 1792 Distillery.⁷ Before Prohibition, it filled hundreds of barrels of whiskey a day, until the 18th Amendment forced it to stop production in 1920.⁷

Getz was a Chicago businessman who had been a whiskey broker before Prohibition, and he and Abelson traded as Barton Brands.⁴ In 1957 Getz set up a small bourbon museum at the distillery, whose contents later moved to the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History in Bardstown.³ Canandaigua Wine Company bought Barton in June 1993.^2,8,9 In 2000 Canandaigua changed its name to Constellation Brands.⁹ In 2008 the distillery went back to the name Tom Moore Distillery.⁴

In March 2009 the Sazerac Company completed its purchase of Constellation Brands' value spirits business, which included the Bardstown distillery.^2,5,6 Master distiller Ken Pierce, who had started in Bardstown as senior chemist, retired on May 13, 2016.¹⁰ On June 22, 2018, about half of one of its 29 warehouses collapsed, and about 9,000 barrels fell; the rest of the building fell on July 4.² Some bourbon and brandy leaked into Withrow Creek and the Beech Fork River, and about 800–1000 fish were killed.² On February 25, 2021, barrels first went into Warehouse 33, its first new warehouse since the 1960s, with two more warehouses planned.^11,12 Sazerac later reported spending about $50 million over five years on a new boiler house, more fermenters, bigger bottling and three warehouses, raising barrel storage by 25%.