Woodford Reserve

After Elijah died in 1831, his son Oscar Pepper took over, and the business became known as the Oscar Pepper Distillery.^1,2,8 Today's distillery was formerly known as the Old Oscar Pepper Distillery.^1,2,8 Oscar hired James Crow, a Scottish-born chemist, as master distiller, and Crow tested temperature and sugar content to make the whiskey consistent.^1,4,9 Crow is often credited with the sour-mash method, adding acidic spent mash from the last run to new mash, though some say it was already known.^1,4,9 In 1838 Irish stonemason Thomas Mayhall built Oscar a stone distillery from local limestone, and it still stands with later additions.^1,8,10 Oscar died in 1865, and his widow leased the land to investors while their eldest son, James, managed the site.¹ In 1866 Gaines, Berry & Company leased the distillery to keep making whiskey by Crow's methods, and in the 1870s it branded the whiskey Old Crow.^1,9 In 1872 James Pepper sued his mother for control of the land; a few years later he joined investor Edmund H. Taylor Jr. to renovate the distillery.¹

Pepper and then Taylor failed, and in 1878 James Graham of Frankfort and Leopold Labrot, a French wine merchant, took over and renamed it Labrot & Graham Distillery.^1,2,8 The Labrot & Graham firm held the property for 62 years, longer than any other owner.^1,2,8 Prohibition shut the distillery in 1919, and it stood empty until 1933.¹ New managers Richard Baker and Claude V. Bixler then repaired and rebuilt it, often reusing materials from ruined buildings on the site.¹ In 1934 a barrel run more than 500 feet long was installed to move barrels to the warehouses, and it is still used.¹ Terra cotta tile warehouses went up between 1934 and 1940, along with three 100-foot smoke stacks; today's stacks are replicas.

Brown-Forman bought the distillery in 1940 and made various whiskeys there, most of which no longer exist.^1,8,11 A drop in the bourbon market after World War II forced it to close the plant in 1957.¹ In 1973 the whole property was sold to a local farmer, who used it for farm storage.^1,11