Brown-Forman Distillery, INC.

The Brown-Forman Distillery in Shively, Kentucky is the production engine behind one of the only family-controlled major spirits companies in the world — and the operation responsible for distilling Old Forester, Woodford Reserve (column-distilled portion), Coopers' Craft, Early Times, and Old Forester's specialty releases. Brown-Forman Corporation traces back to 1870 when pharmaceutical salesman George Garvin Brown launched what would become Old Forester; the Shively facility itself is the company's primary Kentucky production site, a sprawling industrial complex on Dixie Highway just southwest of Louisville. The single most distinctive thing about Brown-Forman as a company isn't a product — it's the cooperage. The Brown-Forman Cooperage in Louisville, founded in 1945, is one of only three production cooperages in the world owned by a distiller (the others belong to Independent Stave Company partnerships and Heaven Hill). Brown-Forman makes its own barrels for nearly every bourbon and Tennessee whiskey it produces, including Jack Daniel's. The cooperage controls oak species selection, stave drying time (24+ months for premium releases), barrel char level (#3 char as the house standard), and toast pattern — variables that other distilleries outsource and accept on faith. The Shively distillery's mash bills cover the full Brown-Forman portfolio: the high-rye 72/18/10 used for Old Forester, the slightly different specs for Woodford Reserve's column-still portion, the wheat-be…