Thursday, July 26, 2007

Warehouse, Nelson County

A rickhouse (or warehouse) where row upon row of charred oak barrels filled with Bourbon whiskey are aged in Nelson County, Kentucky. The black stuff growing on the building, the fences, the trees, and just about everything else is a fungus that thrives on alcohol fumes. One of the research questions I've tried to answer for I,Quantrill is how common this strange stuff was around the distilleries and still houses in Nelson County during the Civil War, and I haven't found a definitive answer. If you know for sure, contact me at max@maxmccoy.com. This particular rackhouse is at the Jim Beam American Outpost at Clermont, about 25 miles south of Louisville.