Mark - in this past week's Behind the Label you discussed wooden stills and state stills are "universally made of copper and stainless steel" and commenting on the old wooden stills, "wonder what those spirits would have tasted like." I'm not sure if you are aware, but the Eldorado Estates rum distillery group in Guyana still has three wooden stills in active production. One from the old Port Mourant Estate and is a double wooden pot still. Also a single wooden pot still from the Versailles Estate. The third is from the old Enmore Sugar Estate and is a wooden continuous Coffey still. From their website, "It is similar, if not identical, to the very first continuous still constructed and patented by an Irish excise officer Aeneas Coffey in 1832". All are nearly 200 years old and still in operation. While primarily used for blending, you can still get some single source distillate bottles from El Dorado from time to time which as exclusively from each of these stills. They make the claim that these are the only three fully functional wooden stills in the world.

Posted by dankovci at 2024-02-24 01:45:49 UTC