Sources

Rip Van Winkle Distillery's Lawrenceburg Warehouse
Lawrenceburg, KY
Circa 1935
(Building Certification #1.002)

An empty bottling house is all that's left of the old Hoffman Distillery, an echo of a time when the property bustled with the business of making bourbon.

At one time during the last century, this Kentucky distillery—which dates back to the 1880s—hummed, its operations carried out in a complex of buildings and warehouses.

Times changed, though, and the industry with it, and the buildings came down one by one, save the last remaining bottling house. Among the last buildings to go was a warehouse that, instead of being demolished, was deconstructed, and the wood was reclaimed by Turning House Millworks.

This vintage wood will be used in flooring and cabinetry, and converted into elegant, solid wood furniture by Millwork's sister company, Turning House Furniture. Wood species from the Hoffman warehouse, which stood in Anderson County, ranged from white oak to black gum, and likely came from trees growing nearby in the Kentucky Bluegrass region. Distilleries once dotted the landscape throughout parts of the state, with a dozen to two dozen in Anderson alone.

The Hoffman distillery's ordinariness, its being just one of Kentucky's legion, speaks to the rather remarkable history of a region and state. As the Anderson County website describes it, "It is a place where bourbon is as old as the community," and legend has it that whiskey production began here as early as 1775.

For the people of Anderson County, making bourbon was a way of life. A significant portion of the population was either directly or indirectly involved in the distilling business. Farmers raised corn, rye and barley to sell to the distillers, while hundreds of people worked in the large plants and warehouses where the whiskey was produced.

Sometime around 1880, S.O. Hackley ventured into the then-thriving business and built his distillery on the banks of a winding stream just outside Lawrenceburg, the county seat. Hackley took on a partner, Ike Hoffman; thus was born the Hoffman & Hackley Distillery. Hoffman later assumed control of the business, which then and forever after was known as the Hoffman Distillery—no matter what names subsequent owners themselves bore or what legal monikers they chose for their businesses.

The distillery went into receivership in 1912, not long before Prohibition forced the shuttering of all the county's distilleries. Later, the Hoffman distillery was bought by members of the county's Ripy family, known for their sour mash whiskey. They rebuilt the deteriorating structures and reopened the business in 1933. It had subsequent owners, one of the last being a father and son duo, both named Julian Van Winkle, makers of some of the world's most expensive bourbons, according to the younger Van Winkle.

It is impossible now to say exactly when the first of the Hoffman distillery buildings was erected. The structure certainly predated the requirement for such bureaucratic niceties as building permits. Still, The Evolution of the Bourbon Whiskey Industry in Kentucky by Sam K. Cecil dates the distillery to 1880.

John Perry, who retired after 30 some years as the county's property valuation administrator and whose father worked at the Hoffman Distillery, has in his possession old plats of all the county distilleries. One, which bears the date 1894, shows the Hoffman property. On it stood a distillery and a warehouse.

At its height, the Hoffman operation would have included the distillery building itself, the bottling building and a stamp office associated with the authentication of the whiskey's age and provenance, along with that first warehouse and at least two more.

Although county records don't confirm it and construction predated building permits, Perry and another county resident say they believe the last warehouse went up sometime around 1950. In these warehouses, called barrel houses, thousands of charred oak barrels held bourbon as it aged for up to 20 years.

When the Van Winkles took over, they used the Hoffman property not to distill whiskey, but as a place for their barrel houses. There they aged their premium brands, including Old Rip Van Winkle and Pappy Van Winkle's Family Reserve. The younger Van Winkle recalls the barrel house air being redolent with the smell of bourbon, the result of evaporation as the whiskey ages.

Over time, as the industry changed, small distilleries withered away. Today, only two of Anderson County's original distilleries are left. One makes Four Roses, the other Wild Turkey.

Howard Phillips, who works in the county's property valuation administration, recalls that about 30 years ago, one of the old barrel houses at the Hoffman site was slated to be razed. Before the wrecking ball swung, though, the owner allowed people to come in and take out any wood they wanted.

The wood was so strong that when a chainsaw was put to it, sparks flew, or so the story goes.

Sources: A History of Anderson County: 1780-1936 by Major Lewis W. McKee and Lydia K. Bond (1936); The Evolution of the Bourbon Whiskey Industry in Kentucky by Sam K. Cecil (2003); "County of the Month: Bourbon," Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, www.kdla.ky.gov/resources/countyomonth/bourbon.htm; Kentucky Bourbon Trail, www.kybourbontrail.com; "Family Heritage," Old Rip Van Winkle Distillery, www.oldripvanwinkle.com; "Lawrenceburg at a glance," www.lawrenceburgky.org; "Straight, or with a Splash of History," Lexington, KY: Horse Capital of the World, http://production.greatappsfast.com/idea/bourbon.php; 2009 Interviews with Julian Van Winkle, John Perry and Howard Phillips.