48 THE NAVIGATOR | FEATURE The pot-to-pot system and cypress wood fermenters at Fort Nelson Dan McKee at the 46-foot copper column still at Shively The stills at Shively Michters Shively, Louisville, KY Today Michter’s operates two distillery sites in Louisville, Kentucky: the main production campus in Shively, and a smaller distillery in the historic Fort Nelson Building. At Shively Michter’s uses a 46-foottall copper column still, paired with a 250-gallon copper pot still doubler. “A lot of companies use stainless steel with copper, but our distillation systems are 100 per cent copper, which makes for a very clean, flavourful distillate going into the barrel,” explains Michter’s Master Distiller Dan McKee. Michter’s Fort Nelson Distillery is home to a 550-gallon copper pot still that does the first distillation, and a 110-gallon copper pot still doubler originally used at Michter’s Pennsylvania distillery. The Fort Nelson Distillery offers educational tours with whiskey tastings, while The Bar at Fort Nelson upstairs features a menu of classic cocktails curated by spirits and cocktail historian David Wondrich. While most of Michter’s production takes place in Shively, the Fort Nelson pot-to-pot distillery is capable of producing some very special whiskey, says McKee. “And the distillate is really interesting,” adds Magliocco. “If you use the exact same yeast and exact same mash bill on the column-to-pot, or the pot-topot system, you get two very different distillates. We also plan to eventually have some Fort Nelson releases using estate-grown grains from our Springfield farm.”
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