This barrel was filled at the Stitzel Weller Distillery on December 10th, 1986. Its original destiny may have been the company's flagship brand - Old Fitzgerald. But by the time it was ready for bottling, Stitzel Weller had closed and its stocks and brands sold to other distilleries. The barrel was emptied in February 2007 by the Old Rip Van Winkle Distillery to be used in a bottling of their Pappy Van Winkle's Family Reserve bourbon.

Julian Van Winkle was very kind to send me this barrel head as part of a trade for a vintage Old Fitzgerald decanter he wanted for his collection.

Notice where a hole was drilled in the barrel head and then plugged with a dowel in order to take a sample for tasting.

The four pictures below illustrate several steps in the process of refinishing this barrel head. First is the intact barrel at Buffalo Trace, soon after being dumped (emptied). Next is the barrel head as it arrived at my house. Note the leakage around the plugged tasting hole mentioned above. Third is the back of the head, showing what the charred inside of a barrel looks like. The final picture shows the head disassembled so I can sand it easier. Notice how it is held together with dowels. Since this head had 20 years of age on it I was not able to feather the sanding into the stenciled area as seamlessly as I usually can.

A while back I asked Master Distiller Jim Rutledge if I could get a barrel head for my collection. He told me that Four Roses didn't sell finished "promotional" barrel heads, but he could probably scrape up a used one down at the warehouse facility. He was concerned that the process of cleaning and finishing it might destroy the stenciling, but I assured him that I had done this before and it would work out fine. Jim was pleased and replied; "I'd rather have an authentic barrel head than one finished for PR - I like the real thing."

A month later I took a tour at Four Roses and, sure enough, Jim had a barrel head waiting for me. It took a lot of work, and a fair amount of finesse, but it cleaned up quite nicely.

For the final touch, I asked Jim if he would sign it for me, which he graciously did.

What can I say? Mark Brown went above and beyond to create the jewel of my collection. The barrel head is signed by:

• Elmer T. Lee - Master Distiller Emeritus
• Gary Gayheart - Master Distiller 1972 - 2005
• Harlen Wheatley - Master Distiller since 2005
• Ronnie Eddins - Warehouse Manager since 1984
• Leonard Riddle - Warehouse Manager since 1998
• Julian P. Van Winkle III - Old Rip Van Winkle Distillery
• Mark Brown - President and CEO of Buffalo Trace

I attended the Woodford Reserve Bourbon Academy in June 2005. At the end of the class you get a lovely parting gift. In the past it has been a barrel head. This time it was a bung hammer, which we each got Master Distiller Chris Morris to sign. I was on a mission to bring home a few barrel heads from the distilleries I visited, so I picked up an unfinished barrel head at the gift shop for reasonable money.

I finished the barrel head with some light sanding and polyurethane and hung it on the wall with the bung hammer. A Woodford Reserve bung covers the nail the hammer hangs from. The wall still looked a little bare, so I finished it off with four pictures from the Academy.

The pictures are, clockwise from the bottom: Chris Morris pouring us a drink, the academy classroom, looking up in a rickhouse, the three copper pot stills.

While at Wild Turkey I was told that the distillery did not sell barrels but if I wandered up behind the more distant ironclads there was a barrel "bone yard" where I might find something.

Well wander I did, and what a mess. I found barrels and heads that had been weathering in the fields for who knows how long. Braving the risk of snakes and unsympathetic distillery workers I finally found the pieces of a barrel head I thought I could do something with. The head was weathered to the color of driftwood and had fallen apart into slats, but I realized that this would make the perfect contrast to my shiny new Woodford Reserve barrel head.

I cleaned it up and burned in the existing stenciling. Then it got a good soaking of tung oil to re-hydrate the wood and seal in the remaining char on the backside. To maintain the rustic look I hung it on the wall so that the individual slats are still loose, held together merely by the original dowels and the inward clamping pressure of the picture hanging wire.

Master Distiller Jimmy Russell was kind enough to sign it for me at the 2006 Bardstown Bourbon Sampler.

The pictures are clockwise, from top left: Four Roses column still, Heaven Hill ironclad farm, Old Taylor Distillery, and inside a Buffalo Trace rickhouse. Why no pictures from Wild Turkey? Wild Turkey does not allow taking pictures at the distillery. (the tour guide got a bit cranky even when I tried to take an exterior shot of the ironclads)

Does this one count when it's still attached to the barrel?

Click here to see my Jack Daniel's barrel bar and how I eventually got Master Distiller Jimmy Bedford to sign it.

A new event at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival in 2007 was a photography contest called Kentucky Bourbon Shots. Photographs depicting the theme of Kentucky Bourbon could be entered in one of two categories: Color or Black and White.

I won the Black and White category with the photo to the left titled:

Kentucky Sunrise
Dawn breaks on aging barrels in Barton’s Warehouse ‘Z’

Part of the prize was this beautiful etched barrel head. Perfect!