Column Stills

The so-called “Industrial Revolution,” which was more evolution than revolution, saw the growth of steam power and this new form of power gradually made its way into the American distilling industry. One of the first uses of steam was in the Hope Distillery in Louisville, Kentucky in 1817. It took a few years for steam heated stills to become common in America and many stills were still being heated with open fire before the American Civil War.

In 1830, Aeneas Coffey designed the first continuous column still. It utilized steam power to produce alcohol by placing steam at the bottom of the still and mash at the top of the still and as the steam rose in the column, it stripped away the alcohol that was then removed and collected. This allowed for the production of a lot of alcohol and could produce high proof alcohol, an improvement over the traditional pot still. It took several decades before this technology became common in America. It takes a huge investment to build a column still distillery. There was also a need to mash a lot of beer to feed the still and that often meant bringing in grain from a distant location. It took the invention of the railroad to allow this amount of grain to be brought in to make the mash needed to feed the still. The results were that it was not practical for American distilleries to have a column still until after the American Civil War.

The 1870s saw a huge growth in column still distilleries in America. The war was over and the railroad lines were available to ship grain to distilleries and ship barrels of whiskey to distant cities and towns. The railroads also made it possible to build distilleries in large cities because unlike small farm distilleries, they were no longer dependent upon local farms to supply their grain. Distilleries became huge investments as the buildings needed to produce and store the whiskey cost a lot of money. Distilleries were being owned by corporations rather than by individual people.

The column still led to overproduction throughout the 19th century. This overproduction caused economic hardship for many distilleries as farm distilleries could not compete on price with these large, column still distilleries. Many of the farm distilleries closed down and sold their brands to one of the larger corporations. There was a lot of money to be made in whiskey in the late 19th century as alcohol consumption was high amongst the American population. This led to the growth of the Temperance movement which eventually led to Prohibition in 1920. The amount of money being made also was the reason for the “Whiskey Ring” scandal of the 1870s. Corrupt government agents tasked with collecting the tax money from the distilleries were allowing some distilleries to make whiskey tax free and taking a share of the money saved to fund Republican political candidates in elections. When the whiskey ring was exposed, it nearly cost President Grant his job.

The column still is the still most commonly used in American distilleries today. It is efficient and produces a lot of whiskey at a low cost. Today’s column stills are often computerized and easy to run, saving labor costs. Brands like Jack Daniels, Buffalo Trace and Jim Beam could not produce enough whiskey to feed the consumer demand without column stills.