Old Pogue – Craft Bourbon Tour #5
One Saturday I decided to try to have a go at visiting the Northern Region distilleries. I didn’t do any pre planning like going online and scheduling tours. I just plotted a course for the farthest one and hoped for the best. Old Pogue is the farthest one so off I went.
I didn’t realize how small some of these craft distilleries were. Google took me to a very small street above the river, essentially the top of the hill to the right of the photo above. There was an entrance there but it didn’t look inviting so I drove to the end of the road to get to the one by the river. That one didn’t look all that inviting either but there was the sign you can see in the very first photo of this post. The entry brought me up the road and looking for a parking spot. There was an space directly behind this point of view on a landing so I headed up the hill to the buildings.
The house looked like something from Gone With the Wind scaled down.
According to the landmark sign the house has been here for a while and was part of the original distillery grounds, which means this isn’t a new start up. It’s a reopening of something grand. I was excited to learn the history.
Those are definitely a new addition to this site. The sign on the tower above convinced me I was in the right place.
Notice the license number? That’s the lowest number I’ve seen in my limited experience of discovery. This is an old brand. You can also see the first entrance I saw on the right of that photo.
After a slight rebuking for not registering online I was invited into the house to join a tour that was already underway. Success!
The house was basically a museum.
I’d never heard of these brands on the shelves but that made sense after hearing the history. The original distillery started following the Civil War in 1876, hence the very low registration number. At one time, this plot of land was part of Bourbon County, Virginia. Cool, huh?
The original Mr. Pogue died in a distillery accident in 1890, and then his son was killed in a work related accident in 1919. Making spirits was a dangerous business back in the day.
The Temperance Movement was devastating to a lot of people back in the dark days of Prohibition. That note mentions how much money the whiskey business generated. Crazy. Keep in mind, the national debt back then doesn’t comp close to where we are now…
Old Pogue was able to reopen following the 18 year nightmare of Prohibition but they didn’t survive World War II. 60 years later the fifth and sixth generation Pogue descendants revived the brand on the original site.
The tasting was very good but the price of a bottle and the long day planned ahead drove me to pass on taking a bottle with me. After my stamp I went for an unguided walk.
Old Pogue in it’s heyday produced a huge volume of bourbon. They’re a far cry from that now. This is the whole operation in one small building. Everything from distilling to aging, to bottling.
Something about the warm colors of copper and wood just speaks to me.
Trusting to leave those beautiful tools out like that.
They have the obligatory old truck on the property.
The history lesson was really interesting. I could never do it justice in my short review. This was a far cry from the modern operation of Wilderness Trail.
Old Pogue Distillery
715 Germantown Road
Maysville, KY
OldPogue.com
Old Pogue is part of the Northern Region and was stamp #5.
~ Freddy
