After years of doing evaluations and repairs on wooden rickhouses, the team at Luckett & Farley began to reconsider how rickhouses were being built and if there was a way to make them stronger from the start with steel. Rabbit Hole Distillery has a reputation for pushing the boundaries of traditions and was eager to benefit from the reduced maintenance costs a steel rickhouse would deliver.
Conecuh Brands contracted with Luckett & Farley to create a distillery and destination experience similar to the ones along Kentucky’s Bourbon Trail for Clyde May’s Alabama Style Whiskey. The expertise of our Corporate Commercial & Hospitality and Distilled Spirits studio are collaborating from site master planning through construction administration to design an attraction that will draw visitors from Alabama and beyond even though a distillery tour might be a foreign concept to them.
Inspired by the legacy of Clyde May, Luckett & Farley has created a vision for an immersive distillery experience by capturing the local tradition and Clyde’s trailblazing ingenuity. The tenets of experience design guided the design process to craft an authentic, one-of-a-kind day for guests, building upon the distillery essentials of a mill, still house, rickhouses, and bottling factory with a restaurant, museum, gift shop, apple orchard, and amphitheater.
Luckett & Farley structural, electrical, mechanical, plumbing, and civil engineers designed Rabbit Hole craft distillery’s structure and internal workings.
Luckett & Farley designed a new sawmill for Brown-Forman Corporation to manufacture staves from American white oak for whiskey barrels. The design included interior and exterior debarking and milling operations, operations offices, and maintenance facilities. Site features include log unloading and storage weight scales, truck circulation roadways, and a pond for log sprinkling operations.
Luckett & Farley designed a new cooperage plant for Brown-Forman Corporation in Decatur, AL. The new plant building has 156,000 SF manufacturing space and 11,400 SF of modern office space. The plant facility included environmentally controlled toasting room, boiler room, docks, shipping office, etc.
The plant receives white oak staves, which are then raised into a barrel. Then the barrel is toasted and charred in a special process to enhance the flavor and color of the whiskey. The steel hoops are placed and the lids, manufactured on a separate line, are placed on the barrels. Luckett & Farley designed the structure and utilities infrastructure to support all the process requirements. The project also included an extensive sawdust collection and disposal system and several wood drying kilns.
Luckett & Farley worked with the Brown-Forman team to develop a campus of palletized whiskey aging barrel warehouses for their premium bourbon whiskey brand Woodford Reserve near the distillery in pristine surroundings of rolling meadows and horse farms. The project involved the design of four warehouses and a barrel transfer building. Each warehouse is 91,000 SF with clear height to store pallets seven high.
A 140-year-old distillery in the heart of Bluegrass Country was completely renovated and rejuvenated for a new premium bourbon whiskey. The historic buildings were restored to preserve their exterior appearance; however, the interiors were completely revamped for a modern distillery including copper kettles from Scotland. Luckett & Farley provided complete architectural and engineering services for this monumental project.
Luckett & Farley designed the first phase of a new greenfield multi-level distillery for production of whiskey for Jack Daniel Distillery Campus. This project is the first phase of a $100 million expansion by Brown-Forman. The process included grain handling and mixing operations, yeasting, mash cooking, fermenting, charcoal mellowing, scale house, distillery, and barrel fill operations. This phase of the distillery featured fourteen 40,000-gallon fermenter tanks and fourteen 3,500-gallon charcoal mellowing vats with expansion of four times this amount planned to complete the campus.