O.Z. Tyler Distillery leadership said that Monday morning’s partial rickhouse collapse has never happened in the bourbon industry, which made formulating a plan for clean up difficult.
“Normally when a rickhouse collapses, it collapses,” said O.Z. Tyler CEO Simon Burch. “This clearly wasn’t the case here. This was a very contained collapse of one corner of one quadrant.”
Monday morning’s early storms were the trigger of the collapse, Burch said, but the exact reason for the fall may never be known.
Distillery leadership along with Environmental Protection Agency officials, Daviess County Fire Department and Daviess County Emergency Management Agency have developed a controlled deconstruction plan to slowly, but safely bring down the remaining 15,000 or so barrels.
Evansville-based demolition contractor Klenck is in charge of the deconstruction of the six-story rickhouse, which contained just over 19,000 barrels of bourbon. Klenck’s crane operator is tasked with plucking individual barrels from the still-standing portion of the rickhouse. As of day one, that pluck rate was 150 barrels per day.
“Controlled deconstruction of a rickhouse is not something that has been done before,” Burch said, but it his hope that with time that recovery rate will speed up.
Distillery officials said they expect the entire deconstruction will take two to three months, during which Ewing Road will remain closed.
“It’s not the cheapest way of doing it, but it’s certainly the safest way,” Burch said.
O.Z. Tyler Master Distiller Jacob Call said the distillery’s first priority is safety.
Soil berms were constructed around the collapsed structure to stop any leaking bourbon from entering a nearby ditch and potentially contaminating groundwater. So far, the EPA has not expressed concern that any environmental harm has been caused.
Twice per day, distillery leadership meets with four members of the EPA, DCFD and DCEMA to bring all parties up-to-date on the deconstruction.
That team of officials makes daily decisions regarding the process, like Thursday’s decision to pump out any standing water in the adjacent ditch as an extra means of precaution. Groundwater is also tested on site twice a day. So far, tests have not shown any contamination.
Currently, the demolition team is moving undamaged barrels to other storage warehouses on the distillery’s property. Damaged barrels are moved to a containment area where, if possible, they are repaired. The bourbon of the unrepairable barrels is being salvaged and rebarreled.
Call said the distillery will remain in full production and has sufficient storage space on site until the end of July. However, above average rainfall has delayed the construction of O.Z. Tyler’s storage facilities in Ohio County.
The collapse of Rickhouse H doesn’t change the way O.Z. Tyler will build bourbon storage facilities in the future.
“The best way to build rickhouses is still with oak wood, not metal, not stainless steel,” Burch said. “The only thing we would look at is how many stories high.”
Distillery officials are still debating on replacing Rickhouse H.
“We will certainly need the warehouse space,” Burch said. “We are a significantly expanding distillery. But it’s premature to say if they will rebuild on that exact site.”
Burch said it’s also too early to assess the financial impact of the collapse, which will be determined by the amount of damaged barrels. All of the bourbon in the affected quadrant was in the one-year age range.
“There were 4,000 barrels displaced in the original event,” Birch said. “It’s too early to tell amongst those 4,000 what the total damage is, but early indications are quite low based on the very minimal amount of bourbon that has spilled out.”
