32. Thinking about Bourbon and things you can't excavate.

I ran into Gerry Seavo the other day. We were in downtown Frankfort. It was one of those days when the valley is thick with the smell of Buffalo Trace drying their spent mash.  On days like that I throw open the windows of my house, my office, and my car. Anything to fill my nose with that delicious smell.

It even permeated our short conversation. Gerry said, "Man. That smell will knock you over," sparking a short discussion about Bourbon, drying mash, how different distilleries use their spent mash, and on.

It stuck in my head because I realized that this smell is something that you can never excavate. It is definitely something that changes one's experience of a place. On the first day of excavating at Buffalo Trace one of the crew said she didn't like the smell (it was loud. I'm sure I misheard). After spending a day working in the center of the distillery everything we wore was imbued with the scent.

There are plenty of other things that may never be excavated.

"Mold" growing on the sides of Bourbon warehouses adds character to some of the buildings. Although other people find it to be a nuisance.

The personalities and relationships within the industry have no material markers. The archival record preserves some of this. Other aspects are related through oral histories. The personalities of Jack Jouett and Peter or Charles Buck bleed through their litigation.

So many of the materials associated with the industry degrade. Most of the wood from a cooper returned to dust a long time ago, although the barrel bands may remain. A larger problem (for archaeology) is that the work spaces were kept clean. Broken stoneware jugs may be the only trace of containers used on early distilling sites. However, unless the accident happened while the distillery was being abandoned, these pottery shards would have been cleaned and moved to the trash.

Sound is something that can never be excavated. At Buffalo Trace, our work was next to the cooling tower. This machine draws water from the river and cools it to the correct temperature for whatever task it is needed for. It is also the loudest machine known to man. Wearing earplugs helped, but we had to develop a sign language for "excavate 20 centimeters and level out the floor."

The GPR survey at James Pepper distillery was quiet. The only sound was the scratch of the plastic sled on the gravel parking lot.

What did historic distilleries sound like? Did the sound of equipment drown out the voice of the workers? Or could the booming laugh of a master distiller be heard across the distillery grounds?