The Ethan Smith Blog - The Podcast!

Have 49 minutes? Want to hear my story of how I began the Michter's collection?

Click here: http://fermentedadventure.com/

Click FA Podcast at the top of the page and then click your preferred listening platform.

Look for the podcast with me, Ethan Smith, talking about Michter's Distillery.


Rich Shane, of Fermented Adventure traveled to meet me and view my collection. After a short tour, we got down to talking about Michter's and how I got interested in it. We sip a little Michter's too!




Of course, the obligatory Michter's picture. This one shows the bottling line with a young Dick Stoll in a white shirt helping the ladies bottle up some product.......

I've been remiss in my posting duties. Again.

There have been some changes in my life recently that have kept me quite busy. I apologize for this, but it has left few moments for me to sit down and blog. Anyway, I haven't forgotten about Michter's. Just recently I was able to get to a public sale and save some more rare Michter's pieces for preservation. And just yesterday I got a very nice Pennco bourbon barrel head from EBay. The collection grows and changes monthly. I have been able to add some Continental pieces courtesy of Dave Ziegler. As always, I will post a picture of Pennsylvania whiskey history.......

 Dave and I "loading barrels" into the elevator at Kinsey/Continental.

 The haul from the sale. Pure Pennco/Michter's bliss!

One of the companies that Michter's tried to emulate was Jack Daniel's. Unfortunately, that nasty rot-gut is still made and Michter's is not. I don't understand how people could like something that tastes like bananas and bitter char over something that had the character of Old Forester with added rye bite and herbal overtones. But hey, this is the same nation that thinks compact discs sound better than records.....

And To Complement My Michter's Barrels.....

.....I got a Continental Distilling barrel! A big thanks to Dave Z. and the guys at the local landscaping business for getting me one! Here are 2 pictures of it as received. I'm going to fully recondition the barrel so it is preserved.

The OTHER abandoned Pennsylvania distillery.

Today I had the great fortune to tour the abandoned Continental Distillery in Linfield,PA with Dave Ziegler, who was an employee there. Like Michter's, the site is in general ruin and heavily vandalized- having closed about the same time as Michter's (1986). Majority of the buildings are closed and locked, but a few were opened up for us. Here are a few shots from today's explorations. Enjoy and a HUGE thank you to Dave!