“To be beyond any existing classification has always pleased me.” — Boyd Rice Every distiller understands that they are working with extremely explosive hazards. There is ethanol, a flammable liquid. And there is milled grain, a source of combustible dust. Despite this, when I visit distilleries, I often see areas that should be electrically classified [...]
“A rule without exceptions is an instrument capable of doing mischief to the innocent and bringing grief—as well as injustice—to those who should gain exemptions from the rule’s functioning.” — Derrick Bell I don’t remember when I first realized that there is a difference between process safety management and Process Safety Management. Process safety—the aspect [...]
“I had thought fermentation was controlled death.” — Michelle Zauner I enjoy touring distilleries. I love seeing the process of making whiskey, but I’m usually taken aback when we get to the fermentation step. Occasionally, the fermenters are enclosed and vent to the roof. Most fermenters that I see, however, are open top vats. This [...]
“I have a horror of being in confined spaces.” — Hayley Mills At a craft distillery that is not too far from Bluefield’s offices, the owner spoke about his need to climb into the pot still to clean out the stillage, especially the spent grains. He saw me wince and said, “Yeah, I know. It’s [...]
“Ventilation is the profound secret of existence.” — Peter Sloterdijk Most people, when hearing about the legal limits of ethanol, will think of Blood Alcohol Concentration (BAC). Except for Utah, where the BAC limit for driving is 0.05%, the BAC limit in the United States is 0.08%. That applies to drivers that are 21 years [...]
“Ignorance is not too dangerous. If you combine it with power, then this is a toxic mix.” — Yuvai Noah Harari Not surprisingly, eighteen of the thirty incidents in Volume 3 of the Chemical Safety Board’s series on incident reports addressed incidents at refineries and large chemical complexes. One incident in Volume 3, though, was [...]
“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” — Leo Tolstoy, in Anna Karenina I once worked with a facility that discharged process equipment cleaning water to the city sewer. They had a tough time staying below the discharge limits for copper. In turned out that the city water [...]
“You have to be prepared to take a spill.” — Shaun White Not long ago, a friend and I were watching a movie where one of the characters, despondent and bereft, stumbled down the street while clutching a bottle of spirits. As the character unlocked the door to his home, the bottle slipped from his [...]
“Whisky making is an act of cooperation between the blessings of nature and the wisdom of man.” — Masataka Taketsura While on a tour of a craft distillery, the distiller (and owner) and I got to talking about the safety aspects of distilling whiskey. The question of whether whiskey needed an SDS came up. It [...]
“Devils drinking devils and the flames are getting higher. All of Bardstown’s crying tonight, Heaven Hill’s on fire.” — Shannon Lawson, The Galoots Chris Schmidt and I recently returned from a week-long trip to Kentucky to enjoy the countryside and to sample bourbons from some of the 46 distilleries on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. As [...]
