This is the first I’ve heard of a distillery turning to alternative energy sources. Admittedly I pay more attention to the beer industry so I’m familiar with breweries from Anheuser-Bush Inbev and Molson Coors to New Belgium and Brooklyn Brewery using energy produced from wind, spent grains, spilled beer and waste water. Chances are Maker’s Mark isn’t the first to look for ways to squeeze some energy out of their by-products but they still deserve recognition for doing so.
Making booze, any kind of booze, takes a lot of energy and water. Growing the sugar source, fruit or grain, that will ferment into alcohol, transporting the materials, heating and/or boiling vast amounts of liquid, cooling vast amounts of liquid, cleaning and sanitizing tools and packaging, and storage and shipping all take energy or water and sometimes both. So anytime a booze maker can give one of these two things back or cut down on their usage of them it’s a good thing.
In Maker’s Mark’s case they’re using a system that traps the spent grains and water from the distillery. This soup is then allowed to basically rot which produces gasses like methane. When controlled and used properly these gases can be burned in place of natural gas. MM’s new system, which cost them $8 million, will produce up to 165 btus of usable gas or an offset of 15-30% of the natural gas they currently use.
Not bad at all, Maker’s Mark!
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Something needs to be done. There’s a real problem looming on the horizon and I’m not sure that we have done enough to properly prepare ourselves for it.
Al Gore and environmental activists have finally, after years of persistence, convinced the world that global climate change is an issue that must be dealt with. As a result more hybrid cars are being sold than ever before, alternative energy sources like wind and solar are gaining more and more prominence. And alternative fuel sources to oil are being produced in greater quantities than ever before.
That’s what’s causing the problem. Corn is a popular choice as a bio-fuel alternative to oil. But there are only so many farmers in the world and they haven’t been sitting idle all of these years just waiting for a bio-fuel revolution. They’ve been growing other crops but with demand for corn rising and driving up the cost, it’s hard for these farmers to say no. And when they say yes to corn, they have to say goodbye to whatever it was that they were growing before.
Do you see where I’m going with this? Farmers that used to grow crops that are turned into our favorite booze are being replaced. Barley, grown for beer, and agave, grown for tequila, are both falling to king corn. As a result beer is becoming more expensive and that trend is expected to continue in the future. Tequila will also grow more expensive and, worse, become harder to find. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before we see the same trend begin to affect Scotch, vodka, Irish whisky, bourbon, rum, etc.
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