Spirits need copper stills like students need schools. Without that polish and refinement, they’d be lost. Vendome Copper & Brass Works has been operated continuously since the early 1900s and is one of the few U.S. copper fabricators making copper stills today.
The business is still family run—founder W. Elmore Sherman, Sr.’s grandsons are in charge now—crafting stills for industry legends such as Jim Beam, Buffalo Trace, and Jack Daniels, while also fabricating stills for such up-and-coming craft makers as Hillrock Estate Distillery, Wilderness Trail Distillery, and Alchemy Distillery.
Vendome Copper also works with clients around the world—its stills are in Canada, the Caribbean, France, China, New Zealand, Romania, and Ireland—who want a copper or bronze part on an older still replaced.
The industry’s admiration for Vendome Copper was set in stark relief when the Elmore Sherman family was inducted into the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame in 2005, the first time in history a non-distiller was given the honor.
