2020 Best Still Maker: Vendome Copper & Brass Works

The first order book for Vendome Copper & Brass Works had 15 orders in eight years. But something must have gone right for the company, as it’s now one of the world’s leading distillery manufacturers 120 years later. It’s survived Prohibition, two world wars, and rapid change in the metal fabrication business.

Through all of this, Vendome has remained family owned for four generations of Shermans, providing new stills, repairing old ones, and maintaining equipment. Its clients include Fortune 500 companies as well as startups and small distilleries—even historical revivals. Vendome built the replicas of the 18th-century pot stills for the reconstructed distillery owned and operated by George Washington at Mount Vernon.

In 2005, the Elmore Sherman family was inducted into the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame, one of the few non-distillers so honored.