How a Kentucky Factory Turns Bourbon Waste into Valuable Chemicals

The Manufacturing Podcast with Fexingo: Factories, Supply Chains, and Industrial Business · Jun 25, 2026 · 10m · transcript

Kentucky produces 95% of the world's bourbon, and with it comes millions of tons of spent grain called 'stillage.' This episode visits a factory in Louisville that takes that waste — previously dumped into rivers or spread on fields — and runs it through anaerobic digesters to produce methane, then refines that methane into methanol and other industrial chemicals. We break down the numbers: one distillery produces enough stillage to power a small chemical plant, and the economics work because the feedstock is literally free (the distillery pays to have it hauled away). The…