Distillers Give Their Favorite Stills Nicknames. Here Are the Best Ones.

When it comes to making spirits, it’s tough to say one part of the process is most important. Grind grain poorly, and you get bad whiskey. Mistreat molasses or cane juice, and the result is subpar rum. And if you’re maturing spirits, cask type, warehousing, and aging climate all become major factors.

But there’s almost always a beating heart (and visual centerpiece) at the center of any spirits operation: the stills themselves. Be they pot or column, triple chamber or hybrids, thumpers or doublers, stills are the transformative crux of the spirit making process, concentrating alcohols into the heavenly drinks we know and love. Without stills, there is no distillation.

To many distillers, stills are living, breathing, and sometimes mercurial colleagues. Running them optimally requires art-meets-science collaboration built across years. It’s no shock to hear many stills earn nicknames based on their personalities.

Below, we’ve compiled some of our favorite still names from around the globe, spanning American whiskey, Scotch, gin, and rum. Each is a reflection of its distillery’s most iconic — and often idiosyncratic — equipment.

Bardstown Bourbon Company

Location: Bardstown, Ky.
Still Name(s): Sugar Momma and The Twins (Bubba and Skeeter)

Background: Bardstown Bourbon Company currently runs three main column stills. Sugar Momma is the largest at 42 inches, and head distiller Nick Smith refers to it as “the rum running queen.” (Though best known for its whiskey, Bardstown Bourbon Company manufactures a variety of spirits.)

According to Smith, The Twins have differing personalities. Bubba is a “dependable first-born child,” while Skeeter is “temperamental, always needing attention.”

Still Stats:

• Two 36-inch column stills (The Twins), one 42-inch columns still (Sugar Momma)

Heaven Hill Springs Distillery

Location: Bardstown, Ky.
Still Name: Phoenix

Background: Heaven Hill began distilling in Bardstown in 1935. Famously, a 1996 fire destroyed that distillery. In 1999, Heaven Hill purchased the Bernheim Distillery near Louisville and moved operations there.

In 2025, the company restarted distilling operations in Bardstown at Heaven Hill Springs, a new, state-of-the-art facility. To name the location’s new column still, the company held a contest. Josh Osbourne, a Heaven Hill Springs maintenance technician, submitted the winning name of “Phoenix.”

“When I heard they were doing a competition to name the still at Heaven Hill Springs Distillery, ‘Phoenix’ was the only name that felt right for the first still in the new facility,” says Osbourne. “The distillery project itself was called Project Phoenix, and to me the name represents Heaven Hill’s ability to rise from ashes into something new. Since the Springs Distillery brings our distilling operations back to Bardstown after the original distillery fire in the 1990s, I felt the name honored both our history and our future. It ensures a piece of the original distillery will always live on in the new one.”

According to Heaven Hill Springs distillery manager Adam Ganoe, more than 100 people gathered to watch as the Vendome-made still was craned into the building, one 22,000-pound section at a time.

Still Stats:

• Manufactured by Vendome
• 66-inch column still
• Approximately 70 feet tall
• Current capacity of about 500 barrels per day

The Glenmorangie Distillery

Location: Tain, Scotland
Still Name: The Giraffe

Background: Gillian Macdonald, Glenmorangie’s master blender, says the distillery’s stills are iconic for their height. According to the brand, at 26 feet, 3 inches tall, the long-necked pot stills are the tallest in Scotland.

“The necks alone account for 16 feet, 10 inches of this and are the height of an adult male giraffe,” says Macdonald. “This unique height is crucial to the spirit we create; it ensures that the most elegant vapors ascend, giving our whisky its signature light and fruity character. The shape and size of our stills have remained unchanged since the original stills were installed in 1887, a testament to their enduring contribution to Glenmorangie.”

Still Stats:

• 26 foot, 3 inch-tall column stills

Bruichladdich Distillery

Location: Islay, Scotland
Still Name: Ugly Betty

Background: Ugly Betty is the name of Bruichladdich’s gin still, which is used to create The Botanist Gin. It was purchased by former master distiller Jim McEwan, who acquired it from the soon-to-be-demolished Inverleven Distillery. According to Robert McEachern, head of Islay visitor experience at Bruichladdich Distillery, it’s just one of six Lomond stills ever manufactured.

“Jim bought Ugly Betty before he had any idea what he was going to do with it — a real marker of what a visionary distiller he was,” says McEachern. “Rescued from a scrap heap, it’s such a unique piece of equipment but not the most aesthetically pleasing — hence the affectionate nickname. Housed in the corner of the stillhouse, it’s so different to our other tall and narrow spirit stills, making it a brilliant talking point on our tours.”

Still Stats:

• 11,600-liter Lomond still
• Custom top neck sections and botanical chamber

Buffalo Trace Distillery

Location: Frankfort, Ky.
Still Name: Colonel E. H. Taylor, Jr. Microstill

Background: At 84 inches in diameter, Buffalo Trace boasts two of the largest column stills in America. Less daunting but vital in its own right is the Colonel E. H. Taylor, Jr. Microstill, where Buffalo Trace conducts many of its experimental distillation runs. Installed in 2007, the still was designed by Harlen Wheatley, master distiller at Buffalo Trace. Wheatley named it for Edmund Haynes Taylor, Jr., a 19th- and 20th-century Kentucky whiskey titan whose contributions span distillery operations, whiskey tourism, and the 1897 Bottled-in-Bond Act.

“Colonel E.H. Taylor, Jr. never stopped pushing the boundaries of what bourbon could become, and that mindset still shapes how we approach innovation today,” says Wheatley.

“When we designed this experimental microstill, naming it after him just felt right. It was built to explore new ideas and deepen our understanding of whiskey — something Taylor did throughout his career — and serves as a reminder that progress comes from a willingness to keep experimenting.”

Still Stats:

• 500-gallon hybrid pot and column still
• Wide-ranging customization possibilities for experimental distillation
• Dedicated fermentation and cooking equipment

A. Smith Bowman

Location: Fredericksburg, Va.
Still Name(s): George and Mary

Background: A. Smith Bowman is Virginia’s oldest operating distillery. Today, it’s owned by Sazerac — the same parent company as Buffalo Trace — and re-distills first-run spirit from sister facilities in its on-site pot stills. Bowman’s two stills are named for the parents of the founding Bowman brothers.

“We have two stills at A. Smith Bowman that we call George and Mary, paying homage to the mother and father of the Bowman brothers,” says David Bock, master distiller at Bowman. “Mary actually has a few nicknames — we also call her our ‘bourbon gal’ since she is the still that runs our triple distilled bourbon. Jimmy, our still operator who has been with us for 36-plus years, calls her his ‘work wife.’”

Still Stats:

• 2,000-gallon pot still (Mary), represented in the distillery’s logo
• 500-gallon hybrid pot still (George)

Mount Gay Rum Distillery

Location: St. Lucy, Barbados
Still Name: Blues Still

Mount Gay’s Coffey still is named for Reynold “Blues” Hinds, who worked at the distillery for over 50 years. Hinds oversaw the still’s recommissioning, and it was then named in his honor.

Still Stats:

• Traditional Coffey still
• 23 feet, 6 inches tall

Mortlach Distillery

Location: Dufftown, Scotland
Still Name: The Wee Witchie

Background: Mortlach is often called “The Beast of Dufftown” for its robust whiskies. But the distillery’s most famous still carries a diminutive nickname. The Wee Witchie is one of six stills in operation at Mortlach and is a focal point of the distillery’s complex, “2.81-times” distillation process. During production, Witchie re-distills “weak feints” three times.

“As the son of former Mortlach manager John Winton once shared, his father came up with the name because the still was small (‘wee’) and its pointed top resembled a witch’s hat (‘witchie’),” says Ewan Morgan, head of whiskey outreach and national luxury ambassador for parent company Diageo. “Small in stature but enormous in influence, The Wee Witchie is the still that gives Mortlach’s 2.81-times distillation its unusual mathematics and much of the distillery’s muscular, meaty depth.”

Still Stats:

• Mortlach’s smallest spirit still and one of six stills on site
• 8,000-liter pot still

Stade’s West Indies Rum Distillery

Location: Bridgetown, Barbados
Still Name(s): Big George & Little George; The Rockley 1780; Two Taps

Background: Founder George Stade held over 40 distilling-related patents in his lifetime. So it’s not terribly surprising that Stade’s contemporary operations include a wide variety of stills, including column, pot, and triple-chamber setups.

The distillery’s two column stills are named Big George and Little George. They sit side by side and are named for the company’s founder.

Rockley 1780 is an older pot still, which sat abandoned on the distillery lawn for more than 50 years. Before its refurbishment, very little was known about the still.

“One day, we decided to have it inspected by one of the world’s great coppersmiths,” says Alexandre Gabriel, current owner and master blender at Stade’s. “When he examined it, he looked at us almost in disbelief and told us the still likely dated back to the 1780s.”

“Suddenly, what looked like an old forgotten piece of metal became one of the oldest functioning rum stills in existence. Its name had always been ‘Rockley,’ most likely linked to the old Rockley estate in the south of Barbados, near what is now Rockley Beach. We decided to bring it back to life.”

It took nearly 3,000 hours of intensive hand hammering and other work to refurbish the still, which borrows the second half of its name from its historic origins.

Last, but certainly not least, is Two Taps, Stade’s Vulcan triple-chamber still, which the distillery claims is the last of its kind in operation today.

“When we brought the still back to life in 2018, after years of silence, it proved to be just as temperamental and mysterious as the old distillers remembered,” Gabriel says.

“Thankfully, Henderson ‘Digger’ Skinner, one of the distillery’s legendary figures, knew exactly what to do. As the story goes, whenever the still stalled, the old distillers would simply walk over and give one of the pipes two precise taps. Somehow it worked. That little ritual had been passed down through generations at the distillery and naturally, the nickname stayed.”

Still Stats:

• Little George: 23-tray column still
• Big George: Column with vacuum system
• Rockley 1780: 2,000-liter pot still possibly dating to the 1780s
• Two Taps: 2,000-liter (per chamber) triple chamber still