KENTUCKY BOURBON TRAIL DAY 5, WOODFORD RESERVE

Our last distillery tour for this Kentucky Bourbon Trail adventure is Woodford Reserve, just a few miles from our campground.  It is super hot and the tour is almost all outside, but the guide was merciful and tried to find shade at every stop.  

The grounds are beautiful and although Woodford Reserve is a "new" bourbon brand, the property has the oldest continually operating still in the original building.  While the tour was good, despite the ridiculous weather, we REALLY enjoyed the tasting.

Beautiful historic stone buildings - a warehouse

A specialty bourbon that is put in oak barrels twice

The actual distillers, removing the alcohol from the mash

A vat of mash, bubbling from the yeast

The Woodford Reserve barrels are made in house and are more attractive than the other distilleries that just slap a barcode label on their aging barrels.

Love the stone buildings

The "high tech" way of moving the barrels from one place to another - train type tracks and GRAVITY!

 
Our guide was a sensory expert and explained the subtleties of "nosing" the bourbon and instructed us how to sip and taste the underlying flavors beyond the alcohol "burn" that may be florals, spice, oakiness, fruits, etc.  We also experimented with the way a small piece of chocolate changes the taste of the bourbon.  Some bourbons were enhanced by the chocolate and one tasted odd.  As usual, at the end of the tasting, we visited the gift shop and relieved them of a few bottles.

Returning to the campground for happy hour, we sat outside by the river long enough for one cocktail, then we succumbed to the heat and went back to our air-conditioned campers.  We said our goodbyes as we were leaving in the morning to head to Alabama to get our recliners installed in the RV and Melinda and Joe were heading back to South Carolina to celebrate Father's Day weekend at a local campground.

We loved this short trip and really enjoyed sharing it with Joe and Melinda - we vowed to do it again, maybe next Spring.  We may revisit here as there are many, many more boutique distilleries we could explore or we may investigate something completely different.  Maybe wine?

Happy Trails to everyone this summer!

 

KENTUCKY BOURBON TRAIL, DAY 4 - EVAN WILLIAMS/HEAVEN HILL

Day 4 is the Speakeasy Tasting at the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience on Whiskey Row in downtown Louisville. This is not their distillery, more of a tourist attraction.

Remember how I talked about the possibility of every blog post showing glasses of bourbon?  Well, I have not been doing that (you're welcome), but this photo makes up for it!  

We read the interesting liquor history placards at the entrance while we waited for our tour to begin.  

THE Evan Williams

Don't miss the 1803 Entry.....Wow!!

We took the elevator down to the cellar where there was a large bank vault.  The guide opened the "vault" to reveal a door with a small opening.  A volunteer was told to knock on the door and say "Jake sent us."  He promptly knocked on the door, the slit in the door opened, and he asked for Bob!  The opening slammed shut.  He knocked on the door again and correctly said Jake sent us and we were ushered into the large wood bar in the speakeasy in the basement.  (I took a couple videos and tried to include them in the blog, but received error messages, so deleted them.) I was asked to put my phone away as it might scare the bartender in the speakeasy because he had never seen one (so no good photos, sorry.)

Jake, our bartender, explained that we were in 1932, on the eve of the Presidential election that folks were hoping would relieve the depression and repeal prohibition.  He explained that thousands and thousands of jobs were lost when prohibition was passed, from distillery owners and workers to railroad workers that no longer hauled liquor across the country.  And all this was happening as the farmers (no longer growing grain for liquor and lots of other reasons) were descending into a depression ahead of the great crash of 1929.  Jake was totally believable as a bartender from that era and we thoroughly enjoyed the entertaining tasting.

Afterwards, we again visited the gift shop where a yet a few more bottles were purchased before heading back east to our campground.  We stopped for a wonderful Italian meal about halfway back to the campground and met up with one of Joe's high school friends.  We enjoyed his stories of a younger and carefree Joe, but just like the Speakeasy experience,  Shhhh, don't tell.

Tomorrow Joe and Melinda are meeting up with family and Jack and I will enjoy a day of rest.  Tuesday is our final Bourbon Trail stop and we are looking forward to our Woodford Reserve tour and tasting.

KENTUCKY BOURBON TRAIL DAY 2 - MAKER'S MARK

The Maker's Mark distillery is in the middle of nowhere, part of a huge farm.  The GPS took us on roads only 1 1/2 lanes wide with no center line and no shoulders making it a little scary.  Sure glad Joe was driving his truck and I wasn't driving the RV!  

The visitor center had a gorgeous ceiling installation of chihuly glass

Although some of the distillery building's foundation dates to the early 1800's, the brand Maker's Mark is relatively recent - 1953!  The Samuel's family bought the farm and the distillery and while Samuel developed the techniques for mash ingredient recipes, and oak barrel aging for making premium bourbon, his wife, Margie was a marketing genius, coming up with the name and even the iconic red wax seal - perfecting her technique in her chicken fryer!

Beautifully landscaped grounds

Most buildings are black

Copper stills

A small creek running through the property

Can you see the bottle?

We toured the mash bubbling in the huge wooden vats.  The yeasty smell was wonderful, although overly strong at times.

A gorgeous ceiling of chihuly glass in a warehouse

My biggest learning of the day was that the higher the proof, the smoother the taste.  Huh!  I always thought it was the opposite.  There are many bourbons that are not readily available anywhere else, so we bought a couple of bottles of those...

In the gift shop, Jack, Melinda and Joe had the opportunity to hand-dip their purchased bottles of bourbon in the red wax. 

 

After our visit to Maker's Mark, we stopped at the historic Talbott Tavern in Bardstown for lunch.  Melinda and I tried the local dish called Burgoo -- a spicy, hearty stew of chicken, beef, pork and vegetables.  It was delicious.  

On our way out, we stopped for a look at the bar area, and spoke with the manager - this is the most historic part of the Inn where Benjamin Franklin and George Washington once enjoyed a glass of ....um mead?  beer?  And above the back of the bar was Jesse James rifle.  

We returned to the campground and enjoyed happy hour, just as some rain showers subsided.  Melinda brought over a wonderful appetizer tray with boiled fresh kielbasa with horseradish, nuts, cheese and crackers.

A fabulous day. 

Kentucky BourbonTrail Day 3

Ok, so I misplaced my camera with all the photos from Day 2 of the Bourbon Trail when we visited Maker's Mark - Jack's favorite bourbon.  The good news is that the gift shop where I left the camera has it and we will be picking it up on Wednesday on our way back to Alabama.  So, eventually there will be a blog update for Day 2, but today we will skip to Day 3 and the Buffalo Trace Distillery where I used my phone for photos.  So here we go...

We had a leisurely morning as our reservation for Buffalo Trace wasn't until 3:30.  We have a nice site in the RV park just outside Frankfort Kentucky right on the river.  The geese are fun to watch, but what a mess they make!  I had a chance to do laundry and Jack and I worked at mastering a few more things in the RV that were new to us.  OK, so "mastering" might be too strong a word, but we did figure a couple things out like getting the awning speakers to work.

The Buffalo Trace property is beautifully landscaped and includes the oldest continually operating still in America.  The property is on the Kentucky River that goes to Ohio which goes to the Mississippi, so the area became a major shipping hub in the 1700's.  Early westward pioneers often brought their stills with them for personal use, but few became commercial operations like this one.  E. H. Taylor, Jr., working at his uncle's distillery revolutionized the industry in the late 1800's to make a distillery capable of producing vast quantities of truly good-flavored bourbon as opposed to the typical caustic moonshine.  

We toured the grounds and a few buildings, enjoying our guide's many, many, many, many stories.  We finally got to the tasting room to enjoy their basic Buffalo Trace bourbon plus their high end bourbons and a cordial.  We all loved the Blanton's, mixed opinions on the Eagle Rare and really enjoyed the Buffalo Cream cordial.  

Bourbon Trace is relatively small compared to Makers Mark and Jim Beam who have operations in multiple locations, but they are undergoing a 1+ billion dollar expansion and expect to be able to meet the high demand for their specialty bourbons in four years.  

Weller is one of Buffalo Trace's specialty bourbons

Some of the early Buffalo Trace bottles

These were the only liquors available for purchase.  We were all disappointed that we could not purchase Blanton's.  Unfortunately, the Bourbon Cream was sold out when we got to the gift shop.  But we did get to taste it - a wonderful cordial.  During the tasting they recommended make a root beer float with it!  I liked it plain.

I had warned you about possibly seeing glass after glass of bourbon, but so far, it has been limited to the small bourbon samples we have been enjoying.  Wait till Day 4, though, when I will blog about Evan Williams/Heaven Hill.....

We tasted four spirits, a cordial and a root beer!

We headed back to the campground and had dinner at our campsite.  I made a pork tenderloin and corn on the cob and Melinda brought baby potatoes and a cucumber and tomato salad.  Yum!  Good food, good conversation, good friends.  Another great day. 

KENTUCKY BOURBON TRAIL - DAY 1

From northern Tennessee, we drove north on I-75 into Kentucky.  After a lunch stop and a fuel stop, we arrived at Elkhart Campground in Frankfort Kentucky ( just outside Lexington) about 3:30.   Lucky to get another campsite backing onto a river (the Elkhorn) where our campsite neighbors are enjoying fishing, swimming and kayaking.  We met up with Melinda and Joe to spend the week here and use it as a homebase for our visits to the  Kentucky Bourbon Trail.  Melinda and Joe joined us for happy hour at our campsite and we planned our visit to Jim Beam distillery. 

Melinda had a wonderful smoked brisket dinner (thank you Joe for the brisket) with all the sides for us at their campsite.  Looking forward to our first bourbon tour tomorrow at Jim Beam!

 

 

A one hour trip to Clermont, Kentucky for our Jim Beam tour took us to a vast campus of multiple buildings.  We started our tour in the gift shop and were amazed at the number of people and the amount of merchandise - this was a way bigger tourist operation that we expected. 

Chocolates, hats, everything bourbon!

 

Our tour started off on a a mini-bus with a guide who gave us a history of the family (seven, or is it eight? generations!) of the Beam family.  We visited multiple buildings on the property where we learned first what the requirements are for calling a liquor "bourbon" and how it is produced.  We learned a LOT!  One of the most interesting things for me was learning that the tannins are removed from the oak staves before the oak barrels are assembled (as opposed to wine that want the tannins) by seasoning the wood outside for 6-9 months.  Then the barrels are charred to crystallize the sugars in the wood sap where the bourbon is aged.  These charred barrels are used only once for bourbon,  They are then resold/recycled to age multiple products from Louisiana hot sauce to wine and rum. 

The requirements for "bourbon"  Made in USA, aged in charred oak barrels, max 125 proof.

Melinda and Joe help to "pour" a glass of bourbon from a 53 gallon, 550 lb. cask.

The differences in proof between basic Jim Beam, Knob Creek and Basil Hayden.  

The vast mash production vats

We visited the warehouse where the barrels are stored while the bourbon is aging and learned that the exact center of the warehouse both vertically and horizontally is the sweet spot where the temperature and humidity is the best - and so this is where the specialty bourbons are aged.  The regular bourbons are composed of a mix of the various areas in different areas of the warehouse.

Joe affixing his thumbprint into his personalized bottle of specialty bourbon.

After the tour (would it ever end so we could get to the good stuff?), we had a tasting of the core Jim Beam bourbons plus one of our own choosing.  We each had our opinions on what we liked and had the opportunity to purchase our favorites.  We came away with only one bottle, but we saw others with many, many more!

Tastings of Jim Beam, small batch Basil Hayden, Knob Creek and one of our choosing.

Had a nice lunch at the Kitchen Table restaurant on the Jim Beam grounds, then headed back to the campground, just in time for happy hour.

A wonderful day - great weather, good friends, a few drinks, lots of stories.  Life is good.