Kentucky Bourbon Trail

And so the bourbon tasting begins....

On Friday we drove to the bluegrass area of Kentucky to start the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. We started our bourbon crawl with Heaven Hill Distillery, who makes a number of brands including Evan Williams, Elijah Craig, Henry McKenna, and many, many others. We were offered a tasting (my first!) at their Bourbon Heritage Center and, well, I'm sure a bourbon drinker would have enjoyed it quite a bit more than I did. Nonetheless, we tried the Elijah Craig 18 year old Single Barrel Bourbon, described as smooth and extremely complex but to me smelled and tasted a lot like gasoline. Thankfully, Ken enjoyed it primarily because his palate is significantly more suited for bourbon drinking than mine.

We arrived too late in the day to get to any of the other distilleries, so we retreated just down the road to the little campground at My Old Kentucky Home State Park in Bardstown, Kentucky, the "bourbon capital of the world". Ken grilled up some steaks for dinner, then some giant marshmallows for dessert. Yum!!

On Saturday, we managed to drive to four more distilleries and even took a couple of tours. We started with the Wild Turkey Distillery in Lawrenceburg. Reva offered us a tasting after a brief video of Wild Turkey's history. I tried a couple of the lighter bourbons, the Russells Reserve 10 year old and the 81 Proof, and Ken tried a couple of the "bourbon drinker's" bourbons, the Rare Breed and the Kentucky Spirit.


From there we drove to Four Roses Distillery but missed both the tour and the tasting, so we headed on to Woodford Reserve in Versailles. We were fascinated by Steve's tour of the distillery and the tasting (with free chocolate bourbon balls!) of the only bourbon they make, Woodford Reserve, the official bourbon of the Kentucky Derby. Steve led us through the entire process of bourbon making from corn meal, mash bill and yeast reaction, through aging and bottling. It was fascinating! Woodford Reserve is a beautiful distillery made of stone in the middle of horse country.

Then we drove to Maker's Mark in Loretto, a distillery started in 1953 by a husband and wife. Our tour guide, Mike, gave us an extensive history of the distillery, a tour of the buildings on the site and then led us into the tasting. Maker's Mark offers only two bourbons -- Maker's Mark and 46, both of which we tasted. The 46 is aged a bit longer in a French oak barrel that gives it a different sweetness than the stock bourbon they've made since they opened.

What an interesting day! Ken's two favorites were both from Wild Turkey: the Wild Turkey Rare Breed and Wild Turkey's Kentucky Spirit. Unfortunately, I'm still not a bourbon drinker and so the subtle differences between them is, sadly, lost on me, but I've had a lot of fun learning about "America's Official Native Spirit". Tomorrow, we'll finish up the Bourbon Trail with the Jim Beam Distillery on our way to Louisville, KY!