KENTUCKY BOURBON COUNTRY

 

 

 

Under gray and rainy skies we left Columbus bound for Kentucky’s Bourbon country.  Quick stop at Strabucks and headed south on 71 for a 4 hour drive.  Uneventful drive with the exception that heavy rain dropped the visibility at times to a few hundred feet.

the navigator

 

Our first stop was Maker’s Mark.  We signed up for a tour and were joined by about 30 others.  On this particular tour, the average displacement of our fellow tourers was up there.  To the point that collectively there was more of a waddle than a walk.  But I digress.

The grounds of Maker’s Mark are terrific with a stream running right through it.  A stream with several rattlesnakes sunning themselves on the rocks adjacent to the stream.   The first portion of this tour (and all the subsequent ones) was the building where the Mash was cooked and fermented.  Every distillery had their points of what made them different and Maker’s was differentiated by their more sweet flavor.  Eschewing Rye, they used wheat.  The vats that are used are huge old cypress tubs, some 15 feet in diameter.  Our perky tour guide encouraged us to stick our fingers in the goo and taste it.

 

I hope I didn't screw up the proportions at Makers Mark by flipping some switches.

 

We went on to the distillery house, then the aging houses and finally to the bottling area where the now quite valuable liquid is bottled with the trademark red wax seal.

 

 

 

 

Makers was pretty cool in that the bourbon was the vision of one family and was different from the other products on the market.   Created in the late 50’s, the bourbon was the product of Mr. Samuels, but the marketing was all Mrs Samuels.  The bottle’s shape and wax seal were all her ideas.   While many of the other distilleries seem to have been buffeted by corporate direction, Maker’s appeared to be a family tradition and vision.  Now owned by Jim Beam, they are trying to keep that same attitude.

 

 

 

The real fun began when the tour ended.  In the corner of the gift shop they had an area were you could dip your bottle (or other paraphernalia) into the hot red wax.  Jodi donned an apron, sleeves and safety goggles and dipped our bottle of Maker’s and our bottle of Maker’s 46, their new upper end product.  While all the bourbon is aged, the 46 product is put into a second barrel with additional charred staves built into the barrel, giving off more of the wood flavor and mellowing the overall taste.  I liked it.

note the extra staves within the barrel

 

In all the tours, the folks listed what was required to make a bona fide bourbon and it was the inclusion of at least 51% corn (most used more) and that the final product was aged in new, charred white oak barrels.  Aside from the other grains used, nothing else is added for color or for flavor.

 

 

Maker’s was a fun tour and they certainly have branded themselves well.

The Detox cell

 

hood used for hangings

 

 

The next stop was Bardstown, a short 20 minute drive to the north.  We checked in at the Jailers Inn, a rather unique bed and breakfast. From the late 1700’s through to the late 1980’s, it served as a Jail and a few of the cells were still intact, including the detox cell were up to 30 drunkards were housed in a very small space.  Several executions were carried out on the grounds.  Justice in the 1800’s was swift.  One fellow committed a crime (rape) in Mid December, was caught and tried by the end of December and hung the 2^nd week of January. 

The room was nice with an outer small living room and a nice bed with a deep and very comfortable king size foam mattress.

After  check in we went over to Talbots Tavern, which is right next door to the Jail.  Other than renovations and repairs, it was supposedly in continuous business since the late 1700’s. The food was OK with the clear highlight clearly being the Kentucky Burgoo.  Oh my word was that good.  Jodi found a recipe and that’s on the list for this fall.

As we had travelled for hours, missed lunch with the Maker’s tour our ‘dinner’ at the inn was either a very late lunch or an early dinner.  We were done eating shortly after 5, so after a brief walk we went back to the room and relaxed.  It had been a long week.  Jodi and done several audits in Illinois and Indiana and I had put in some hours as well and it all caught up to us after dinner. 

With some reluctance we ventured out shortly after 9 and went back to the Tavern to check out the band that was playing.  Oh were we glad we did.  It was the ‘Dev and Doug’ show.  The gal, Devon, had a great voice with a sound somewhere between Stevie Nix and Janis Jopin.  She had pipes.  Doug was an accomplished and inventive guitarist with a pretty good voice as well.  The real fun begain when she whipped out a fiddle.  Doug was crazy fast with the guitar and her fiddle work was right there to compliment.  Great evening of music.

The jailer’s Inn was listed by the Travel Channel as one of the top 10 haunted sites in America.  Jodi had talked to the spirits, inviting them to visit, as apparently you are supposed to do.

Sure enough, about 3 am, I awoke with a start.  There was a light on the ceiling.  Chills went up my spine.  This was it.  The light was real.  A ghost?  Ancient spirit?  Nope.  Just confirmation the smoke detector was on and working.  So much for ghosts.

Sunday morning we were treated to breakfast in the same courtyard where the hangings occurred.  Breakfast was pretty good, with Dixie serving all the guests.  No ghost sightings were reported by any of the guests.  After breakfast we toured the cemetery behind the Jail then headed out to see what else we could see.

view from breakfast in the courtyard

same courtyard in the 1800's.  note the gallows to the left

We ended up touring Four Roses distillery which turned out to be our least favorite.  The grounds were beautiful and the distillery was unique in Kentucky owing to the Spanish mission style architecture. 

 

 

 

Their product’s claim to fame was the fact they aged their bourbon in a single story facility.  The bourbon was so so in my opinion and while Jodi found all bourbons objectionable, this one was exceedingly so.

We moved on to what in retrospect was our favorite distillery.  Woodford Reserve.   The grounds were beautifully elegant with stately buildings in the midst of Kentucky’s Thoroughbred Country.  Oh what a setting.  Their claim to fame was a ‘triple distillery process’ unique to the industry.  Most other bourbons are distilled twice. 

Unfortunately the elderly monotone speaking tour guide was boring to the point of lacking a pulse.  Or a sense of humor.  And the fact that the restaurant, which looked great, was supposed to close at 3:30, but allegedly had run out of food around 2.   Other than that, the grounds and the bourbon were excellent, especially their ‘double barreled’ product.  Very tasty.    Woodford’s double barrel product was more rye based (instead of wheat, like Makers) and initially aged like all the other’s in new charred white oak barrels.  But the product was poured into a second barrel that was ‘toasted’.

The charring process takes about 40 seconds with flame, but the toasting process was done by roasting a new set of fresh barrels for about 40 minutes, bringing a caramelized like finish to the interior of barrel.   The aging in that 2^nd barrel mellowed the bourbon and took the ‘burn’ out of the liquid.  It was smooth.

After Woodford we angled back towards Columbus and Jodi found a neat café near Lexington where we had, what for this trip, had become either a late lunch or early dinner tradition.

As I write, Jodi has us hurtling back towards Columbus at the conclusion of an excellent weekend in Kentucky’s bourbon region.