You’ll remember that we had our Washington friend Dick Shirk with us when we left Fairview on Thursday, October 19, bound for Louisville, KY. We parked Abe in Shepherdsville, just south of Louisville, located conveniently close to many bourbon distilleries and to the hotel where Dick and Lewis and Bonnie Smith (Texas friends who would arrive later) stayed
On Friday, October 20 our first stop was the Louisville Slugger museum, where the famous bats have been made for over 130 years. The factory tour led us through the bat-creation process; from creating the rough sticks to painting and detailing the final product. They’ve made over 100,000,000 bats and get contracts for 60% of all major league baseball players. Quite a place!
After lunch we were ready to learn about bourbon. Old downtown Louisville’s Main Street, also known as Whiskey Row, seemed like the place to start. Of course, this is was a very touristy area but we had chosen to come late enough in the season so that we weren’t buried in the crowds. We began with the “Evans Williams Experience”. Evan Williams, a native of Wales, came to the Louisville settlement in 1783 to build a distillery. Corn, a major crop of the new farmer/settlers was hard to ship to eastern markets, but distilling the corn to whiskey before shipping was more profitable. Thus the story began! Of course, that early whiskey was nothing better than “white lightning” and very harsh. The notion of refined bourbon wouldn’t evolve for years to come. It wasn’t until 1964 the President Lyndon Johnson made bourbon “America’s Official Native Spirit” and set specific rules about what could legally be called bourbon. Perhaps you’re interested in those rules:
The law (27 C.F.R.:5) says any “straight” bourbon must be: produced in the United States; made of a grain mix of at least 51% corn distilled at no higher than 160 proof (80% ABV); free of any additives (except water to reduce proof for aging and bottling); aged in new, charred white oak barrels; entered into the aging barrels at no higher than 125 proof (62.5% ABV), aged for a minimum of 2 years, and bottled at no less than 80 proof (40% ABV).
At every distillery the tour or visited concluded with bourbon tastings. Sometimes the tastings were free and sometimes they weren’t, but they were always worth the experience. We learned a lot about how to taste bourbon and the “ritual” involved. Let me share what we learned:
After pouring the bourbon take a small sniff of the bourbon by opening your mouth, putting your nose to the glass and breathe in through your mouth. This allows you to get more of the bourbon smell without singeing you nose hairs. Now, let the bourbon sit for a few seconds give the glass a few swirls so you look like you know what you’re doing and take another small sniff. Smelling or nosing a bourbon or whiskey is so important because your sense of smell is 10,000 times more sensitive than your sense of taste. It is tough to pick up bourbon and say “I get a hint of tobacco and nutmeg with figs and pear”. Well, I never got anything close to that!
Take a small sip and swirl it around in your mouth, making sure the Bourbon hits every part of your tongue. Most of your “taste” will come from the nose receptors in the back of your mouth so don’t be surprised if you taste more after you swallow the bourbon.
The finish is how a bourbon leaves your mouth. Was it smooth or harsh? Did it linger or dissipate quickly? Did you notice any additional flavors on the finish?
Add a few drops (or more if you are tasting a higher proof Bourbon) of water and repeat the process. Did you notice anything new? It is crazy how the smallest amount of water can completely change a bourbon’s flavor profile. There you have it! You’ve got the basic rules for a bourbon-tasting event!
We learned that along the “bourbon trail”, an organization of bourbon distillers, not really a particular route, there were two general types of distilleries, large commercial ones, and craft distilleries. The commercial ones, such as Makers Mark and Jim Beam were the well known ones, but craft distilleries were the up and comers. We visited the Peerless Craft Distillery next. Although Peerless Distillery had roots in the 1800’s, Prohibition shut them down and the label has been resurrected by some enterprising distillers who built a new distillery in a 150-year-old building on the west end of Whiskey Row.
Dick and Jerry, with their engineering/construction brains hard at work, were ready to analyze the successful rehabbing of this old building! We enjoyed the “smaller” venue and planned to look for more craft distilleries.
Two bourbon tastings in one afternoon was enough for us, so we made our way to the McAlpine locks and dam on the Falls of the Ohio River, just west of downtown. We had learned at Evan Williams that the falls were the reason that Louisville came into existence. Flatboats coming from upriver stopped at the relatively flat land on the south bank of the Ohio at Louisville to off-load their cargo, which was then transported overland to a point below the falls. The flatboats were floated through the rapids empty and reloaded beyond the falls. This lock and dam were the first major project on the Ohio, completed in 1830, and have been re-engineered several times. Jerry and Dick discussed, analyzed, pondered, and conquered the process of a barge locking through. I’m sure Jerry and I would not have had the detailed conversations that he had with Dick!
Saturday, October 21, we made our way to Bardstown, KY, about 10 miles from our RV Park, to do more bourbon exploring. Bardstown was the heart of bourbon distilleries and another tourist mecca. Our first stop was Four Roses Distillery, out in the country. We didn’t arrive in time for a tour, so decided to just do bourbon tasting…at 1100 in the morning! Weird, huh? But, when in Rome…! There were strict tasting rules that each distillery had to follow, so that folks don’t leave inebriated.
You can see that the guys are “intrigued” with the Four Roses products! How the distillery came to be called Four Roses was a good one. It all began when
Paul Jones, Jr., the founder of Four Roses Bourbon, became smitten with a Southern belle. It is said that he sent a proposal to her, and she replied that if her answer were “Yes,” she would wear a corsage of roses on her gown to the upcoming grand ball. Paul Jones waited for her answer excitedly on that night of the grand ball…when she arrived in her beautiful gown; she wore a corsage of four red roses! Sweet!! Thus, the name of the distillery.
Our next stop was Barton’s Distillery…one we had not heard of. This tour was our first in an active distillery, rather than the simulation of Evan Williams, and proved to be quite interesting. The distillery was established in 1879 and was the oldest fully operating distillery in Bardstown. The distillery operated 29 aging warehouses, called rick houses, and 22 other buildings on 196 acres. We learned that the success of distilling in Kentucky was due in part to the water that had been purified by the limestone layers in this part of Kentucky.
Josh, our tour leader gave us a great description of the distillery process, from the acquisition of field corn, rye, and barley to storage of 53-gallon barrels in the rick houses, to how to remove a bung from a barrel. Barton’s most well known bourbon, 1792 Smalll Batch, was named for the year that Kentucky became a state. 1792 Small Batch was our favorite so far!
We had lunch at the Old Talbott Tavern in Bardstown, an old stagecoach stop in the middle of town. The Old Talbott was built in 1779 and was called the oldest western stagecoach stop in
America. It was a haven of hospitality to those sturdy pioneers who carved an empire out of the threatening wilderness. From its simple, rough beginnings the tavern mellowed with the years, typifying the gracious living than burgeoned in the Old South.
We tried a local lunch favorite, a sandwich called “Hot Brown”. The sandwich, sometimes know as a Kentucky Brown, was an open-faced turkey sandwich with turkey, bacon, pimientos, and a delicate Mornay sauce. The sandwich was placed under the broiler to melt the cheese…yummy!
Sunday, October 22, our destination was Maker’s Mark Distillery, located well outside of any town on very rural roads! Surprising for such a huge facility. This tour was probably the most thorough in terms of the distilling and bottling process.
We dipped our fingers into the fermenting mash and got a taste of sour soggy corn! We saw the bottling line and watched four women as they hand-dipped the filled bottles into red wax to create the distinctive Makers Mark cap.
Of course, the tour concluded with another bourbon tasting…everyone was happy!
We drove to the Jim Beam Distillery in Clermont KY, for the 3 PM tour. This was another huge distillery and quite a contrast to the craft distilleries we had seen. The tour was packed full of information and very well done. Instead of walking around the huge facility, we travelled by tour bus as our guide, Laura, described the operation. Once again we tasted bourbon at the conclusion of the tour, but this one was different. Rather than pour a taste from several different varieties of Jim Beam bourbon, we were given three tokens to use in dispensers…very commercial! This place was really set up for the crowds!
We returned to Abe for a dinner of grilled burgers and a recap of another interesting day in bourbon country.
Monday, October 23, we were up early (for us) to meet Dick for breakfast and get him to the airport, about 15 miles down the road. Dick had developed an appreciation for “Waffle House”, an easy place to stop! What a great visit we had had with Dick and we were sorry to see him depart. We won’t see him till we return to Washington next year!
Late Monday afternoon we were back at the airport to pick up Lewis and Bonnie Smith, our good friends from Cat Spring, TX. They, too, were very much interested in the Kentucky bourbon tour, so we were going to do it all again! To their benefit, we now were better informed about where to go and what to do.
Tuesday morning we picked up Lewis and Bonnie at 9 and were off to the Louisville Slugger Museum. Nine AM was too early for bourbon tasting…even for us! Even though we had just done this tour there were more things to learn and more things to see...well worth it! We enjoyed the Lego displays of the famous ballparks, including Wrigley Field! Go Cubbies!
Old downtown Louisville has made a huge effort to revitalize and draw businesses to the area. Along with several bourbon tasting rooms, we saw some interesting restaurants and several retail businesses. It was a great place to explore. We found lunch at a restaurant called “Down One Bourbon Bar”…the name bode well! Their window display of quite a variety of bourbons caught our attention. Of course we each had to try unknown bourbon with lunch and I even found fried green tomatoes on their menu. Yum!
We repeated the Evan Williams tour, believing that the history provided was well worth a repeat with Lewis and Bonnie. After lunch we walked to the other end of the street to tour a craft distillery, “Angel’s Envy”.
During this very individualized tour, we learned that 5% of spirit lost each year during barrel aging is called the “Angel’s Share.” The master distillery, after tasting the finished whiskey, joked that they had finally gotten a better deal than the angels. And so Angel’s Envy was born.
We had had an overcast, chilly day, and were ready to head back to Shepherdsville for dinner. Louis and Bonnie stayed at the same hotel that Dick had been in, so it was easy to travel from their doorstep to ours. What a busy first day on the Smith Bourbon Tour!
Wednesday, October 25, we picked up Lewis and Bonnie once again and were off to Four Roses Distillery. Even though it was only 9:30 AM, we did a bourbon tasting…getting a little jaded! The tasting “hostess” did a great job of leading us through those bourbon-tasting steps once again.
As you can see from the photo we had a much prettier day to drive through this lovely part of Kentucky.
Our next stop was Barton’s Distillery in Bardstown. We had been here with Dick and had enjoyed this distillery so signed up to do the “golf cart tour” with Lewis and Bonnie…a personalized, in-depth tour of the whole process. If you ever tour this area, take this tour…it’s free and great!
In the photo, we’re sampling the “white dog”…the raw distillate before it went into the aging white oak barrels. Not very good! Barton distillery stored its whiskey in normal unheated and uncooled rick-houses. This allows the bourbon to move in and out of the wood to give the bourbon its distinctive color and flavor. Over the course of many years (up to 24!), the bourbon takes on its unique characteristics.
The warehouses were seven stories high with three ricks (barrel racks) on every level. This was very tall for warehouses and the difference of the maturation from the top to the bottom was significant. Each of their warehouses held about 19,000 barrels.
After a quick lunch we were off to Jim Beam…yep, another repeat…to do that tour. Once again, we thought it felt very commercial, but it was well done. Yes, another obligatory exterior shot. This time I managed to include the statue of Jim Beam himself in the background!
Wisely, I had put some chicken in the crockpot for dinner…we had already eaten at the two good restaurants in Shepherdsville! As we returned to Abe, hungry and tired, we saw these cute little donkeys near our fence across the street. I couldn’t resist sharing some carrots with them.
Thursday, October 26, we were up and running at 9 AM ready for another day of touring. Our first stop was Kentucky Cooperage in Lebanon, KY, to learn about barrel making. We had heard so much about the importance of white oak barrels in the bourbon-making process, and wanted to actually see how it was done. Sadly (or wisely, depending on your perspective) we couldn’t take photos during the tour, but did get this group shot afterward. You will note the lovely eye protection provided me!
Time for another bourbon-making lesson! Bourbon was aged in new white oak barrels, unlike the used barrels of other whiskey types. Thus, Bourbon drew a great deal of color and flavor from the barrel. To make Bourbon barrel the wood was shaped and assembled. The barrel was then "toasted" to caramelize the sugar in the wood. Next, it is applied to a larger fire for 6 to 12 seconds to burn out the inside and produce a charcoal layer.
After a quick lunch we headed to Maker’s Mark. Yes, another repeat, but the fall colors on the grounds were gorgeous! 
Added to the fall colors were three pieces of glass sculpture on the grounds created by Dale Chihuly, a well-known artist from the Northwest. Three pieces on the grounds were original to this exhibit and would be on the grounds until the end of October. The fiery red ball, called Summer Sun is in the photo.
During this tour, I knew to have my camera ready to take a photo of the red wax process. The top end of each filled bottle was dipped in red melted wax for that distinctive Makers Mark cap. The idea came from Margie Samuels who founded the distillery with her husband in 1958. The first bottle was dipped using wax heated up in a deep fryer on the Samuels’ stove. Since each bottle is dipped by hand, it actually makes the bottling line a bit slower than some of the competition. While some distilleries can pump out 200-400 bottles per minute, Maker’s Mark’s group of hand-dippers currently do no more than 125 bottles each minute.
Limestone Branch Craft Distillery in Lebanon was on our route back to Abe, so we decided to stop. We were greeted by the resident distillery cat and were well entertained by one of the employees who was our pourer. Bonnie was demonstrating a most effective tasting technique!
Friday, October 27, we drove to Lexington for more exploring and an overnight stay. Lewis had arranged a horse farm tour for us with “Ernie” in his 12-passenger van. Ernie was a former jockey and horse trainer and knew every horse in every stable in a 30-mile radius! What a character. We had a beautiful fall day to travel through the green pastures and pristine farms. 
We met a few thoroughbreds! Fortunately Ernie knew which horses enjoyed attention, which ones would bite, and which ones were too valuable for us to bother.
We even got to visit the grave of Seattle Slew, a Triple Crown winner in 1977. His owners, Karen Taylor who was a former flight attendant, and her husband, Mickey Taylor, a lumberman, lived in White Swan, Washington. They named him for the city of Seattle and the sloughs which loggers once used to transport heavy logs. Karen felt that the spelling of slough—a slow-moving channel of the Pacific
We had a delicious dinner at the “Thoroughbred Club” in downtown Lexington. It sounds fancier than it was! It was a local restaurant that had been in downtown Lexington forever and was quite popular with the locals. That’s always a good sign.
Saturday we drove to Frankfort to tour the Capitol. The fourth and current capitol building was completed in 1910.
Made from marble and granite from all over the world and topped with a 190-foot dome, Kentucky’s capitol was considered one of the most beautiful in the nation. On the first floor we found quite a display of replicas of the entire US Presidents’ First Ladies in their inaugural ball gowns.
Also found in Frankfort was Buffalo Trace Distillery, another large commercial operation, and reputed to be the oldest continually operating distillery in the US. During prohibition, the distillery was permitted to remain open to produce “medicinal” whiskey. We quickly learned that trying to tour a well-known distillery on the weekend wasn’t a good idea…the place was packed! We did participate in a bourbon tasting…couldn’t pass that up!...but very crowded. The most entertaining thing here was their displays of their very creative labels. The name "Buffalo Trace" referred to an ancient buffalo crossing on the banks of the Kentucky River in Franklin County, Kentucky.
We found a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant for lunch tucked under the bluff of the Kentucky River in Frankfort…Cliffside Restaurant. The young man who waited on us was quite a character and certainly had the perfect Kentucky drawl. We asked him about their salads and he told us, “I don’t eat anything green and the only things I eat that come out of the ground are corn, taters, and rabbits!” Wow.
We made two more distillery stops on our way back to Lexington that afternoon and both further confirmed our impression that bourbon trail touring on the weekend was a really bad idea. If you ever decide to do this trip, seek out the distilleries Monday through Friday!
Sunday, October 29, 2017, was the 500thanniversary of Martin Luther’s act of nailing his 95 theses to the church door at Worms, Germany. A high holy day of the top order for we Lutherans! We found Gesthemane Lutheran Church in Lexington to attend and enjoyed another friendly crowd of good folks! The sanctuary was beautiful with the green leaf motif throughout. Someone had hand painted the screens that lined the perimeter of the worship space. The pastor, a lady, was delightful and made us feel very welcome.
Following the service, we stayed to coffee and birthday cake…perfect!
Right after church we drove back to Sheperdsville, since Lewis and Bonnie were scheduled to fly home at 3:50 PM. We felt like we’d had a great visit with them, but too short once again.
Since we were so close to Dayton, OH, where my nursing school roommate, Pat McCosh and her husband Chuck, lived, we drove to their house on Monday morning. We left Abe in Shepherdsville, and took the pickup for the quick trip. Pat and I always seem to find lots to talk about and Jerry and Chuck sort of stand back and give us some space!
Tuesday morning Pat, Jerry, and I drove to Wright-Patterson AFB Museum. Quite a place…huge! This was another remarkable museum worth your time to explore. We spent the day there and could have easily spent two more. The docents were former pilots of the aircraft and had great stories to tell. They had a display and good discussion of the role of the P-51 in World War II European theater. Dad would have been pleased, I think. He was a P-51 pilot.
We celebrated my 70thbirthday at a delicious South American Restaurant then returned to their home to share our newly acquired knowledge of Kentucky bourbon! They were eager and quick learners. Pat and I made plans to get together next fall when our nursing school class celebrates its 50threunion!
We returned to Abe on Wednesday, November 1, to get ready to begin to make our way to Port Aransas, TX, where we planned to winter. I’ll include the story of our trip south in the next chapter of our travels.
