We’ve done the Kentucky Bourbon Trail three times since 2015.

It is one of the most enjoyable things we’ve discovered, obviously, since we’ve done it a few times.  We’re planning to do it again this year and will probably do it every other year or so until we can no longer make the drive.   We live in southern Illinois, just east of St. Louis, so the drive to Louisville, Kentucky is only about four hours.

We combined our first trip to the Bourbon Trial with another stop we’d wanted to do for a very long time.

So on our way, we took a detour and ended up in Bowling Green, Kentucky – home to the National Corvette Museum and the only factory designed and used exclusively to produce America’s sports car, the Chevrolet Corvette.

Whether you own a Corvette or not, if ever in Kentucky, you should visit this place.  Absolutely amazing!

The factory tour is a walking tour where you can actually see these amazing vehicles being built, tested and even driven on their own oval racetrack.  And yes, we are a little biased since we owned a gorgeous, silver, convertible C6 Corvette at the time.

 

The museum is probably even more amazing than the production line.  The corvette goes back to 1953 and has undergone eight versions as of this writing.  The first corvette, the C1 revolutionized the American sports car industry and other brands have been playing catch up ever since.  The newest version, the C8 is a mid engine, completely re-styled and very futuristic vehicle boasting 500 horsepower and capable of going from zero to sixty miles per hour in just three seconds – a kick in the pants for sure.

But we digress, so back to the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.

Our first stop was the Jim Beam Distillery in Clermont, Kentucky.

The tour was about an hour and a half long and cost $10 to include the tasting.  Here we learned how bourbon was made from beginning to end when it ends up in retail stores and restaurants.  For those of you that don’t know it, bourbon was declared by the United States Congress in 1964 as our national spirit – meaning that in order to be called bourbon, it has to be distilled in the United States only.  And before we forget, a lot, not all, of the distilleries offer military discounts for the tours/tastings.

While most people believe that bourbon must be made in Kentucky, this is not true, even though most bourbon is distilled in Kentucky.

Kentucky is special because the water used flows through limestone which makes it high in magnesium and calcium – perfect for making bourbon.  It is true that it must be made in the United States, but there are many other requirements for making bourbon besides being made in the U.S. only.  The recipes differ slightly from distillery to distillery, but they all share some common characteristics.

First of all, bourbon has to be aged in new charred oak barrels – nothing else. The ingredients are all basically the same, but vary according to the percentages.  Another constant is that all bourbon has to have a minimum of 51% corn in the recipe even though most use a higher amount of corn in the process.  The other ingredients are typically barley, rye and sometimes wheat.

 

Our guide described the fermenting process and showed us how the bourbon is stored for years while it ages to perfection in the massive warehouses, known as ‘Rickhouses’.

The Jim Beam distillery is a stop you have to make.  We highly recommend it. The tasting room is beautiful and the samples were all delicious.  They have a restaurant on site, Fred’s Smokehouse, with counter service and some outdoor seating.  We were also able to bottle our very own bottle of Knob Creek bourbon, a brand made by the Jim Beam Company.  We chose a bottle, placed it on the bottling line that filled the bottle, labeled it and placed the stopper in.  After this was complete, the bottle was sealed with wax and yes there really is a person at the end of the bottling line sitting in front of a bucket of hot wax individually dipping the bottle tops into the wax to seal them.  We were able to place our thumb prints in the wax and plan to open that very bottle on our twenty fifth anniversary.

Our next stop was at Heaven Hill and the Bourbon Heritage Center in Bardstown.

Bardstown is the Mecca when it comes to bourbon country.  Heaven Hill makes Evan Williams, Larceny, Elijah Craig and some other bourbons.  That one hour tour/tasting was also $10.  This one included a tour of one of the Rickhouses – very interesting.  That night we had dinner at the Old Talbott Tavern in Bardstown, founded in 1779.

 

Be sure to make it upstairs to a special room where legend has it that Jesse James, in a drunken stupor, riddled the walls with bullet holes.

While not on the actual Kentucky Bourbon Trail, the next morning we went to Barton’s 1792 distillery in Bardstown.  We were on the very first tour of the day, a very personal tour since we were the only two there.  Barton’s has been around a very long time as evidenced by the really old structures on the grounds, but that’s not to take anything away from them.  Their bourbon, Very Old Barton, is top notch.  We were introduced to chocolate bourbon ball candy and chocolate bourbon ball liquor.  Both very decadent, but both irresistible.

Our next stop was the Four Roses Distillery in Lawrenceburg on the Salt River.  The facilities have a very unique Spanish architecture that differs from the other distilleries in the area.  The tour/tasting was $5.  Excellent bourbon.  The tasting room was small but beautiful.

We stayed at the Woodford Inn in Versailles that night.  Addie’s restaurant is on site and is very good.  We highly recommend this as a place to stay.  The rooms are all decorated differently and are very cozy and comfortable.

The next morning we had breakfast (included) at the Woodford Inn and then headed to the Woodford Reserve distillery in Versailles.  This one is absolutely gorgeous.  The drive to get there winds through Kentucky horse country and is beautiful.

Our next stop took us to the Buffalo Trace distillery, another distillery not on the actual Trail, but one you cannot miss.  The one hour tour/tasting had the largest groups of any we went on. The highlight was going through the Blanton’s bottling line.  Unlike the Jim Beam bottling line, once the bottles are filled, here at Buffalo Trace the labeling, sealing, randomly placing the unique horse and jockey figurines on top of each bottle and packaging is all done by hand.  It’s done in a very small room where maybe thirty people take turns rotating between the different jobs on the bottling line required to get Blanton’s ready for retail.

From there we headed to Louisville where we went to the Bulleit distillery.  This last distillery for us on our first visit to the Kentucky Bourbon Trail is where the inspiration for our rustic bourbon bar came from – Another full day.  We stayed in a hotel near the Kentucky Derby racetrack.

The next morning we had brunch at The Brown Hotel in downtown Louisville.  Their famous ‘Kentucky Brown’ was well worth stopping for.  And we were also given a tour of that grand hotel.

We headed back home with every intention of doing it again.  Next time we will visit some other distilleries but will likely return to some of the eight distilleries we visited on this trip.

Paul and Dixie

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