Kentucky Bourbon Trail

Hike #7 1/7/2023

Another year, another trip to Kentucky. Four Roses And Wilderness Trail were on the itinerary for this hike.

Four Roses is different than most distilleries as they ferment and distill on-site, but truck the distillate to another location for barreling, maturation and bottling. They offer a separate tour at that facility - I might check it out if I'm in the area and have time to kill.

The fermentation tanks are made of cypress and show years of leak repairs. It's definitely a working distillery as opposed to a showcase distillery, with the columns and doublers squeezed in where they fit.



The post-tour tastings taught me that I'm a fan of their single barrel offerings more than their other varieties. All in all, it was a better tour than I expected.

Wilderness Trail had been on my tour list for a while. It's the most southern distillery in the eastern half of Kentucky so the drive home would be close to three hours. But man... it was worth it.



The back story is very unique. Two friends are playing in a heavy metal band. Someone tells them to do something useful with their lives so they form a yeast analysis business. And after years of helping to pinpoint the root cause of bad bourbon batches, they get the crazy idea to open their own distillery to utilize their proprietary yeast formulations. They start off as a craft distillery and quickly graduate to the big leagues. And in 2022, the Campari Group offers the two metal-heads $600,000,000 for their company. Rock on!

This distillery is a showcase. Lots of little touches like the etching of the still port window. Even the spirit safe was special. Two water wheels are powered by the distillate to move the arms and legs of the barrel-rolling man.







I'm a fan of their bottled-in-bond wheated bourbon and scored a cask-strength bottle before heading for home. Not a bad way to start off the new year!

1/14/2020

I pulled off a triple tour to end this hike.

First up was the Log Still Distillery. They have a hand sketch of an original still made of logs in their visitor's center and I saw a real version on the show Moonshiners. Pretty much a poor-man's version of a copper still - no reason to use this technology other than if you're flat broke and want to distill spirits. Fortunately, Log Still uses modern equipment.








Note that they had the outside of the still column finished to look like bark. Log Still... get it?

The founders are from the Dent Family who have roots in Kentucky Distilling that go back to pre-Prohibition days. Not only did they build their distillery on the grounds of an old abandoned distillery, they went full in and renovated several nearby houses in B&B's as well as adding a large event center and a concert amphitheater. Great place for a wedding. And surprisingly, the amphitheater has big-name acts performing there this year. Lady A, Dwight Yoakam, Big and Rich, Martina McBride. Like I said - full in.

There's was nothing terribly exciting from a bourbon standpoint. They're years away from selling any of their own bourbon and only have some private label stuff produced and bottled at the Bardstown Bourbon Company. I left empty-handed other than the stamp in my Passport book.

It was a short drive to Maker's Mark for Tour #2. The place is gorgeous.









A few quick notes on their bourbons. Traditional Maker's Mark is a bourbon for people that don't like bourbon. Wheat is used in place of rye to deliver a sweet taste and the bourbon is proofed-down to a very palatable 90 proof. Maker's 46 is finished with French oak staves in the barrel for 2-3 months. A barrel of finished Maker's Mark is taken from the rickhouse to a workshop where it is drained into a holding tank. The barrel is partially disassembled to allow for the addition of several French oak staves to be added in the middle before it is reassembled and refilled. The French oak pieces are not actually staves but flat boards that are placed on a plastic rod that keeps them from touching. That results in greater surface area. The finishing is done in a 'cellar' environment that stops the maturation process but still allows the bourbon to pick up the French oak notes.



I have a bottle of the Maker's 46 in my bar but purchased a cask-strength version that clocks in at 110 proof. Yowsah!

The last stop of the day was at Limestone Branch Distillery. One of the smallest distilleries on the Bourbon Trail but they do have the distinction of donating a portion of their profits from their Yellowstone Bourbon to the National Parks Conservation Association. $250,000 for 2023. Drink up and support our National Parks.







The last picture is of an original Prohibition prescription for medicinal bourbon. There were many more of these prescriptions than people in Kentucky. A veterinarian could write a script for your dog, goat or horse. Just in case they had night tremors or were scared of thunder.

I supported the NPCA buy purchasing a bottle of their toasted barrel bourbon.

It's important to note that I passed on many of the tasting samples through the day knowing that I had a 3-hour drive home. And I stopped for an extended lunch just down the street from the distillery. Three visits in one day is like pulling off a 25-miler. It can be done, but best if done sparingly.

Hike #8 2/11/2023

It was finally time to check out some of the Louisville distilleries. I passed on the big guys - Evan Williams, Angel's Envy, Michter's, Old Forester and Rabbit Hole - and chose to start with two of the craft distilleries.

First up was Kentucky Peerless.






Peerless is a relatively new distillery but their roots go back to pre-Prohibition (1889). Polish immigrant Henry Kraver started off in banking but eventually found himself owning a distillery in the Kentucky countryside. Things were going very well - right up to Prohibition. Henry couldn't get a license to sell medicinal bourbon, so his warehouse was padlocked and he moved to Chicago to resume his banking career. By chance, he met up with a man by the name of Walgreen who did have a medicinal bourbon license for his drug stores and the Peerless bourbon was liberally dispensed to the ailing population.

The original distillery is no longer in existence but the Peerless name was revived by Henry's great grandson Corky Taylor. Here's where the back story gets interesting. Kraver's grandson was shipped off to a military school at an early age. He became an effective leader and ended up serving as a bodyguard for General George Patton during WWII. After the war, Patton presented him with one of his pearl (actually ivory) handled revolvers.

Corky was also sent to a military school but fell in with a pair of misfit brothers. The trio was asked to leave. So Corky and his friends Duane & Gregg moved on to civilian life. Those damn Allman Brothers are nothing but trouble!

Now that the connections to General Patton and the Allman Brothers are established, it's time to move onto the bourbon. Peerless ages their barrels on-site and keeps production volumes low to control quality. As their bourbons mature, exceptional barrels are marked with chalk star to be destined for bottling as a Single Barrel offering. I actually prefer their small batch bourbon over their single barrel, but that is always subjective based on the taste profile of that one barrel. With a price point of $72-$82 per bottle, it ain't cheap. But it is a very good bourbon - especially when listening to classic southern rock.

The next stop was Copper and Kings on the east side of town. They are primarily a producer of American brandy but did just release a brandy barrel bourbon. The most interesting part of their operation is that they age all of their distillate in their basement. What what what?!?! How do they achieve the flavorings from the oak barrel if they don't have the constant expansion & contraction of the wood? Simple - they pump rock & pop music through subwoofers in the basement. It works. Our guide explained that if barrels are kept next to one of the subwoofers for too long, the liquid inside starts to thicken. As a result, thy need to keep moving the barrels during maturation so none of them go deaf. They are big on using barrels from both beer and bourbon for their brandies since they don't have to comply with the new oak barrel rule for bourbons.





So, how is the resulting brandy and bourbon? Very forgettable. I would have picked up a bottle of the bourbon if the price was $20 less. It ended up being just another stop to get my passport stamp.

3/12/2023

The last stop on this hike was the Bardstown Bourbon Company. In contrast to Kentucky Peerless, there is no multi-generation history in the bourbon industry. The distillery was designed to be a showcase of technology, glass, copper and steel. BBC distills 50 different mashbills for customers like Total Wine, Calumet Farms, Log Still, etc. As a result, they use a sweet mash process where the cooker, fermentation tanks and still are all cleaned between runs. No sour mash starter here!

We did a small group tour that started in the vintage bourbon library. Individuals can book the room and pay up to $1200 for a pour from any of the bottles. Pappy? They have them all. The oldest bottle goes back to the late 1800's. They even have a full set of Old Crow chess set decanters. Once you purchased all of the decanters, Old Crow would send you a chessboard carpet. Good plan, as you'd probably end up on the floor anyway.





After a tasting of their Fusion Series in the library, we took a tour of the production areas then moved out to one of the rickhouses that had a ritzy lounge. The founder also owns the Versace Mansion in Miami and brought some of the furniture up to Bardstown for this lounge.





After the lounge tastings, we moved into the rickhouse for one last tasting where we used a whiskey thief to grab a sample directly from a barrel. Then I filled a bottle of their current Distillery Collection before corking, sealing and labeling it. I was able to add my favorite bourbon statement: IN BORBONIO VERITAS - In bourbon, there is truth.



If you're ever driving past Bardstown at night on the Bluegrass Parkway, you'll see the BBC rickhouses lit up in all of their glory. Quite the showcase distillery!