Kentucky Bourbon Trail Stay and Eat Options

For a slice of small town friendliness I recommend staying in Bardstown, Kentucky. A delightful little place with some unique shops dotted along Main Street. Everyone we met exuded genuine warmth and charm. Bardstown is located halfway between Lexington and Louisville making it a perfect home base for visiting distilleries. Every restaurant from mom and pop diner to family/country cooking to upscale establishment boasted 50-90 different bourbons to imbibe.

If you are going to be drinking that much bourbon you need to stay within walking distance of your temporary watering holes. We stayed at the Colonel's Cottage Inn. A 6 room cottage with a huge jacuzzi, living room, dining room, kitchen, bedroom was $99 a night and just two blocks from the center of town. And the Colonel and his wife Margaret Sue were a delight to meet.

The Colonel and wife also own the Kentucky Bourbon House where they serve meals on the weekends and offer bourbon flights. The flights were a great way to try different brands. We sat on the front patio with the Colonel while we tasted. (We then could walk to the drive-up liquor store to purchase our favorites). During this tasting I fell in love with Old Pogue  - very smooth and Templeton Rye - very floral nose and made in Iowa.

For lunch or dinner stop at the Old Talbott Tavern. They have served up food and housed travelers since the late 1700's. There are rumors of ghosts as well. We had delicious sandwiches for lunch.

It's hard not to take advantage of Southern comfort cooking when in Kentucky. We had dinner at the Kurtz Restaurant one night which began operations in 1937. The place oozes colonial revival. All entrees are served with hot rolls, green beans (the ones cooked to death with a large dose of ham hock), and spiced beets. They satisfied me with roast turkey and all the trimmings. Hubby raved about the skillet fried chicken and fried chicken livers - best livers since his mom used to fry them when he was a kid. And then came dessert - Chocolate Meringue Pie. This was the real deal people! A fluffy cloud of soft meringue with the peaks just-browned and the creamy chocolate filling that rivaled anything that my aunt used to make when I was growing up. After dinner and dessert we could do something at this family dinner restaurant that we could never do at our childhood restaurants in Virginia - have a shot of bourbon to cap off the evening. The Willett Pot Still Reserve made me very happy.

If you tire of comfort food, hit up Circa, but make reservations. This is an upscale boite and can fill up quickly. Circa was the only place in small town/rural Kentucky where we found a selection of good wines (as well as bourbons). The Cakebread Zin paired well with our meal. We enjoyed starters (shrimp rolls), entrees (bourbon-laquered short ribs and duck roulade), and an after dinner drink with my new-found friend Old Pogue.

Hospitality, good food, and bourbon. Bardstown is definitely the heart of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.

Willett Distillery

My favorite distillery turned out to be Willett which is a craft distillery (although they still crank out a goodly number of barrels). Three reasons why I liked these guys the best:

1. While we were waiting for the tour we could wander around the property as long as we did not go into any of the buildings. Lots of leisurely photo time.
2. For $10 we got a tour, a taste of two bourbons (2nd one our choice), and a souvenir sipping glass (kin to a Scotch glass). Our tour guide was young, but she was very knowledgeable and took us through the distillery itself with the copper pot still, the building where the barrels are filled and then one of the rickhouses.
3. The Willett Pot Still Reserve was my favorite bourbon out of all that I tasted. The aromas of vanilla and caramel as well as the smooth taste were impressive. I prefer to drink this elixir neat after dinner. The bottle shaped like a pot still was cool, too.

Here are a few of the photos from the visit:

Woodford Reserve - An Historic Distillery

Woodford Reserve held the prettiest distillery title. The rickhouses were constructed of stone or tile which made the expansion and contraction of the barrels a bit trickier. But since the place is designated a national historic landmark, changes of material will not be taking place. The distillery began in 1840, survived prohibition, and now serves up a mighty tasty beverage.

The tour was more extensive and we saw the distillation process, a rickhouse, and a small-operation bottling line. Everyone was served a taste of the Woodford Reserve. No opportunity to taste anything else.

I was afforded numerous photo ops:

Visitor Center

Woodford Reserve and Cherry Bitters

Tasting Room

Barrels on the Barrel Run

The fermentation takes place in cedar containers

Copper Pot Stills

Barrels in the Rickhouse

Opening a Barrel

Bottling

Stone Rickhouse

Tile Rickhouse

Cheers!

Wild Turkey

Before I hit the Bourbon Trail Wild Turkey was my bourbon of choice. Of course, I never imbibed it straight. No matter, even after my trip, I still like it for egg nog and to make vanilla-infused bourbon. Being such a Wild Turkey fan we had to visit the distillery. On this tour we got to see large vats of sour mash as well as one of the numerous rickhouses. For the tasting we could also pick our poisons. The most serendipitous image was actually seeing real wild turkeys roaming near the property (no photos, unfortunately).

Since most of the offerings, including Russell's Reserve can be purchased here in Virginia, we tasted but held off on buying.

Take a gander at some photos:

Wild Turkey has a good branding presence at their distillery

Rickhouses

Gift shop offerings

Large vats

Capturing high and low wine

Aging Barrels

Rickhouse Interior

Heaven Hill Distillery

Heaven Hill Distillery was the largest bourbon producer we visited. Their metal corrugated rickhouses stretched for miles. The smaller ones held 20,000 barrels. They were in the process of building new rickhouses that could hold up to 50,000 barrels. Whew!

Heaven Hill produces Evan Williams, Larceny (one of hubby's favorites), along with a myriad of others. This tour featured one of the rickhouses and a tasting of both Evan Williams and Elijah Craig in a barrel-shaped tasting room.

A note on tastings in Kentucky (well in wet counties in Kentucky). You can basically taste 1/2 an ounce. Each distillery will have one bourbon in particular that they want you to taste (sometimes it's the only one to taste) and then most will have you taste a second (some their choice, some yours - every place is different). In order to taste more (at least in Bardstown) you have to patronize the Kentucky Bourbon House for flights (highly recommended if you are walking back to your home away from home) or settle in at any restaurant for the upwards of 90+ offerings at the bar.

For this tasting we were given two offerings. The only thing I did not like about the tasting was the tour guide telling the group to add a few drops of water BEFORE tasting the bourbon. I get the role of water in tamping down the alcohol level and smoothing out potential harshness, but I want to taste the straight stuff first and then decide if water is needed (water was needed in this case).

As usual there were photo opportunities:

Heaven Hill

Barrels in the Rickhouse

No Bull

Little Brown Jug

Tasting Room

Elijah Craig 12 Year Old Small Batch