Kentucky Bourbon Trail Part III

On Wednesday, July 18, we visited Castle and Key Distillery to view the grounds. The distillery goes back to 1877 when Colonel Edmund Haynes Taylor purchased the grounds and distilled bourbon under the name The Old Taylor Distillery Company, this is the same Edmund Taylor that began distilling bourbon in 1870 on what is now Buffalo Trace. The distillery fell on hard times during prohibition; the distillery closed and the property eventually went into ruins. In 2012 Will Arvin saw a photo of the property and purchased the property in 2014 and began restoration. It was named Castle and Key for the castle building, built in 1877, and the keyhole shaped spring house that is the water source. There is a sunken garden where the water source is but that is open only to tours, so we couldn’t visit it. I found the grounds to be one of the prettiest of the distilleries we’ve visited, full of flowering plants and places to sit and relax.
Thursday we drove to Louisville (pronounced “Loualvul”) to explore. We started at the Churchill Downs Museum with a guided tour of the racetrack. It was cool to be on the property that is on TV every year and learn about the history of the racetrack and significant moments throughout its history. From there we had lunch at Merle’s Whisky Kitchen and had one of the better meals we’ve had in a while! We walked down “Whiskey Row” a bit then drove to another part of town to go to “Neat - Bourbon Bar and Bottle Shop”. We were expecting it to be like Evergreen but it was a bar/lounge with an adjacent bourbon bottle store. We had fun talking to the bartender, who admitted experimenting with cocktails earlier 😂, and made very good cocktails. She gave me the recipes for my 2 new favorite cocktails- bourbon lemon drop and gold rush.
Friday we attended a Smokey Old Fashion Cocktail class at Bulleit Distillery. We were the only 2 so it turned into a private event! It was a good learning experience, we were able to choose ingredients and the cocktail that I made was good, and I normally don’t like old fashions. We learned a little of their history, Bulleit was established in 1987 by Tom Bulleit, but the recipe dates back to the 1830’s from his ancestor Augustus Bulleit. The layout of Bulleit visitor center had a nice atmosphere, pretty and relaxing. Later that afternoon we did the Buffalo Trace Hard Hat Tour where we learned how Bourbon is made. It’s quite a process with the fermentation of corn, malted barley and rye, each brewed at specific temperatures. We were able to see the vats at various stages of fermentation and it was interesting to see how it “boils” naturally. Buffalo Trace is considered a national landmark and the buildings can not been destroyed, each have a history, and several have been repurposed. The leftover grain from the fermentation process is dried and used for cow and poultry feed, a process that was developed during WWII per the request of the government. Onsite there is a woodcraft shop where 2 men designs build things from the barrels, such as custom engravings on a barrel head, a guitar using buffalo trace cigar box and barrel staves. There was a drafting on the table to design a very large buffalo using the barrel staves to place on the property.
Sunday we made a quick trip to Jeptha Creed Distillery for a tasting. It is a small family owned company that uses the products from their very large farm. They use a red corn that was developed on the farm for the purpose of distilling bourbon. They also make flavored vodkas, which I was hoping would be part of the spirit tasting but was not.
We departed Frankfort, KY on July 21 and left the Bourbon Trail behind us. We enjoyed a lot of bourbon tastings and I tried new cocktails that were surprisingly good. Our last stop was at the Ashton/Huntington West KOA in Argillite, KY. It’s a small, nice park in east Kentucky, close to nowhere. The entrance to the park is where they put the short stays and also where the pool, playgrounds and dog park are located. Down a hill is where the long and full timers are. The best part is the weather is finally pleasant in the evenings! The last month has been very hot and humid and rainy, it’s nice to have a break and sit outside comfortably. On Tuesday we went to a meat market that is at the bottom of a hill from the backside of the campground, they had fairly good prices and we had nice steak medallions for dinner. That night it was cool enough to have a campfire, finally!もっと詳しく