Back to Kentucky

A weekend to complete our Bourbon Trail passport!

When we stop and think about it, it’s incredible how this all started, almost by chance. Someone would say “serendipity”. Roy Aquavitae centered one of his vPubs around this concept, telling the story of how he stumbled upon whisky (scotch in his case) at some point in his life, almost by chance. We are no different.

Back in August 2016, we had picked up the Bourbon Trail Passport at Heaven Hill, the first whisky distillery we ever visited. At the time, to complete the passport, there were only 9 distilleries to visit. Just to give you an idea on how quickly things are changing in the world of whisk(e)y, now there are 18 (and, on top of that, there is also an alternative Craft Bourbon Trail). Had there been that many at the time, we probably wouldn’t have completed it. However, with only 6 to go after our roadtrip in the South, we thought it was doable in a weekend, so there we go!

March 2017, Teresa was back in Illinois to visit. We were coming out of a quite cold winter, at least for our standards – earlier in January the temperature wouldn’t have gone above -10C for an entire week, with peaks (well, drops) at around -23C. One Friday, we rented a car and drove straight to Louisville, where we had our hotel booked.

The Saturday was particularly challenging, with four distilleries visits planned. This is still the maximum number of distilleries we visited in a single day, and to be honest, we wouldn’t do that again, but rather take an extra day. The driver of the day was Gianluigi, and that meant he only took a sniff from the samples and a few tiny sips, planning to fully enjoy the stuff later at the hotel.

First off, Maker’s Mark, joining the first tour of the day. The distillery is in a very nice location, with rolling green hills (like many places in Kentucky), wood, and black and red buildings.

As for Jim Beam earlier in August, in the tasting at the end of the tour we appreciated the range of flavours a single distillery could produce, and although their flagship product was not our favourite, some of the other drams were truly excellent (we wish we could remember what they were…).

After we were done with the Maker’s Mark and their very generous tasting, we headed North-East towards Woodford Reserve. There, we only did a tasting, a couple of drams paired with chocolate for about 10 dollars.

As the previous distillery, it looked quite nicely immersed in the rural landscape. A bit of a change would have come later, at Wild Turkey. Compared to the other ones, the Campari-owned distillery looked more like an industrial plant (or maybe the other ones are just better at hiding this, considering they all produce a huge amount of spirit). This not to say we did not like it, on the contrary we loved it! Also, the tasting room was in a very scenic spot, overlooking an old rail bridge. Here they gave us four drams, including a delicious Rye whiskey and a less so honey liquor (some things you just can’t unlearn…definitely not a drink for us). The other stuff was great however, and Wild Turkey is now one of our “never without at least a bottle in the cabinet” (at the moment: the 101 and the Rare Breed).

Wild Turkey tasting (yes, they gave us the glasses!) and…

We moved on to the last distillery of the day: Town Branch. Located in downtown Lexington, it marked the move from the rural landscape of the early part of the day, to a nice and vibrant urban atmosphere. We picked the distillery tour only, skipping the brewery part, which brought us into the whiskey making plant. Particularly notable was the still room with the two long-necked copper stills, and a big window overlooking the landscape.

What a still room they have at Town Branch!

We enjoyed the view while enjoying the tasting at the end of the tour. We drove back to Louisville for dinner, which we had at the Feast BBQ…guess what we had? We’ll just say that the beef brisket was spectacular.

Sunday started slowly, taking advantage of the hotel’s facilities, including a (first) light breakfast. We drove towards downtown Louisville to have a (second) bigger breakfast, which we had in a local restaurant called Wild Eggs: holy molly that quesadilla (yes, Gianluigi does still remember…)! We then moved to the first of the two distilleries of the day: the Evan Williams experience, in the middle of the city. Although the main Evan Williams production is at Jim Beam’s, here they have a little experimental distillery with a capacity of one barrel per week. We chose the tasting experience, which was organised as a tour in a speak-easy bar, with the guide dressed as a bartender of the 1920s-30s. The drams here were pretty awesome, we still fondly remember a 12y/o (which we hugely regret not buying…what newbies!) and a 22y/o bourbon that blowed our socks off! Unfortunately for Teresa, she was the designated driver for the day, but she eagerly packeted the samples for later.

We proceeded to the last distillery of the trip where we’d have (finally!) our Bourbon Trail Passport completed: Bulleit!

No longer newbies (well…), Bourbon Trail done!

To this day this is still one of our favourite bourbons, probably also because of the high rye content of the mashbill. Their Rye whiskey is also a favourite of ours, and we’re not the only ones: months later the bottle of Bulleit Rye that Gianluigi had gifted to his parents evaporated in mysterious circumstances (a dinner party, apparently…or maybe angel share?).

Our trip was over, and we finally headed back to Illinois, tired but happy to have done something special (including the fact that in all tours we were the only non-Americans). Thinking back to this experience today, it seems like ages ago. Maybe it’s because of the pandemic, or maybe the years have really gone by, or maybe it’s just that so many ‘whisk(e)y things’ have happend afterwards.

Today whysk(e)y is not just our hobby, it’s our gateway to a world of flavour and experiences. Visiting distilleries is by far our favourite holiday-type, we love getting to know whisk(e)y and the people making it. Every distillery has its own story and is embedded in its own unique atmosphere, which cannot be replicated anywhere else. We are never tired of learning, and with 50 and counting distilleries visited now, we still feel there is not enough time to learn and see all the things we would like to! And all started with a “why not”….serendipity?

Kentucky Bourbon Distilleries – Links

https://www.makersmark.com/
https://www.woodfordreserve.com/en-uk/
https://www.wildturkeybourbon.com/
https://www.lexingtonbrewingco.com/distilleries-tours
https://evanwilliams.com/plan-your-trip
https://www.bulleit.com/en-gb/

[Again, no summary box. We visited these distilleries 5 years ago, our feedback would be too out of date!]

Road-trippin in the US

How a bad weather day throwed us into the world of whisk(e)y!

So, how did a couple of Italians, whose families’ drink of choice has been wine for (probably) generations, get caught into the fabulous world of whisky? Well, thanks to a road trip in the United States South and to a very nice host. But let’s not go ahead of ourselves and proceed in order.

Before 2016, we did not have much idea about what whisk(e)y was nor how it was made. In 2015 Gianluigi moved to Illinois, right in the middle of mid-west. One evening, a friend poured him something that he never forgot, something new: a Laphroaig. That prompted him to purchase a couple of scotch bottles (two because he first bought a Glenfiddich 12y, thinking that it would have been the same…how dare him!). Besides that, not much…whisk(e)y was just another spirit. Teresa was a bit more experienced (so to speak), as from time to time she would end an evening with friends with peated whisky instead of amaro.

Comes 2016, Teresa arrived to Illinois for the summer holidays. We had decided to take a road-trip, our favourite style of vacation. This time, a really big one: the mighty South! From Illinois down to Kentucky (through Indiana), Nashville, the Appalachian Mountains, Charleston SC, Savannah GA, then straight West to New Orleans, up to Memphis, St. Louis, and back to Illinois.

First stop: Louisville, Kentucky (KY)…you probably already see where this is going. At the time we were still using AirBnB (later we decided to stop because of the increasing cost of living that this and other short-term rent companies are causing to locals, who struggle to find affordable flats, in particular in cities like Edinburgh) and we stayed in a typical American suburbia house, hosted by a very nice couple. While having a relaxed chat in the evening, he poured us some bourbon and suggested us to take the exit 112 from the Interstate 65, because there were a few open distilleries just 10 to 15 minutes away. We looked at each other and thought: “why not”?

The day after came, and the weather was not exactly a delight. So, a further reason to take a few hours for the “bourbon detour”. First, we tried the farthest from the highway, the Heaven Hill Bourbon Heritage Center, in Bardstown. We were unlucky there, as the tour had just left, but a tasting would have started soon enough. In the meantime, we could admire the huge rickhouses on the rolling hills outside the visitor centre.

The tasting was very informative, covering the history of the distillery and all the brands they had acquired, in particular after the prohibition era. The line-up was made of four drams, the first one (a rye) promptly necked by Teresa despite the guide telling us to take a wee sip… of course Gianluigi shared his afterwards. There was also an Elijah Craig bourbon, while the final dram was a very “woody” example of how, sometimes, too long maturation can go wrong. At the visitor centre, we spotted the Kentucky Bourbon passport, which we both took and put the Heaven Hill stamp on.

A new challenge ahead: getting all the distillery stamps!

We tried our luck at the next distillery: Four Roses (actually, the warehouse and bottling plant in Cox’s Creek). Again, no luck, the tour had just started, so we did the tasting, again. We had their three main bourbons for the (ridiculous) price of $5.00: the Four Roses Bourbon, Small Batch and Single Barrel. While Teresa loved the latter, Gianluigi preferred the middle one, but overall we were surprised by how good it was (Gianluigi in particular, as he remembered a drunken night of over a decade earlier fuelled by an unpleasant Four Roses bourbon).

Back in the car, we headed towards the third and last distillery (for now), Jim Beam. Here we were finally able to take the tour (hurray!).

It was a great experience, the guide was very funny and prepared, a great start for newbies like us. We could understand how whiskey is made, and walk inside one of these huge rickhouses we kept seeing around, and all the rules of bourbon and rye (>50% corn/rye, new oak barrels, etc). At the end we could choose two or three drams in their huge product range (great favourites, Baker’s and Knob Creek).

Here, by trying several expressions next to each other, we could fully appreciate how bourbons (and whisky in general) can be very different despite being produced on the same site. And in this moment, folks, the seed of our curiosity towards whisk(e)y was first planted in our mind, taste buds, and heart, paving the way to what would have happened next.

[If you are only interested in our whisk(e)y journey, you can skip the rest and go to the second episode. Otherwise keep reading about our road trip]

The trip continued not as smoothly as we would have liked. Nashville was great, although the Music Broadway was a bit too fake for us (in three out of four bars we entered the band played “Sweet Home Alabama”, in all four “Take me Home, Country Roads”). That was compensated by an early morning visit to Jack White’s Third Man Records store and a delicious fried chicken lunch!

The Appalachians and the Smokey Mountains were also great. After driving through Chattanooga and before the Blue Ridge Highway, we stayed near Sylva (NC) where our friend Matt (if you want to know all the coolest things about plant ecology, he is the guy! here his website and podcast) brought us to taste delicious beers at the local Innovation Brewing.

After a detour to Charlotte (NC) to pick up two Pearl Jam tickets and before visiting the stunning Charlestone (SC), we had our first setback: bed bugs! We left the motel (clearly too randomly picked) in the middle of the night to avoid being eaten alive (fortunately we had not opened our luggage to avoid our clothes smelling like cigarette…not sure about calling that luck). But the real issue happened the day after: 10 minutes before reaching our (more carefully picked) motel right outside Savannah (GA), we got rear-ended by a distracted lady on the highway! We were intact, the car not so much, and we had to spend half of the next day trying to get another one from the closest open (it was Saturday…) car rental branch. Thankfully this didn’t translate into a huge financial issue, as we were covered by the roadside assistance insurance. Since then we have always included it in our rentals!

That was the last bad thing happened to us during the trip (hurray!).

Savannah was truly gorgeous, a shame we could not stay more. At one point we were having a beer on the river side, and a guy asked Gianluigi if he could take a picture him and his gilrfriend. “Of course”, the prompt reply. The phone was filming a video, however, and when Gianluigi was about to tell the guy, he realized that the guy was proposing to his (soon) fiancé. Gianluigi could not hold back a loud “holy s**t!”, ruining the proposal video forever. Teresa laughed at the idea of the two showing it at the wedding.

After driving through the Florida Panhandle (if for any reason you happen to be in Fernandina Beach, close to Jacksonville, get a sandwich at the Hola! Cuban Cafè: OMG!!!), we finally arrived at the most awaited stop-over: New Orleans.

We both fell in love with the city, its atmosphere and the music which seems to permeate every bit of life. Even Gianluigi, contrary to Teresa not a big jazz fan, couldn’t stop speaking of how great that was, in particular after a concert at the Preservation Hall. Following NOLA, another music city: Memphis, one of the cradles of Blues, with a capital “B” (and the best pulled-pork we have ever had!).

Spectacular Missisipi river side in Memphis!

Final stop: St. Louis, once an important industrial centre, now a tale of two sides: it is staggering, and frankly very sad, the difference of livelihood between neighbourhoods, sign of deep inequalities (to be fair, that was a constant of all cities we visited during this and other trips in the US).

What about the other KY distilleries? Well, you’ll have to wait until next week. Stay tuned and sláinte!

Kentucky Bourbon Distilleries – Links
https://heavenhilldistillery.com/#3
https://fourrosesbourbon.com/
https://www.beamdistilling.com/

[No summary box this time. We visited these distilleries almost 6 years ago, so we figured it’d have been too out of date.]

Category: USA

#7.2 Dramming around begins

Back to Kentucky

#7.1 Dramming around begins

Road-trippin in the US