So it's taken us a while to get back to our Bourbon Trail travels, but that's the price you pay for being so busy with kids in sports and a myriad of other activities. We were finally able to sync our schedule with our bourbon-drinking companions and make our way down I-75 from Cincinnati to Lexington to "finish up" the trail. (As it turns out, they've added more distilleries to the tour, so we're still not finished!) Because of other obligations, we had to postpone our arrival a bit, so our friends arrived at their campsite on Thursday night, while we had to drive down on Friday morning. It worked out okay though because they camp in a travel trailer and need a bit more set-up time, so they had a leisurely Thursday evening in the campground. We booked adjacent campsites at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, KY and you can read our campground review here. We arrived Friday morning, packed a lunch and headed out to our first distillery.
Our first distillery tour was Woodford Reserve. We learned pretty quickly that our plans for the weekend were going to get a little wonky. Apparently weekends in April are WAY busier on the Bourbon Trail than weekdays in July (our previous trip - see here). Our bad - we should have made reservations! We arrived and bought our tickets to the next available tour - as it turns out, we had about an hour to kill before our tour began. (Like I said, we should have made reservations.) We wandered the gift shop and sat out on the deck of the visitor center building waiting for our tour time. Even though the Woodford Reserve tour was crowded, it was still a good tour with some new information from our tour guide Cary. There were many buildings at Woodford on the National Historic Register, and we enjoyed experiencing the 17th century architecture immensely. One of the interesting things we learned at Woodford was that the correlation between bourbon and horses in Kentucky is no accident, as both benefit from the calcium-rich water (and in turn grasses for grazing). Apparently the groundwater there is perfect for making both good bourbon and strong bones in race horses. After the Woodford Reserve tasting (where we sampled their Distiller's Select and Double Oaked bourbon), we headed out to nearby Franklin County to the Buffalo Trace Distillery. On the way, we ate our packed lunch.
Our friends had wanted to do the extended "hard-hat" and evening ghost tours at Buffalo Trace, however our failure to obtain reservations meant we were out of luck for both (sorry guys), so we signed up for the next available standard tour. (I guess that means we'll be back for the specialty tours - WITH reservations next time!) Again, we had a bit of a wait before our tour (it was starting to feel like Disney World). The Buffalo Trace facility was huge, and they are not on the official Bourbon Trail tour, but we wanted to visit them anyway. The tour began with us watching a video about the history of the company - highlighting that they were one of the few distilleries to remain open during Prohibition to supply medical whiskey which could be obtained with a prescription from a doctor. During the tasting at Buffalo Trace we had several options available - from their standard Buffalo Trace Bourbon, Rye Whiskey, Eagle Rare Bourbon, a vodka, and their Buffalo Trace Cream Bourbon. I have some cream bourbon from our visit to Barton Distillery on our previous trip, but the Buffalo Trace staff presented it in a whole new way. Instead of recommending the cream bourbon to be added to hot seasonal drinks like coffee, hot cocoa, or Tom and Jerry's, they gave us a shot of the cream bourbon in a larger glass and told us to add an equal amount of root beer to it for a bourbon-y root beer float! I'm a HUGE root beer fan, so I was sold - it was soooo good. Now I know what I'm going to do with my Barton Cream Bourbon!
From Buffalo Trace, we headed back into Lexington. We went to a small craft distillery called Barrel House in downtown Lexington. This was a small operation with a couple of small vats fermenting. Barrel House is in a somewhat sketchy neighborhood - seemingly on the cusp of revitalization. At Barrel House, we tried their "white dog," a light rum, a dark rum, and a fourth that we can't remember (sorry Barrel House). Our guide at Barrel House recommended a restaurant called Enoteca for a light dinner of appetizers and good bourbon. I had the shrimp and cheese grits - which were awesome! We ate on the second floor deck (which they call the skybox) with strings of lights among the dogwood trees. It's a nice little local place on a busy street, which makes it good for people watching. Enoteca has an extensive bourbon selection. Ken tried Buffalo Trace's Weller wheated bourbon, and our friend tried a Buffalo Trace Pappy Van Winkle 10 year bourbon (which is a really rare and expensive high-end bourbon). He gave it a thumbs up!
After dinner, we headed back to the campground for a campfire, dessert, and a game of Cards Against Humanity. With day one in the books, we headed to bed at a reasonable hour knowing we had more touring to do the next day!
