A weekend on the bourbon trail: part 1

In Kentucky we are know for many things but we tend to pride ourselves on good basketball, horse racing and bourbon. A few weekends ago Abe and I (along with his brother, his brother's sweet girlfriend and his Uncle) decided to finally explore the KY bourbon trail. We visited 5 different distilleries and had a wonderful time learning about how bourbon is made.

The first thing you need to know about Kentucky and bourbon is...

via Kentucky Kicks Ass

The second is that 95% of the world's (yes WORLD'S) bourbon is made in my beautiful home state (basically we have limestone which means good water for makin' bourbon...and also equals strong ponies for racing)

The first distillery we visited was Bulleit Frontier Whiskey here in Louisville. We were taken on a lovely little tour around the property before tasting three of Bulleit's bourbons. Although this distillery is a little bit hard to find, it's worth the trip to see the lovely rickhouses (where they put the bourbon to age and my favorite part of every tour) and meet the wonderful people working there.

Inside a rickhouse

After Bulleit, we headed to Makers Mark Distillery in Loretto. There were significantly more people visiting this distillery and you could tell they had a bigger operation. We were given a very informative tour and even got to stick our fingers down into fermenting barrels of bourbon to see what it tasted like. My favorite part of this tour was getting to hand dip our own bottles of Makers Mark in their signature red wax. 

After dipping our bottles, we headed to Kentucky Bourbon Distillers in Bardstown where Willett bourbon is made. This distillery isn't on the official bourbon trail, but we thought it would be fun to stop here on the way home. This small distillery is beautiful (and there was a kitty!) but the tour wasn't really worth the $7 cost.

I'll be back soon for part two of our bourbon trail adventure!