KY/Bourbon TR part 1
OK readers, I think this is a bit of a spoiler but it should still be ok. Just got back from the second leg of Vegas and I am just wiped, physically and emotionally. I went thru the highest of highs and the lowest of lows and I hope that I can make this part of the write up worth reading. If not, that's why... the good news is THAT section of the TR should be packed with details.
B and I need to wake up at 4:30am to get food, get ready and make it to the airport on time. Since there's zero chance of me gambling, somehow my body knows that and would have been able to sleep in. That alarm was PAINFUL. Didn't get a pic of standard room service, airport is quiet and soon we're on our way to Chicago. We connect from there to Lexington.
Agenda-
Day 1- get into Lexington late afternoon, check into hotel, dinner and drinking after
Day 2- tour James Pepper and Buffalo Trace distilleries, check out Lexington, drinking.
Day 3- head to Louisville, check into Bed and Breakfast, tour Stitzel-Weller distillery, check out Louisville, drinking
Day 4- head back to SD
Random view from a food place at Chicago O Hare. Haven't been in this airport in years. It's even more of a zoo than I remember.
Coming in to Lexington. Definitely different than landing in Vegas or SD, that's for sure.
We grab our rental car and drive to the hotel. It's actually raining and cold here. I had planned on cold, not on rain. Ugh this is going to make walking around annoying. Also, it's Saint Paddy's Day weekend and apparently the main street our hotel is on will be closed for a parade etc. Getting around is going to be a little tougher now. I honestly had no idea it was this weekend when I booked the trip, I clearly don't care about that kind of thing
Hotel is functional and fine. It ain't the Wynn, but then again it doesn't cost nearly as much either... I like the rubber duck touch
We decide to walk around pre-dinner. We check out the downtown area right by our hotel. The planned dinner is several blocks away, the Bluegrass Tavern with "the largest bourbon selection in KY" is one block away- nice. We swing in there. Photo dump coming!
B and I start off with Stagg Jr at a very reasonable price, at least for what we're used to. Then, we wise up and decide to lean on the bartender for new recommendations. I tell him I'm a fan of barrel strength, my go tos, my price cap and he makes some picks. All of them were good, let's start there. I was wondering why he picked the Blanton's and joked with him about regular Blanton's being "Blandon's". He completely agrees but says this cask strength release was really good. It was, not overly so for me but at least it tasted like bourbon instead of water
I guess I just don't get the hype with Blanton's. I know the bottle's cool and I know I definitely have a lot to learn about bourbon, but man... it seems like the only people who buy Blanton's are bros/people who believe the hype. I swear, everywhere we go people are trying to push Blanton's at 2x the price of every other bourbon on us, esp Vegas where most restaurants their bourbon list is basic at best, but of course you can have Blanton's at 50$ a pour sir! OK, rant over. All the other picks were pretty good but at this point I'm 3 sheets to the wind
We decide to walk to dinner and see if they can get us in early.
If you know, you know...
We end up walking the wrong way and uber to the restaurant. It's called Carson's food and drink. Upscale American. I'm starving and get a shrimp stew appetizer which comes with at least 10 full size shrimp and a huge baguette. We were so hungry I forgot to take a pic. Main course-
SO MUCH FOOD.
Total bill for the two of us- 50$! LOL I could get used to these prices. I think I only ate half of my main course. After dinner, we decide to just head back to Bluegrass Tavern- it's still drizzling and it's a block from the hotel. We ask the bartender to hit us with more recs.
I'm not a huge fan of rye but the Michter's was ok. EJ, meh. I think it's actually too old and the flavor profile wasn't for me.
We crash, early for East coast time but way late for us on a full day of travel, sleep deprivation, and drinking.
Day 2
Sleep in, about 10hrs total. We grab breakfast at the hotel restaurant.
LOL you know you're in Kentucky when the place you're grabbing breakfast has a bourbon display. I actually forgot to grab pics of my food- biscuit eggs benedict which was a solid 8/10.
We leisurely make our way over to the James Pepper distillery.
Every distillery we visited this trip was different in its own way which was cool. We learned new things each time, and got to see different aspects so there was never one we visited where we felt, "meh. Take it or leave it". I've never drank Pepper but have heard the name, they are actually a craft distillery and have relatively small output. They were the only ones that let us near the fermentation tanks
These pictures need a bit more explaining. The long column is the main distilling column. "Low wine" is the product of the first step, it's clear but tastes horrible and is basically moonshine. You'd get poisoned if you drank it. Then, they distill again, and the "high wine" is drinkable, non-toxic moonshine. High wine is what gets aged in the barrels.
They let us sample the high wine and warned people that if they didn't like it they could just dump it on the floor. What does it say about me and B that we drank it and said, "that's actually not bad. I could just sit around and drink this". LOL
Tour over, they started the tasting. We got to try their regular bourbon, the rye, and their "special blend". The regular bourbon was good enough that I decided to get a bottle. Glad we got to taste the "special blend"- it wasn't good and was the most expensive. I might have purchased it without otherwise knowing...
Interesting things I learned on this tour-
- James Pepper was a huge player in bourbon back in the day. The wife was the one with business savvy, she saved the business multiple times
- Pepper "created" the Old Fashioned, his favorite drink. The bartender at the Waldorf in NY actually came up with it but it was basically Pepper's drink and he made it famous
- the business changed hands multiple times, and "mysteriously" burned down when the bourbon market was gone either during Prohibition or in the 80s/90s. Arson/insurance fraud, anyone?
- the distillery only recently reopened (2007?), principal owner/investor wanted to rebuild/improve this part of Lexington and thus there are multiple new restaurants, distilleries, breweries, etc.
B and I grab an utterly forgettable lunch at one of the places next door, head back to the hotel to recharge, then drink to Frankfort for the Buffalo Trace distillery. Coming soon...