Bourbon TR part 2
B and I drive to Frankfort for the Buffalo Trace distillery. Ahead of time, I'd have said this was the one I was most looking forward to. It's the only one my wife was not able to book for me way in advance. The booking for the tours open 3 mo in advance and they are complimentary.
I literally set an alarm the day the bookings opened. When I got on the website, the specialty tour had already filled! I hastily grabbed a slot that I thought would be convenient, then checked the rest of our agenda, realized we wouldn't be able to make it, went back to the website and in that 3 min or so almost all the slots had gone! I'm glad B and I were able to get this in. As I mentioned before, basic BT is my go to for regular bourbon. Definitely drinkable and one of the few that isn't insanely overpriced in CA. Plus, the antique collection has some of the best in the world, including my absolute favorite George T Stagg, its baby brother Stagg Jr (not part of the antique collection itself but my second favorite). I'm well aware I will neither get to sample anything amazing, nor purchase during this tour, but I still want to see my "favorite" distillery.
Thought this last one was cool. This was, until very recently, BT's onsite fire house. It's probably obv to most, but millions of gallons of alcohol + tons of wood lined up in neat little rows = massive fire hazard. I can't believe that the fire house was this small, honestly.
The relative loss of volume as bourbon gets older to evaporation/ the "angel's share". Pretty sick how little is left in something that's really old and it kind of explains why the price gets so high.
What we got to sample. The fact they pass out free samples of Blanton's, on what are free tours, should tell you exactly how "special" Blanton's really is.
After the tour, B and I hit the gift shop and go to town. Not much alcohol-wise to grab, but I do get a bottle of bourbon cream as a gift for a friend back home. Pick up some gifts for my family and a Stagg T shirt for myself. Score.
Cool things I learned on this tour-
- BT is one of the oldest and biggest distilleries in the world, AND STILL they couldn't make it on their own, and eventually got bought out by Sazerac.
- Weller got bought out by either BT or Sazerac, and Wellers are aged and bottled on site. Same process, same barrels, same everything. Slap a different label on the bottle and it's a "different" bourbon, but realistically 99% of all bourbon sold today is from the same 2-3 giant multinational corporations that own everything.
- The site tries to use gravity/take advantage of the local surroundings wherever possible. It just makes sense especially when you think about how stuff was done back in the day before a ton of machinery. So the barrels start at a higher place on the floor when they get assembled, then get "rolled" down to be used when done. Same thing with the rick houses where the aging occurs- put those lower than the assembly and distillery if possible. Put them higher than where the bottling occurs (and where you have to end up getting the barrel to).
- the blackening all over the walls, etc is alcohol fungus that literally eats the alcohol vapors from the air. It's totally harmless to people, but back during Prohibition was one of the ways the feds would find illegal distillers- just look for the house/trees etc that have black on them (more on this in a bit).
- the difference between basic Weller and BT? Literally what part of the warehouse the barrel sits in. That's it. Other same mash bill, same wood, etc. It's amazing to me how much of a difference the location can make, bc I'm not a huge fan of basic Weller (and it's definitely overhyped) but BT is just fine by me.
B and I head back to Lexington. After chilling for a while, we hit a live music place before dinner. The place is empty (it's late afternoon on St. Paddy's day), looks like a college bar (it is) and quickly fills up. I manage to get a pour of Stagg Jr in a plastic cup lol. B skips it, not wanting to be served that bourbon that way. Later, we find he made a mistake bc I paid 12$ for that pour haha. Cheapest I've ever had Stagg Jr. Honestly I think the bartender rang it up wrong, I don't think he had any idea what he was serving and they had it on the bottom shelf.
You know it's a college bar when they have a beer pong table ready to go.
We hit a pretty upscale restaurant and it's 7-8/10. Forgot to take a lot of pics but you're looking at the biggest lamb shank I've ever had.
Sat night, downtown Lexington, on St. Paddy's day. This is the busiest I ever saw the place get.
B and I crash. We're checking out tomorrow and headed to Louisville.
Day 3
Our first stop is the bed and breakfast we're staying at. We're a little early for check in. The owner is very gracious, he sets us up with our own unique security codes so we can get in/out of the place and our rooms. We had reserved one room and a rollaway bed, but for no reason whatsoever he gives us another room free of charge. Score! Shout out to the Louisville Bourbon Inn.
B and I have our last tour of the trip soon- Stitzel-Weller. I've got some pics of the BnB later in this report.
Things I learned on this tour-
- after hearing about Weller being owned by Sazerac on the BT tour, B and I naturally wondered, "which Weller are we seeing on the Weller tour?". In a nutshell- Weller was its own distillery. The line was sold to Sazerac. The name Weller was left on this distillery.
- well then, what of the most expensive bourbon that everyone knows of, Pappy Van Winkle? It's owned by Sazerac, but... Pappy worked for Weller. Eventually had an ownership stake in this distillery. Distilled and bottled Weller, not Pappy (didn't exist). Pappy Sr dies. Bourbon market crashes, Weller name sold to Sazerac. Weller distillery eventually bought by Diageo. Diageo doesn't want any of the bourbon aging but can't physically do anything with it yet (you can't just dump the alcohol and close up shop). Pappy grandson gets nostalgic, wants to honor his grandfather's legacy. Buys up all the Weller barrels, still aging in the now Diageo warehouse, that were the exact mash bill Pappy Sr used. Diageo only too happy to get rid of the stuff.
- can't sell Pappy to save his life. Pappy literally gathering dust on the shelves and selling for fractions of its current value. Pappy grandson has to sell to Sazerac, thus Sazerac owns the Pappy line, and the Weller name, but the alcohol is literally Weller alcohol, aging in the Weller distillery, owned by Diageo, who wants nothing to do with any of this. Got all that? Then, Pappy gets rated at a global spirits convention as the best liquor, ever. Cue insanity and fuel for the current bourbon craze.
- Post script to all of this- Diageo immediately stops selling all the Pappy barrels so they can bottle and sell their own. They can't use either the Weller OR Pappy name. SO, if you see Blade and Bow 22 yrs, just know that's 22 yr old Weller. Or Pappy. Literally, all three are the same. You're welcome. Another further irony to this- as I just said, if you took "old" Weller, it's the exact same as Pappy. Any "new" Weller is bottled at BT- completely different mash bill etc. Same with more recent Pappy- any newer Pappy is going to come from the BT distillery and is NOT the same mash bill and aging conditions as original Pappy. The only place you can get anything approximating old Pappy is from the one place that CAN'T use the name.
LOL I hope you all followed that. I thought it was super interesting.
Other stuff- to get around the black fungus/Prohibition issue, local communities would ALL paint their houses, fences, trees black in solidarity with the bootleggers. Can you imagine being a fed and driving up to some small rural community, and see rows of houses painted black? I think I'd turn around and just get the hell out of there. You're on enemy territory now.
- IW "Harper"s last name was actually Weinstein or another Jewish name. Being the smart guy that he was, he changed his last name to make sure he could sell to a prejudiced country. After he made his fortune, he donated tons of money to the poor people of Kentucky, established all the Jewish hospitals in the area, and bought up a huge plot of land specifically for the poor. To get a loan back in the day, you had to have land as collateral, which basically ensured the poor could never get a loan and never get ahead. IW used the land as "free" collateral for any poor person trying to get a loan. He sounds like a remarkable person.
- Bulliet's label is purposefully "not straight", bc when the eventual owner was just an employee at another distillery, he got docked pay for a label that was slightly off center. So now all of his bottles do that purposefully as a subtle FU to his old employers.
It's time for the tasting!
So, what does SW actually bottle and sell? Bulliet, IW Harper and Blade and Bow. I'm not a huge fan of any of these, but we do get to try Bulliet single barrel which is both higher proof and MUCH tastier IMO. I grab a bottle of that on the way out.
B and I head back to the B+B. We check in with our host and check out our rooms. We also grab some recs from him for stuff to do. He recommends the Louisville Slugger museum- as he puts it, he's not a baseball fan but the museum is super cool. The bar he recommends is very close to where we're eating dinner, so I think we know what we're doing for the remainder of this trip!
Coming soon...