April 26-29 Bardstown: Bourbon Trail

As most of you know, Kentucky is known for its Bourbon.  The Bourbon Trail follows a route that includes about 8 distilleries; in addition to these distilleries, there are numerous others that are not officially on the trail.  We decided to visit one of the largest and well-known distilleries, Makers Mark, and one of the smallest and not-known-at-all distilleries, Willett Distilleries.

Both tours were very interesting to see how the corn, barley, wheat (for Makers Mark) and rye (for Willett) are fermented into the mash.  The huge tubs fermenting these grains were a sight to see.

 

The first part of our tour was of the grounds around the distillery.

The shutters on all the windows had the Makers Mark bottle.

The mash fermenting

 



As you can see , we are not bourbon drinkers since most of the tastings are still in the glasses.  But it was fun to compare.



Each bottle is individually dipped in wax to seal.

 

While on the tour, we lagged behind the tour group taking photos and one of the bourbon tasters brought a large mug of the raw bourbon to taste.  It was clear in color and about 180 proof.  He said if you light a match it would burn. And it burned going down. 

 

 

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Some fun in a liquor store. 

 

 

The next day we sample the bourbon at the Willett Distilleries.  It is family run and one of the smallest in the area. They only produce about 19 cases of bourbon a week.  It was a very interesting tour since they do a whole different process in distilling and fermenting.  The owner designed this copper distillers "bowl" that fills the entire center of the room.

Barb and Co checking out all of the barrels.

I loved the shape of the bottles.