Trip 11B, Louisville, Kentucky with the Webers, Part 2

This is the second half of our trip to parts of the Bourbon Trail in and around Louisville, Kentucky with our good friends the Webers. Enjoy!

Wednesday

We went on a tour with Bourbon Excursions where the four of us were carted around all day in our own private van. This was very much worth the cost, the company was easy to use, and the driver was outstanding. I strongly recommend taking a private tour and using Bourbon Excursions. There is a link to them at the end of this post.

While we were standing on the sidewalk in front of our place waiting for our driver, the owner of Muth’s Candies came out and gave each of us a famous Muth’s Bourbon Barrell candy, a chocolate dipped candy with 100 proof bourbon in it. It was delicious and the perfect start to a day of bourbon tasting. Please visit Muth’s if you are in the area. You will not be disappointed. There is a link at the end of this post.

Our driver showed up right on time and we were off to our first stop, James E. Pepper Distillery.

In the second picture above, you can see the “DSP-KY-5” beneath the name. The number indicates this is the 5th distillery to ever be licensed in Kentucky. Pretty impressive, considering they are over 20,000 to date. Here are a few pictures from our tour.

We enjoyed our tour and tasting and recommend this as a great place to visit. See the link at the end of this post.

Our next stop was to pick up sandwiches at Wallace Station Deli and Bakery. From there, we drove to Castle and Key Distillery where we ate our sandwiches on their beautiful grounds.

The sandwiches were pretty good and even though we didn’t do a tour at Castle and Key, we can recommend both places. There are links at the end of this post.

With full bellies and a thirst for more whiskey, we were off to Woodford Distillery.

As we arrived, I saw this.

Now that’s what I call a delivery. And now I know what I want for Christmas since they can deliver it. Our tour at Woodford started with showing the unique way they move barrels around the property. They have these narrow tracks on the property that go slightly downhill.

Once the barrels are filled, they are put on the tracks and rolled down hill to the Rick Houses. All I could envision was tiny clowns running on the top of the barrels as they went downhill.

The tour was interesting. Here are some pictures to enjoy and of course there is a link at the end of this post.

Our final stop was for a barrel tasting at Three Boys Farm Distillery, now called Whiskey Thief Distillery. And barrel tasting is exactly what you think it is. We got to taste bourbon straight from the barrels. Having only been around since 2017, their whiskey number is 20,002. Here are some pics.

This fan was 7 feet tall and 5 feet wide. Yes, it was a Big Ass Fan.

Here was our selection for tasting. The numbers mean percentage of corn/percentage of rye/percentage of barley.

I ended up liking Barrel #1 the best and bought a bottle that I got to fill and label myself.

As we were doing our tasting, I saw a cat jump up on a barrel and start to drink from the water we were also drinking from. I got the cat his own glass of water and didn’t drink that water anymore.

The whole gang plus one.

L to R. Me, Cindy, Edie, Todd, crazy tour girl.

We were returned to our Airbnb, freshened up and walked to a delicious dinner at Everyday Kitchen. Another must visit restaurant. See the link at the end of this post.

Thursday

We started the day with a tour at the Louisville Slugger Museum. You don’t have to be a baseball fan to really enjoy this tour and museum.

Prior to the start of our tour, we checked out part of the museum. The collection of famous bats was amazing.

They even have Babe Ruth’s famous notched bat from 1927.

Our tour started with the billets, the wooden dowels that will be turned into bats.

This is the machine that turns the bats. There were some great autographs on the machine. When we were there, they were making bats for Dodger player Trayce Thompson.

Here’s Cindy holding a bat made for Texas Ranger Nick Solak. She picked that because my friend Dan B. is a Texas Ranger fan.

Here is Todd holding a bat made for Los Angeles Dodger Will Smith. He chose that bat because we live in Los Angeles.

In the custom bat section, they make custom colors and specialty bats.

And here is Hank Aaron visiting the factory in 2009.

After the tour, we finished our visit to the museum.

Todd and I holding a bat Babe Ruth actually used in a game. How cool is that.

A little more information about Babe Ruth.

Here are a few famous Baileys.

In his five-season career in the mid 1920’s, Gene was a .246 hitter with two home runs and 52 RBI in 213 games played. I could not find any information about a baseball player named Ace Bailey. There was a famous hockey player during the late 1920s and early 1930s, but why would he need a baseball bat? A mystery for the ages.

Here are a few of the more unique things made by Louisville Slugger.

And the final bit of information. J. Frederick Hillerich started a wood working shop in Louisville in 1856. It became very successful and in 1880, his oldest son, “Bud” joined his dad in the business. Bud was an amateur baseball player and not only made his own baseball bats, but also made bats for some of his teammates. Dad wanted to go big in making swinging butter churns. Luckily for him, Bud was able to convince him to try making baseball bats instead. As they say, the rest is history.

This is a 100% must stop and see when in Louisville. There is a link at the end of this post.

After our amazing tour, we walked through the downtown area to my truck, so we could drive to a special lunch.

Our destination was the Brown Hotel to get a Hot Brown Sandwich at the place where it was invented.

The inside was even more impressive.

After our self-guided tour, we headed to the restaurant for our sandwiches. The story goes that in 1920, Chef Fred Schmidt of the Brown Hotel invented an open-faced turkey sandwich with bacon, tomatoes, and a delicate mornay sauce. He called it the “Hot Brown.”

And here is what my sandwich looked like.

If you think that looks delicious, you are correct. It was off the chart good. This is another must visit, so check out the link at the end of this post.

We returned to the downtown area and did a tour of the Old Forester Distillery.

During prohibition, the only way to buy or sell bourbon was with a doctor’s prescription. That’s right, medicinal bourbon.

Here are some pictures from the tour.

Time for some more whiskey information. Did you ever wonder why Kentucky, specifically the areas in and around Louisville, is where the majority of the United States whiskey is made? It’s the water. It is filtered through limestone beds, which removes iron, and adds calcium and magnesium. This is all done naturally, not in a lab.

Old Forester has their own cooperage where they make their barrels. There were a man and woman making barrels during our tour. The barrels are assembled without any glues or chemicals so as not to add any outside flavors to the whiskey. They are made so tightly, they can hold liquid, specifically some type of whiskey or wine.

We got to see a barrel being charred during our tour. There are four levels of char, with one being the lightest and four being the darkest. I tended to like the bourbons and whiskeys with a level 2 or 3 char. The barrel we watched was charred for 30 seconds and was a level 2 char.

Here are a few pictures from their Rick House.

Antique bourbon bottles from 1965 and 1968.

My bourbon sampling at the end of the tour. Delicious.

Some more whiskey knowledge. When whiskey is made, it is distilled and put into charred barrels (usually oak) to age. During the aging process, the whiskey expands and contracts into and out of the wood barrel and there is some loss of liquid to evaporation. The liquid lost to evaporation is called the “Angel’s Share.” The liquid that remains in the wood of the barrel is called the “Devil’s Cut.”

In case you were wondering, there is a link to the Old Forester Distillery at the end of this post.

We returned to our place, freshened up, and went to dinner at Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse. We got there a little early, and sat at the piano bar. The piano player was very good.

Once it was time for our reservation, we met some of Todd’s family who live in Kentucky and drove to Louisville to see him. The steakhouse was outstanding, and Todd’s family were really good people. There is a link to the steakhouse at the end of this post.

Friday

We spent the morning walking around the NULU neighborhood, sightseeing and shopping. We met Todd’s family for lunch and then headed off to the Rabbit Hole Distillery. The distillery was right around the corner from our Airbnb and is well worth the stop. We didn’t do a tour there, just a tasting. They had very interesting bottles and a great view from their tasting room. There is a link at the end of this post.

Our next stop was to walk to the Angel’s Envy Distillery. Unfortunately, their tours were sold out, so we checked out the gift shop. If you want a tour, I recommend getting reservations in advance. There is a link at the end of this post.

For our last dinner, we wanted to try a Cuban restaurant, La Bodeguita Del Mima. The problem was several people had told us it was not very good, another person raved about it, and Yelp gave it 4.6 stars, a very high rating. So we decided to give it a try and make up our own minds.

We all liked the food and gave it a thumbs up. See the link at the end of this post. We finished the night with our favorite bartender Chad/Shade. He made some good bourbon drinks and we bid him farewell until next time.

Saturday

There was rain forecast for the day and luckily for us, it didn’t start until after we loaded the truck, and were on our way. We had a pretty good lightening show on the way to St Louis, where we dropped the Webers off at the airport. Both Todd and I bought several bottles of whiskey during this trip. Since it is difficult to travel with large bottles of liquid on a plane, I took Todd’s whiskey home with us and returned it to California. It traveled in style.

We made it home safely, with our amber liquids safe and sound as well.

The next post will cover our last two weeks in St. Joseph, Missouri. Stay safe until then.

LINKS

Bourbon Excurs ion

Muth’s Candy

James E. Pepper Distillery

Castle and Key Distillery

Wallace Station Deli and Bakery

Woodford Distillery

Three Boys Farm Distillery, now Whiskey Thief Distillery

Everyday Kitchen

Louisville Slugger Museum

Brown Hotel Dining

Old Forester Distillery

Jeff Ruby Steakhouse

Rabbit Hole Distillery

Angel’s Envy Distillery

La Bodeguita Del Mima

Trip 11A, Louisville, Kentucky with the Webers, Part 1

This was our one-week trip to visit parts of the Bourbon Trail in and around Louisville, Kentucky with our friends the Webers. Since we learned a lot about whiskey, whiskey making, and whiskey drinking, I’ll sprinkle that information throughout the posts. Because we did so much and I have so many pictures, I have split this trip into two posts.

Sunday

Sunday was our travel day. This was a sort of unique travel day. We first had to drive to St. Louis, Missouri to pick up the Webers, then from there, we all headed down to Louisville. You are probably wondering why the Webers flew into St. Louis instead of Kansas City or Louisville. With all of the drama going on with airlines having cancelled and delayed flights, a non-stop flight was clearly the best option to avoid the potential for drama. It turns out the only non-stop flights from LAX were to St. Louis. And since we had to drive through St. Louis on our way to Louisville, it was the perfect solution.

We left St. Joseph in the morning, encountered some pretty serious rain along the way, and made it to St. Louis by lunch time. We picked up the Webers and had an average lunch at a Bob Evans restaurant in Illinois. We finally got to our Airbnb in the NULU area of Louisville in the evening. The first thing we saw was the creepy gate and questionable looking wooden staircase. We seriously wondered if we had made a huge mistake booking this place.

Luckily, the place itself was very nice, as you can see here.

And our hosts were very nice. They left us a bottle of wine that was pretty good.

After getting settled in, we walked down the street to Royal Hot Chicken for some delicious dinner.

I have no idea why Iwas compelled to take a picture of my food, but since I did, I included it. After dinner, we continued to check out the neighborhood. We passed an interesting Mexican restaurant name Guacamole that had a picture of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo on one side of the building. We tried to eat at the restaurant a few times, but it never worked out.

We finally ended up at a small bar named Gerties that had quite the whiskey selection. It turns out everywhere in Louisville has quite the whiskey selection. Every bar, restaurant, liquor store, market, pre-school…You get the idea. There is a lot of whiskey there.

Just a small selction of the whiskey available.

Our bartender was great and we ended up seeing him several times. Because of his accent, it sounded like he said his name was “Shade.” When we would say, “Shade,” he would say, “No, Shade.” This went on several times until I asked him to spell it. He said, “C-H-A-D.” So I said, “Chad!” He said, “Yes, Shade.” So we think his name was Chad and that is what we called him. There is a link to Gerties at the end of this post. If you are in the NULU area of Louisville, you must stop in and say hi to Chad/Shade and tell him Mike and Todd sent you.

Monday

We started the day with a tour of the historic Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby.

We did a behind the scenes tour where we were able to see the center field area;

and the actual gates used for the Kentucky Derby.

The numbers skipped from 19 to 21 because a horse was scratched and replaced by Rich Strike’s, the horse that won the race.

We also got to see the stables where the horses are kept.

The tour ended with us visiting the Churchill Downs Museum.

Here is Todd on a race horse simulator.

They had cards for the winners of each year of the Kentucky Derby. Here are a few of the famous horses.

And here are the years of Cindy, Corrianne, Garrett, and my birthdays and the year Cindy and I were married.

Churchill Downs is a must visit when in Louisville. There is a link at the end of this post.

After an amazing tour at Churchill Downs, we returned to our Airbnb, dropped the truck off, and walked to the Bourbon Welcome Center at the Frazier History Museum in the downtown Louisville area.

Here is the only interesting thing in the whole building.

A replica of George Washington’s still after he was president. The rest of the stuff was commercial tourist crap. You can skip the stop here.

Next we walked over to the Peerless Distillery and were able to walk on to a tour that had just started.

Here are a few pictures from the tour.

These are a few of the mash tanks. The room they are in had a very malty, almost oatmeal smell to them. In the whiskey making process, grain mash is fermented before it is distilled.

After the mash is distilled into alcohol, it is placed in charred oak barrels for aging.

That was alcohol going into the barrel, not gas. The barrel is filled via a hole in the side of the barrel called the “Bung Hole.” It is capped with a cork called a “Bung.”

Now you know what a bung and bunghole really are. That being said, I would avoid searching either term on the internet. I’m just saying.

Next we saw the bottling line.

Followed by the area where they make their barrels for aging the whiskey.

At the end of the tour, we had a whiskey tasting. Here is how Cindy felt about drinking whiskey.

I guess not everyone likes to drink whiskey.

Back in the gift shop area they had a cat that had his own bed in a box on a shelf. Rough life.

The Peerless Distillery tour was well worth the time. There is a link at the end of this post.

Before we could start our walk back, it unleashed torrents of rain. So, we got an Uber and were driven back to our place.

Tuesday

This was our day to visit the Bardstown area. Our first stop was at Maker’s Mark, where Todd and I are official “Ambassadors.” As ambassadors, we each have a barrel of Maker’s Mark aging at the distillery. When the barrel is done aging, we can buy bottles from “our” barrel. I have a strong suspicion our names are not the only ones on our barrels. My barrel is expected to be ready between November of 2025 and May of 2027. Also, at the distillery we each received a free lapel pin for being ambassadors. So we must be pretty special.

The grounds at Maker’s Mark are really beautiful. This is a great tour and a must visit if anywhere near the Bardstown area. There is a link at the end of this post.

They had a Dale Chihuly art piece at the entrance.

This is the part where I explain the difference between whiskey and bourbon. Whiskey is a distilled liquor made from a fermented mash of cereal grains. It includes Scotch, Irish, and Canadian whiskeys and the various whiskeys of the United States. Bourbon, Rye, Malt, and Corn are a few of the types of whiskies.

Bourbon is a straight whiskey distilled from a mash having at least 51 percent corn in addition to malt and rye. It must be made in the United States, the grains may not be distilled above 160 proof and the aged spirit can be no higher than 125 proof. Finally, it must be aged in charred new oak containers, typically barrels.

Here is a display that showed the breakdown of ingredients in a few types of Maker’s Mark bourbon. All of these bourbons have at least 51% corn in the mash. The Cask Strength is my personal favorite.

Cask Strength – 70% corn, 16% red winter wheat, 14% malted barley, 108 to 114 proof

Here are a few more pictures from the tour.

There was another Dale Chihuly display in the ceiling near the end of the tour.

Here is the bottling line. They were bottling a holiday version while we were there.

And here are the ladies that hand dip the bottles to put the red wax coating on the top of the bottle. They can dip 25-27 bottles a minute and have to switch to a different position on the line every 30 minutes.

At the end of the tour, I was able to dip my own bottle of bourbon.

After an amazing tour, we headed into Bardstown and had lunch at Mammy’s Kitchen.

The food was fine, but not worthy of photographs. After lunch, we walked around the downtown area.

Oldest western stagecoach stop in America.

So now some more whiskey knowledge. A Rickhouse is a building that is used to store and age barrels of bourbon. They can be small and hold a few hundred barrels, or really large and hold several thousand barrels.

We did a quick stop at the Willett Distillery.

Then it was on to the Heaven Hill Distillery.

Here is a “Straight Corn Whiskey.” Even though this is distilled from a mash having at least 51 percent corn (actually 81 % corn), is made in the United States, and has a proof of 100, it is not a bourbon because it is aged in used oak barrels. It still tasted pretty good.

Heaven Hill is home to Elijah Craig bourbon. This is a bourbon that was started by a Baptist Minister back in 1789.

Even though we did not do a tour at Heaven Hill, the visitors center is well worth the stop. There is a link at the end of this post.

We returned to our Airbnb, freshened up and went downstairs to “Taste,” a wine and whiskey bar that is owned by the same to people that owned our Airbnb. As a matter of fact, our Airbnb was located right above “Taste.” They had an amazing selection of whiskey and wine.

This is a great place to get a drink, so check out the link at the end of this post. After a delicious drink, we walked down the street and had an Italian dinner at bar Vetti. The food was fine and we finished the evening at Gerties with our buddy Chad, pronounced “Shade.” He made us a personalized whiskey tasting. It was delicious.

Wilderness Trail 6 year old Bourbon, 108 proof

We walked back to our Airbnb and got some shut eye.

The next post we cover the rest of this trip, so stay tuned for more! Now go get yourself a whiskey drink and enjoy it.

LINKS

Gerties Bar

Churchill Downs

Peerless Distillery

Maker’s Mark Distillery

Heaven Hill Distillery

Taste