Day 4 -> Bardstown KY -> Carlisle, PA

"Who run Bardstown?" - Tina Turner in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome

[josh] We made it to Bardstown KY the previous night. We stayed at the Best Western and had dinner at the old Talbot Tavern - a neat old place built in 1792. With a little continental breakfast under our belts we headed out on the Bourbon Trail. Bardstown was a good pick, since it's right in the middle between several distilleries.

First we tried Barton Brands. Makers of various low-price and transient-friendly spirits. It was close, and we wanted to see both ends of the distilling spectrum. The lady in the guard shack stopped us and called in to the plant to see if there were any tours. Well, there weren't. They don't offer tours. Apparently their fans have a hard time getting gas money together or something to make the trip.

Ok, let's step up a notch.

We pull into the Jim Beam distillery, and it's hard to tell exactly where the visitor's parking is located. I take, mabye, a wrong turn and pull up the ornamental drive that runs up a hill in front of the historic antebellum Jim Beam estate house. There is a group of 15 snooty look euroupean tourists standing around admiring the elegant old house on a beautiful kentucky morning, when we pull up the drive into their group sending them scattering back onto the walk - scratching their heads and puffing on their Gitanes. "Watch out, I can't stop right now!!" Huh? Sacrebleu!

The Jim beam tour was nice, but we didn't really get to see the actual process. The samples were great, and they had really good Bourbon chocolates, but I wanted to see the real deal. On to the next!

[Chris] Josh forgot to mention that we started sampling fine Kentucky Bourbon at about 10am, we had eaten a nice continental breakfast so we were fine, but Bourbon is the breakfast of champions[/Chris]

- Chris is right. One the standard tunes called out at the the local Austin bluegrass jams is "Whiskey Before Breakfast." I figured they were talking about Kentucky because of the whole bluegrass thing, and they must have meant 'bourbon whiskey' so that seemed like good enough excuse for me.


Everywhere we went, folks said that the Makers Mark distillery was the place to go - a really old historic, working distillery. We made our way there which was surprisingly difficult - we went 20 minutes though single-lane country roads. We couldn't figure out how they got the finish product out of the plant. Must be some special route. [/josh]

[Chris] Makers Mark is a beautiful distillery in the heart of the Bluegrass region. Absolutely beautiful. We drive up just as the tour is walking away. The tour guide told us that Hillary Clinton had been drinking there earlier in the week.... I heard she got shot at while there but they managed to escape unharmed... We got the distillation process explained to us several times during he day and I try to convince Josh that its a federal offense to do this in the garage. At one point in the Makers Mark tour we got to see the first part of the process where the mash was exposed to air and allowed to ferment. The tour guide let us stick our hands in and play with the mash. So next time you enjoy that premium bourbon, remember that they let anyone that wants to stick their hands in there, anyone.... We ended the tour in the hidden super nice tasting room. They gave us a little moonshine version of MM and the finished product. I am realizing that I am not a super fan of bourbon, I like it in coke, but straight kind of burns the skin off the back of my throat, some of them just happen to burn less. I decided to buy a couple of bottles as souveners and they let me dip them in wax after I don a bunch of protective gear. I have a conference call that I have to make at noon and we are in the booneys. The tour guide tells us that she sometimes gets signal on the hill, so I make Josh drive up and down this road until I get two bars of signal on his sprint phone. zero bars on my ATT phone... Thank you Josh!

Conference call over we head north east and decide to stop at the Four Roses distillery in Lawrenceburg, KY. Four Roses is owned by a Japanese company and they have historically exported the Bourbon to Japan and Europe, but are now slowly distributing in the US. We again arive at the very start of the tour and follow the tour guide around the factory. The highlight of the tour was when we got to sample the whiskey after it had been distilled once, it is 140ish proof and white. They call it white dog or moonshine. She gets a cordial glass and fills it almost to the brim and hands it to the 25 year old girl on the tour saying ladies first. SHE SHOOTS THE WHOLE GLASS WITHOUT FLINCHING! The tour guide mentions something about possible temporary blindness, but it all works out. The funny thing was that she shot that without even flinching, although she did break out into a sweat a minute or two later. I am sure her dad is proud.

We then turn north and decide to put some miles between us as that is not a ton of stuff to see in W.Va. Althought very pretty, John Denver is full of crap, nothing for a tourist to do in WV so we burn through there until 12ish so that we would be in striking distance of Nazareth PA in the AM. [/Chris]

[josh] The other notable thing about this long day is how the temperature changed. It was a balmy 72F in KY and in the low 50s and wet by the time we hit PA. We both had planned on being hot in a car with no AC, so we weren't very well prepared for cold. Oh yeah, the heater core on the fox was rotten, so we don't have heat either.[/josh]