The Louisville walking bourbon tour involved a lot more than walking! There was a lot of flying from one distillery to another, increasing our knowledge on how to use corn, rye, and wheat to make Kentucky bourbon.
Friday night, we started at Bulleit Distillery where owner Tom Bulleit, Vietnam veteran and Marine said, “No veteran will pay to tour my distillery.” We drove back to the hotel to change for the group dinner at a local restaurant, Doc Crow’s. Dinner was wonderful and the fellowship was, as always, the very best with CSC members.
Saturday morning, we had to divide into two groups of twelve to tour a new bourbon distillery, Angel’s Envy. Some of us walked the sixteen blocks from Angel’s Envy to Kentucky Peerless for the next tour, some of us drove our own vehicles, and SOME of us chose to ride the NOT SO RELIABLE FREE BUS! We finally all ended up on time for the Kentucky Peerless tour, still a locally owned distillery that currently only sells rye whiskey. All the tours had anecdotes of the ups and downs of whiskey making. Distilleries often changed names, changed owners, went out of business, and, more recently, enjoyed success with the resurgence of bourbon in America. Some buildings were old, some new, many now are computerized; but all still use the old technology of aging spirits in charred oak barrels. At Peerless, we learned that one of the current founders got kicked out of a military boarding school for antics with his roommates, Duane and Gregg Allman.
After the tour, again the ones in the group that were taking the bus that was supposed to run every fifteen minutes were still waiting after thirty minutes. After calling the bus headquarters, a bus finally arrived and took us… wait for it… to the very next stop for another twenty minute wait while the electric bus charged. When we finally were moving, we were told the bus we were on would not take us to 5th Street, where we needed to be to make our 3:30 p.m. time at Jim Beam for our lesson in how to make our own cocktail. The bus made us disembark on 4th street; so we had a wonderful, delightful, joyous time walking in the pouring rain for .25 mile to hurry to Jim Beam. We made it with one minute to spare.
Much to the delight of everyone, the bourbon sour we learned to make was delicious! Who knew that you could put jam and egg whites in a bourbon sour?
All in all the entire trip was great; the CSC members were all a joy to spend the weekend with.
Nobody complained; at least not to me!
Go with us next time,
Barb
