Journey to the land of Bourbon pt.1

Last week was The Mrs. birthday and she originally wanted to go to Chicago to drink herself silly and eat at Alinea. This, for a number of reasons, did not happen. We, instead, decided to trek on up to Kentucky to check out the most American of spirits, well, two of the most American of spirits; we have a real soft spot for rye, and there are some great ones up there. We put out a call to see if anyone wanted to join us and, much to our surprise, the intrepid traveler heretofore known as Ms.Furman quickly spoke up. This was quite exciting for us, since we always ask if anyone wanted to come with us and , up 'till now, no one had and Ms.Furman is someone we hang out with quite a bit but have never really gotten to know that well and after almost twenty years there are no new stories to tell between The Mrs. and I, only stories to be written. Getting to know her better on the car ride was definitely a highlight.

Our first day out we left Charlotte in the mid-afternoon, with the goal of making it to Knoxville, TN by 7pm. I had made arrangements to go to a Tiki Bar hidden in a private home there and we did not want to be late. This was a serendipitous find on the interwebs that had occurred just as we were deciding to go to Kentucky which worked perfectly into our plan. The place was amazing, the "proprietors", had been collecting artifacts for years and really did it right. The space was a 250 sq.ft mudroom that had been converted into a tiki paradise. We chatted about cocktail culture and The Mia-Kai (see previous post), where he started an east coast tiki convention some years ago, while we sipped on fruity rum-based deliciousness. After a little while a couple of the neighbors cane by to join us and, I'm guessing, to make sure we weren't ax murderers, hacking their liquor hook up into tiny pieces. The night was perfect, even if it started by knocking on a strangers door and hoping for the best.

Day two had us up and moving early, making a beeline for our first distillery of the day, a four hour drive from Knoxville. When we arrived at Makers Mark we were there for one thing, a bottle. Being one of the biggest names in bourbon we felt we knew enough about the company to skip their dog and pony show in lieu of some of the more intimate tours. So, on The Mrs. Birthday, she got to dip her own bottle in the famous red wax and then sign and date it; and then we left. From Makers we made our way to the rather generically named Kentucky Bourbon Distillers, LTD. makers of the, anything but generic, Willett line of Bourbons and Ryes, as well as a number of other mid and top shelf lines of the same. This, I'm not going to lie, is why we were in Kentucky. We love their products. Also, since they are a smaller distillery that is not on the "official" Bourbon trail our tour consisted of four people and to top it off, since they were in the summer shut down, our tour guide was the master distiller, grandson of the distilleries founder. We got a great tour and tasting, their rule is, if they have it you can taste it. So, we tasted the 23yr rye, why wouldn't you, and then proceeded to buy a bottle. It was delicious. I can imagine I'll be getting a visit from Mr. Whiskey any moment now. Sadly, we did have to move on from there and get to our final tour of the day Heaven Hill. This is a massive operation with a fairly extensive if somewhat disappointing tour, but they have a very informative visitors center for whiskey novices, it was just a little to corporate for my taste.

Makers Mark welcome sign

Dipping bottles at Maker Mark

Kentucky Bourbon Distillers, distillery building

Pot Still at KBD

This is how they weigh the barrels at KBD, to this day it gets certified every year.

Rickhouse at Heaven Hill

I'll end here for now and continue the adventure in a day or two.