Day Two of the Bourbon Trail

Today we Went to the Louisville area to visit three more distilleries.  We started out at the Bulleit Distillery.  Our guide was Molly and the cost of this tour was $10.00.  This was our first experience with a brand we were not familiar with.  This distillery originally was the location of the Stitzel-Weller Distillery.

This was originally a very old distillery.  The bourbon business hit hard times when the younger drinkers favored the light colored alcohols like vodka.  The new owner. Tom Bulleit, decided the time was right for the resurgence of bourbon.

 Bruce leaving his comments to Tom.

They had there own barrel making and repairing facility.  We were shown how a barrel is repaired with natural ingredients so it will not affect the taste of the bourbon.

Again, a great tasting.

Next we went to Angel's Envy.  This is a downtown Louisville distillery.  The tours were all booked so we were unable to do the official tour but we did do what they called Sensory tour.  This consisted of a sit down talk with a gentlemen who told us the history of Angels Envy and a very good tasting. This was the first time we really went step by step in nosing and chewing to get the best finish from the bourbon.  This bourbon is finished in port wine barrels.  This was a very good tasting bourbon but it was very expensive.  Even though we were not on the physical tour we did get to go into the still room as an extra.

We finished up the day at the Evan Williams Experience.  This was really an interesting tour.  Cost for this tour was $12.00. This is not a distillery but more of a history tour.  We traveled from room to room with films taking us back to Even Williams time.  Yes, he was a real person.  As in all the tours we learned the mash bill (recipe) and the rules that make a bourbon a bourbon.  We also learned how devastating prohibition was to the industry and to the working people of Kentucky.  They had a recreated town street in the 40 or 50's.  We had our tasting in a recreated bar.  They also had the neatest fountain like structure.  It was a giant bottle of Evan Williams pouring down into a glass filled with ice.  It was two stories high.  Our tour guide was Charlie.  We had a good time talking with him.

This was like a mini distillery where the master distiller could experiment with his recipe.

Because this was not a distillery tour, we learned a lot about the history of bourbon and Heaven Hill.

Another fine tasting and me with Charlie.

Don't think we will be buying any of this Evan Williams.

 This was the neatest fountain.