Places to visit & things to do while there: Kentucky

[cudakidd53]

Well, after the Bullets and Bourbon Tour, I thought I'd share some of the highlights of our Kentucky adventure!

• Visit Don - Had a great time meeting up with Big D and all that entails; worth the price of admission which is the same as joining this site!
  
• Distillery Tours - all ages are welcome on these excursions, but they involve lots of walking and climbing stairs so bear that in mind.  Must be 21yrs. to sample the wares.  Some cost $ and a few are free - average around $10.
• Perryville Civil War Battlefield - one of the best preserved pieces of ground that is mostly unchanged since the battle was fought.  Has a great interpretive center with a movie that covers the battle as well as exhibits.  There is a self-guided tour that you can walk and drive with well done interpretive signage for each stop.
• Bardstown - Historic Downtown which was one of the first settled in "Caintucee" as it was called early on as a part of Virginia.  We stayed at the "Old Kentucky Home State Park Campground" which is a wooded part of the golf course there.  Small quiet campground.  In walking distance to the Bourbon Heritage Center at Heaven Hill Distilleries - we did a tutorial tasting here that laid a great foundation of knowledge for the start of our Bourbon portion of the trip; happened totally by accident as we just happened to get closed out at one of the less cordial of venues we'd tried to start at- won't name that place, but part of it's name is what they make the wreath out of that is placed around the neck of the winning horse at the Kentucky Derby.
• Civil War Museum in Bardstown - GREAT stop with an amazing collection of exhibits that covers most major battles and figures of the conflict.  Admission to this museum also entitles you to admission to their sister venues - Women of the Civil War, Pioneer Village and another who's name escapes me!  Could easily spend two hours or more in this one location.  Bardstown is also the place where Lt. General Hal Moore Jr. grew up - portrayed by Mel Gibson in the movie "We Were Soldiers".

[cudakidd53]

FAVORITE DISTILLERIES TOURED

Here are a few of our favorites from the trip:

My buddy Ray and I ended up affirming our preference for -

Maker's Mark after touring them all - our #1 in taste and over-all tour experience!  They had the fewest limitations - could photograph everything and had lots of "hands on" portions of the trip (just DON'T touch the polished copper - that is a MAJOR faux pas!) and had a great tasting experience as well as many products available for purchase!

Buffalo Trace - one of the oldest in Kentucky and the tour is FREE as is the tasting!  Many great products which are available for purchase on site.  They make a Wheat Vodka which is amazing, and I'm not a Vodka drinker.  Their version of Bailey's which is made with real cream and can be combined with some rootbeer that tasted just like a float.......with a kick!  The place is built with a majority of brick buildings which give it amazing look and feel - you are touring a working factory, so makes sense!

Woodford Reserve - set in horse country and clearly targets the "hoity toity" crowd with their "image" and vibe.  Could get custom engraved bottles and had a great tasting experience and tour.  Buildings are made of rough hewn limestone that is a very traditional building material and style for Kentucky.

Jim Beam - Great tour and setting with a Smokehouse BBQ Sandwich shop.  The largest Distillery with a vast assortment of products.  Tasting is nice, but somewhat rushed - you get to try 2 samples from all of their product line, so team up with someone and share to experience more.

These are the tops of all that we visited on our 3 days of touring; 4 full days and you can get to experience all of them, if you plan your trip correctly and don't linger as much as we did at some stops! 

[moto123]

Sounds like you had a lot of fun!  I still remember the first time I tried Maker's Mark when visiting some friends in Nashville.  I naively assumed it was some local specialty until I got back home and found it at my local liquor store sitting only a few feet away from my typical bottle of Jack.  I was both excited to add variety to my drinking experience and frustrated that my friends tricked me into thinking it was only available down south.  But what good are friends for anyway?

[cudakidd53]

Makers Mark Photos

[cudakidd53]

Buffalo Trace photos:

[cudakidd53]

Woodford Reserve photos:

[cudakidd53]

Jim Beam photos:

[cudakidd53]

Sounds like you had a lot of fun!  I still remember the first time I tried Maker's Mark when visiting some friends in Nashville.  I naively assumed it was some local specialty until I got back home and found it at my local liquor store sitting only a few feet away from my typical bottle of Jack.  I was both excited to add variety to my drinking experience and frustrated that my friends tricked me into thinking it was only available down south.  But what good are friends for anyway?

Yep, that's what friends are for!  Yes, we had a blast-

[cudakidd53]

Visit Don photos:

First two are self-explanatory; third - Quail wrapped in bacon waiting to cook and the last one is Don, living out the "where the heck did that just go" with ammo!

[Flyin6]

Mike drove Sarge all over the place...Must have thought it was a quad or something!

Enjoyed having you gents down for the overnight. Bourbon was strong, Quail was delicious, conversation was good!

[KensAuto]

Great pics Mike. Those Maker's copper tanks are Cool. I could see why they wouldn't want anyone touching them!

[Flyin6]

Mike, I think the next time you visit you need to do the Kentucky Derby tour. Take in the Calumet farms, Keenland, and Dream Fields, Steve Cauthen's place, my next door neighbor, and once winner (Jockey) of the triple crown.

Your visit would tour those places and include some arm-over-the-fence time with Steve while looking or petting a multi million dollar horse of his.

You would eat at the gray Ghost tavern in Midway KY where the horse money people hang out and the site of one of the best, and cheapest burgers in this neck of the woods can be found.

You'd do that and also visit more of the civil war scene. Meer JR for example. You toured the battlefield outside Bardstown. You showed me the book and I read through the battle as it unfolded. Now check this out: JR, the guy who sold me the Tac-Trac had a great, great grand father who fought in that battle...In a Kentucky Regiment...On the southern side. That grand parent was on his daddy's side.

His mother also had a great-great grandfather who fought at that battle, on the same day in a Kentucky regiment...A northern (Union) Kentucky regiment!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Caveat: I hope/think I got that story right. When I mentioned your visit to him, he just lit up and started going off with his family history and participation in that battle... We'll have to talk with him to make sure I got it right.

He is a huge Civil war junkie and has intimate knowledge of the skirmishes fought around here and my farm. I think he also is a role player with uniform for reenactments!

My neighbor across the street is a Kentucky Colonel, a real one. He is a huge civil war buff. He and his boys used to be civil war role players. They were uniformed as artillerymen. He had a cannon and a caisson. He has two horses still in the paddock about 300 feet from me. They are Tennessee Walkers" which are a proper southern gentleman's horse of choice!

Yep, next up: Horse crap and cannon ball run!

[cudakidd53]

That's a great idea!  Sounds like a plan - the first hand family stories are always the best.  The entire Civil War was a big case of Family Feud and Kentucky was a watershed local for it, with some brutal Guerrilla Warfare raids, murders and such.  Jesse James was around Bardstown with a cousin living there and supposedly a girl (relative) he was sweet on there as well!

Tennessee Walkers are a fixture in the Field Trial game I play with too; ride a good gaited horse and you cannot understand WHY you'd want to ride a non-gaited one for anything other than "working" Cowboys or racing purposes!  ;D

[JR]

That it such a nice looking place and I bet there a few spots you haven't found yet.

I need to get to that side of the country again. Last time it was Cherry Point MAS when I was young.