Last Tuesday, April 3rd, we
arrived at Charlestown State Park, Indiana, just north of Louisville, Kentucky
for 3-nights. It was our first stop to explore the Kentucky Bourbon Trail with
our friends Vince & Lisa.
Our first Bourbon Trail stop was the Evan
Williams Bourbon Experience in downtown Louisville. Although they didn’t have a
full-scale distillery, it was interesting to learn about the history and
process of making bourbon.
We walked across the street after our Evan
Williams tour to take a look at the Ohio River that runs next to Louisville.
On Friday, April 6th,
we drove 70-miles to Frankfort, the capital of Kentucky. We got settled into
our campground and headed to the nearby Buffalo Trace distillery. It is the
oldest distillery in the country and they had a special government license to
distill bourbon during prohibition for medicinal purposes. After the tour we
bought a few bottles of our favorite, Buffalo Trace Bourbon Cream at the gift
shop.
We went to the Frankfort
cemetery to see Daniel Boone’s grave. There is an excellent view of the
Kentucky River and the state capital from the cemetery hillside.
Last Saturday we drove south
of Frankfort to the Woodford Reserve distillery. It was in a beautiful setting
with all the nearby thoroughbred horse farms. Their distillery tours were
complimentary for active-duty and retired military.
On Sunday, April 8th,
we headed about 60-miles down the Blue Grass Parkway to Bardstown, Kentucky
where we had reservations at My Old Kentucky Home State Park for 3-nights.
Monday morning we headed a
half-mile down the road from the state park to the Heaven Hill Bourbon Heritage
Center. There we saw a presentation and tasted a few bourbons.
We enjoyed lunch in downtown
Bardstown and then headed out to the countryside, south of town, to the Maker’s
Mark distillery. The distillery was in a nice setting and we enjoyed a very
good tour. We especially liked seeing each bottle of Maker’s Mark being
hand-dipped in the 400-degree red wax before being boxed up for shipment.
We head up to Nolin Lake
State Park for a couple of nights to go visit Mammoth Cave National Park on
Thursday.
Steve & Julie
Cornelius
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