Learning History on the Bourbon Trail
Day 1: Woodford Reserve, Maker's Mark, and Chicken Cock
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“Wait, are all of your kids going to be at camp at the same time?”
“Yeah, we lucked out. And it made planning the rest of summer so much easier.”
My son was going to be at camp the same week as all of his Indianapolis cousins. My daughter was going to be traveling to New York that same week with her high school choir.1
And suddenly my sister and her husband and my husband and I had a precious small window to finally do what we had been talking about doing for years: the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.
My husband Jeff and I first did the Bourbon Trail eleven years ago. We were looking for a quick trip without kids, we had just upgraded to a full travel trailer, and he had an itch to head down to Kentucky from Fort Wayne, Indiana to explore the distilleries. I don’t like bourbon. I’ve never liked bourbon. But he had given me the gift of Gettysburg the summer before, so I gladly complied. Besides, I loved Kentucky and was looking forward to a few days without our little ones before getting ready to head back to school for another long school year.
During our short trip, I learned I still didn’t love the bourbon, but I did love the fascinating history behind the uniquely American craft of making straight bourbon. I learned a lot during our two days driving around Bourbon Country. In the years since, we’ve talked with friends and family about how much fun we had. My sisters and I had joked that we should do a big couples trip so our husbands could all enjoy the bourbon and we could enjoy time together. When we moved back to Indianapolis and very close to one sister, it suddenly seemed like a possibility.
And now, with my two kids and her four kids occupied for the week, we would finally get a chance to explore a few hours south, without begging our parents to watch the kids.
All bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskey is bourbon.
The Common Factors
Here’s what you need to know before learning about specific places along the Bourbon Trail. Each distillery has it’s own unique recipe, process, and barrel specifications. Each distillery has also experimented with other liquors that do not count as bourbon.2 To get that label, it must be
Aged in a new charred oak barrel
Contain at least 51% corn
Be distilled to a maximum of 160 proof, enter the barrel at no more than 125 proof, and enter the bottle at no less than 80 proof
Be aged at least two years (although this is incredibly rare because most want it to age more than four years)
Have no color or flavor additives
What makes Kentucky Straight Bourbon unique? First, it must age in the state of Kentucky for at least one year. Second, the limestone shelf which creates the unique Kentucky cave system also filters the water to the point of near purity. The streams, rivers, and aquifers in northern Kentucky provide the perfect water source for distilling bourbon.
You will hear this at nearly every single distillery you visit along the way. However, visiting each one gives you a taste of what makes each one unique.
Woodford Reserve
Even though Jeff and I had been there before, Woodford Reserve was one of the “must-sees” for both of the boys. I wasn’t going to complain. The historic buildings are beautiful and I remembered a particularly tasty bourbon ball during our first visit. It didn’t take me much convincing to make the tour reservations.
The distillery has been in operation since 1812, making it a National Historic Landmark. While there is a fairly new visitor welcome center (it wasn’t there the first time we visited) and a newer gift shop and tasting room, the production buildings and onsite rickhouses have been around for a long time. In fact, the rickhouse we got to visit is the oldest limestone rickhouse in the United States still being used for its original purpose.
We witnessed mash fermenting in wooden barrels, the triple copper stills turning the fermented beer into clear liquid, and the line-up of barrels waiting to be pushed down the line for placement in a warehouse. We inhaled the scent of nearly two hundred years of angel share that had evaporated into the rickhouse and then rode up to the gift shop and tasting room where five different varieties awaited us.
I love angel share, the water and liquor that evaporate from the barrels after years of expanding and contracting into the wood of the charred barrels. I do not love the final product. I sipped each one and passed them along to my willing husband before I savored the dark chocolate covered bourbon ball. Jeff selected a bourbon, I selected bourbon caramels, and we were all ready to head to the next stop.
Maker’s Mark
I’ve always loved Maker’s Mark. I fell in love with the beautiful historic grounds when we visited on our first Bourbon Trail trip. That love was renewed when we returned during our disastrous 2021 summer vacation, so that Jeff could get his Ambassador tour and bottle. Maker’s Mark was the first “grown up” liquor that Jeff ever really appreciated. For those reasons and more, it was a must-see on our tour.
We took the beautiful trail to the visitor center, stumbling upon the resident cat as we hurried to our tour location.
For the next hour, our incredibly knowledgeable tour guide gave us a complete lesson in the chemical processes happening during the fermentation process as we stood next to the wooden fermentation vats. He told us the history of the individually cut labels that are still cut with the same 1930’s machine purchased by the founder’s wife so she wouldn’t have to change the label design when she could no longer hand cut them. (Seriously, Margie Samuels was a genius. Not only did she graduate from the University of Louisville with a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry in 1933, but she was also behind most of the marketing techniques that still make Marker's Mark unique today.)3 And he explained why all of the buildings on the grounds are black: Margie hated the black fungus that is a natural biproduct of the fermentation process and decided to disguise it with the now signature painted black buildings.
We toured the on-site rickhouse and the Limestone Cellar, where they store Maker’s 46 and create their select versions of the bourbon. We tasted a full flight of bourbon (my sister and I again passed our tasted bourbons on to our husbands) and walked under the Chihuly glass sculptured ceiling on our way to the gift shop. I can still say it is one of my favorite tours because of the beauty of the grounds, the company’s focus on sustainability, and the long history of the place.
Chicken Cock
The last planned stop for the day is proof that grown men still have a part of middle school in them.
While there is no distilling tour for this recently resurrected bourbon company, Chicken Cock has a long history of name recognition with a name that precedes the use of the English word “rooster.” The boys enjoyed their tasting of two different whiskies, many jokes were made, and then we headed out of Bardstown, a cute little town where I could have spent the next couple of hours exploring if we had been there earlier.
Heaven Hill
Heaven Hill was not a planned stop, but we were driving right past it and the gift shop and museum were still open and free. We had stopped there on our original trip eleven years ago, but because of a massive fire in 1996, it was still rebuilding most of its operation. There are still limited options at the distillery visitor center, but the museum is very impressive with a lot of history about the company and bourbon, in general. The cost of the tasting itself is fairly reasonable, but there are also a lot of other experiences offered at the center that could have been fun to try. However, it was the end of the day and we were ready to head back to the campground and make some dinner, so we headed back out on the Kentucky country roads.
That was it for our first day on the Trail. We needed to get some sleep so we would be ready to head into Louisville for a day on Bourbon Row.
Ready to plan your own trip?
I’ve created a Bourbon Trail planning spreadsheet for Google Sheets. Feel free to make a copy and use it for your own planning purposes.
Here is the live video I made after our first day of travels.
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We would have to ship her off to a friend’s house for the two days before they left at 5:30 AM, but thankfully her parents were willing to take on waking up two 16-year-olds that early in the morning.
Yes, bourbon can be made outside of Kentucky, but Kentucky produces 95% of the world’s bourbon. And Kentuckians are not very accepting of bourbon distilled outside of the state. It is part of their rich and complicated history and they take great pride in it. There are 11.4 million barrels aging in Kentucky. That is enough for every Kentucky resident to have 2.5 barrels for themselves.
My sister became convinced that our tour guide must have been a chemistry teacher at some point because he got delightfully geeky about the process.
Loved this, and the pics!!
Brought back great memories! We may be back in that area next year and this just makes me want to plan something all the more. And I love bourbon 🥃