reprint or license Print E-Mail

tool name close tool goes here

Tour of eight Kentucky distilleries gets aclaim from National Geographic Traveler

By Patti Nickell Contributing Travel Writer

Freddie Stillhouse, a tour guide for Buffalo Trace, led a group through the distillery in Frankfort.

If You Go

The Bourbon Trail

Buffalo Trace: 113 Great Buffalo Trace, Frankfort. (800) 654-8471. www.buffalotrace.com.

Four Roses: 1224 Bonds Mill Rd., Lawrenceburg. (502) 839-3436, Ext. 18. www.fourroses.us.

Heaven Hill: 1311 Gilkey Run Rd., Bardstown. (502) 337-1000. www.heavenhill.com.

Jim Beam: 526 Happy Hollow Rd., Clermont. (502) 543-9877. www.jimbeam.com.

Maker's Mark: 3350 Burks Spring Rd., Loretto. (270) 865-2099. www.makersmark.com.

Tom Moore: 300 Barton Rd., Bardstown. (502) 348-3774. www.1792bourbon.com.

Wild Turkey: 1525 Tyrone Road, Lawrenceburg. (502) 839-4544. www.wildturkey.com.

Woodford Reserve: 7855 McCracken Pike, Versailles. (859) 879-1812. www.woodfordreserve.com.

All distillery tours are free except for Woodford Reserve, which charges $5. Visitors will receive a passport at each distillery. Collect stamps at all eight distilleries and redeem the passport for a free 10th-anniversary Kentucky Bourbon Trail T-shirt.

Learn more: For more information, go to www.kybourbontrail.com.

What a summer it's been for the Bluegrass.

First, talk-show host Kelly Ripa praised Lexington as being the most beautiful place on earth, and then National Geographic Traveler magazine, in its September issue, included the Kentucky Bourbon Trail in an article titled "20 Great American Drives," placing it in such prestigious company as the Hana Highway in Maui, the Black Hills of South Dakota and the classic loop around Massachusetts' Cape Cod.

Those of us who live in Lexington certainly know what Ripa was talking about. But if you haven't driven the Bourbon Trail lately, you might want to take a long weekend and do so.

Unlike the Napa Wine Trail, which follows a more or less straight line, the Bourbon Trail forms a sort of geometric pattern — from Lexington to Frankfort to Bardstown and back to Lexington. Along the way, you'll do a lot of sipping of America's only native spirit — so declared by a 1964 Act of Congress — and have an opportunity to take in some of the inner and outer Bluegrass's most scenic landscape.

Touring each of the eight distilleries on the trail will provide you with some quick shots of bourbon and of bourbon facts: Kentucky produces 95 percent of the world's supply of bourbon. All bourbon must be made with a minimum of 51 percent corn and aged in charred new oak barrels. It was a Baptist preacher, Elijah Craig, who first came up with the recipe, in 1789. And there are currently more than 5 million barrels of bourbon and other whiskeys aging in Kentucky, the highest inventory since 1983.

Savor the experience

But just like going beyond the quick shot to savor a glass of 23-year-old Pappy Van Winkle, the longer you spend at the distilleries, the more you learn of this fascinating industry. Tidbits might include: Jim Beam, of the distillery bearing his name, was known to take the strain of yeast home with him each weekend to prevent industrial espionage. Buffalo Trace was the only distillery in the state to continue making whiskey during Prohibition (for "medicinal purposes"). And Lord Snowden, former husband of Britain's Princess Margaret, nearly drowned in a fermenting tank while on a visit to Maker's Mark.

If you aren't intrigued by now, go have a Bud Light; but if you are, here's more of what awaits you on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.

Woodford Reserve

Starting from Lexington, the first distillery on the Trail is Woodford Reserve, also one of the most picturesque, situated on Glenn's Creek. Folks there like to say it's the only distillery in Kentucky where you can see its two most famous products aging side by side. A National Historic Landmark, Woodford is the smallest of Kentucky's distilleries and the oldest, with a distilling tradition dating back to Elijah Pepper in the late 1700s. In fact, the distillery was founded just five years after Kentucky gained statehood. The tour introduces visitors to the only triple-distillation process used to handcraft bourbon today, the only copper-pot still (brought over from Scotland) and the only surviving stone aging warehouses in America.

Visitors might be surprised to discover that the old Government House, now used for special events, has no running water or bathroom. Distillery employees say it is a holdover from the days of the "revenuers," who were discouraged from getting too comfortable when they made their periodic checks. The Pepper House, the house at the top of the hill, is said to be inhabited by other kinds of spirits; families who have lived there over the years have reported ghostly encounters.

Woodford Reserve is the official bourbon of the Kentucky Derby, the Belmont Stakes and England's Epsom Derby.

Wild Turkey, Four Roses

From Woodford, it's an easy drive to Lawrenceburg, where visitors get a double dose of distillery touring. Austin Nichols Distillery, atop a hill overlooking the Kentucky River, is presided over by legendary master distiller Jimmy Russell, considered by many of his colleagues the elder statesman of the commonwealth's bourbon industry. There has been a structure on the site since 1855, opening first as a grocery store specializing in teas, coffees, and, of course, spirits. Today, the distillery's most unique feature is its 40-foot-tall column still.