We obviously couldn’t visit Louisville (or Kentucky in general for that matter) without visiting a few distilleries. Surprisingly, the first one we toured was a brandy distillery called Copper and Kings. It was a short walk from our Airbnb and, after a drink on their wide open patio, went on their tour and tasting. Copper and Kings focuses on bringing brandy “back to its roots” by using copper pot stills and not adding extra sweeteners. They also like to have a little fun and play loud music during the barrel aging process (they call it “sonic aging”) to help increase the brandy’s contact with the barrel walls (on the day of our tour, the barrels were listening to 50 cent). Then it was onto the tasting of a few of their different products – I’m no brandy expert, but it was really tasty. If I’m being honest (which I typically am to a fault) they also made the best gin I’ve ever had, which I say out loud every time I have some. I’m sure Alissa loves it.
Our next distillery experiences were part of an all day tour booked through a company called Mint Julep Experiences. We started with a distillery called Wilderness Trail. I’d never heard of it before booking the tour, but it was a much larger operation that I expected. They also had a cool backstory – the founders ran a fermentation consulting business to assist other distilleries with any fermentation issues and one day said “why aren’t we making bourbon ourselves?” So they did, and it’s delicious. The tasting included 4 different whiskeys – 1 wheated bourbon, 2 rye bourbons, and 1 rye whiskey. The wheated bourbon was both Alissa and I’s favorite (would highly recommend if you can find it!).
Next on the tour was Woodford Reserve, one that I was looking forward to quite a bit. This stop was a tasting only (no tour) but was the best run tasting of the distilleries we went to. There were 5 different whiskeys to try, pictured below, and the guide did a great job walking us through the differences in each whiskey as well as some flavors that we might pick up. Spoiler alert – I almost never taste what the tasting notes list. As every tour guide said, everyone’s palate is different, so don’t feel bad if you don’t taste what I taste. My favorite was the Double Oaked – for me it’s very smooth and rich compared to all the others.
Our last stop of the day was Bulleit, which was a great example of what a modern distillery looks like. Most distilleries haven’t changed too much of the process over the last hundred years, but Bulleit had a lot more high tech monitoring than anything we’ve seen before. The distillery was built in 2017, so the bourbon they were selling prior to that (and some of it still) was contracted out. I loved being able to see their example of what the inside of a column still looks like. Bulleit also has the most unique tasting of the distilleries we visited. Each bourbon had an accompanying scent orb (I don’t know if that’s what they called them, but it’s what I’m calling them) that was supposed to change our perception of the flavor. So we’d take a sip as a baseline, then would sniff-sip-sniff the same glass and see how the flavor changed. And it did! I don’t remember how, but it did! It was the end of a long day.
After that, it was about a 45 minute ride back on the bus where the tour guide continued to pepper us with fact after fact that I attentively listened to while Alissa napped (for real, I learned a ton that day, which I still remember most of).