Honestly, I don't think that either Kellie or I anticipated that our road trip was at an end that day when we woke up in Lexington, Kentucky. We did have tickets for the Evan Williams Experience tour at 11:00 AM, so there wasn't really time for anything before going to Evan Williams, but we figured we would find other adventures along the way as we had every day before except for at Niagara Falls. The Falls were a whole day thing. Also, I would like to remind everyone who travels. Big city adventures are not really designed for early risers. Hardly anything, distilleries, museums, shops, arts and crafts things, shows--None of that stuff ever opens before 10 AM! For me, the best time to visit those types of places would be around 7 AM. I do not like the night life, but, apparently, city folk do, and they refuse to get up early.
So, we left the hotel in Lexington anticipating that it would take a while to get into downtown Louisville, find a place to park, and walk to the Evan Williams Experience. Nope! Louisville is just a hop, skip, and jump from Lexington on I-64, and, with public parking garages everywhere, it took us only a few moments to find a spot and only a few minutes more to walk to the Evan Williams place. The doors did not open until 10 AM, so we found ourselves walking up and down Main Street, looking at the statuary and store fronts. As I said, nothing opened until 10. Here is a picture of a poetry unicorn that I took in front of the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts.
At 10 AM, we noticed some people hanging out in front of Evan Williams, and when we saw them go in, we walked over, went inside, and Kellie asked if we could go on the 10 AM tour rather than the 11 tour, and the people said, "No problem." The whisky fountain pictured at the top is just inside the building.
Kellie and I were on a distillery tour with a three man bachelor's party and a three man group of friends from Wisconsin. The Cheeseheads talked the whole time rather loudly; the bachelor party guys never said anything. I did not learn a lot about whisky distilling. I had pretty much learned about process of making whisky at other distilleries. The Jack Daniels tour is still the most informative and educational about how to make whisky. However, I did learn quite a bit about Evan Williams whose name is on my favorite drinking whisky Evan William 1783 Small Batch.
Evan Williams was the first licensed whisky maker in Kentucky. He got his license in 1783. However, he basically got out of the whisky business in 1792 when the city named him its Wharfmaster, essentially a tax collector of boats who ported and unloaded before going over the Ohio Falls and then reloaded their boats below the falls. Though Williams owned a large chunk of land that later became known as Whisky Row, he was out of the distilling business in 1792 except for a small personal operation. Others carried on with his stills, his special yeast formula, and his blessing. One of the guys who worked with the Evan Williams brand was a guy named Elijah Craig. He later started his own distillery. He is the guy who figured out that whisky didn't need to age in barrels so long to soak in the wood flavor if the barrels were charred before the whisky was added.
Anyway, almost all of the whisky distilleries in Louisville and the surrounding area had been bought up by the five Shapiro brothers by the 1900's. Today, 67 brands of whisky are made by Heaven Hill, the Shapiro Brothers company, and Heaven Hill is the 2nd largest distributor of spirits in the world. The primary operations of Heaven Hill are not in Louisville but down the road in Bardstown, Kentucky. They did not tell us who was number one distributor of whiskies. I looked it up, and the internet says Diageo, a British multi-national company is number one, but that website does not put Heaven Hill at number two. It doesn't mention Heaven Hill but does mention three of its products.
Also, I have had many arguments with folks about what "bourbon" really is. Our tour guide cleared that up. 1. More than 50% of the grain used must be corn, or the spirit cannot be called bourbon. 2. The beer still must come off the vat with an alcohol content below 120 proof. 3. The white whisky must come off the still below 160 proof. 4. The whisky must be aged in wooden barrels with only water used to lower alcohol concentration. 5. Nothing can be added to the whisky after it leaves the barrel except water. There, straight from the mouth of the trained tour guide at the distillery of the first licensed bourbon maker in Kentucky. That is the five rules. I bet you are glad to know.
Well, at the end of the tour, we got a flight of whisky to taste. Here is the picture. --And, yes, we were drinking whisky at 10:45 in the morning. It makes for a good day!
I do not remember what the four types were. The second from the left is 1783 Small Batch, which is what Kellie and I drink at home. The far right was a 20 year aged "sweet spot" (Email me if you want to know what "sweet spot" means) whiskey that cost $169 a bottle and is currently only sold in Japan. It was the worst tasting of the flight I thought. The paper cup at the end holds a piece of bourbon-creme chocolate made by Rebecca Ruth. I have no idea if she is related to Baby Ruth.
A little bit after 11:00, we had purchased our souvenirs and were out the door. We only briefly considered doing another distillery tour. We figured one flight of whisky per morning was probably enough. I don't know which of us pulled it up on our phones, but either Kellie or I looked and said, "We can be home in less than seven hours." We were tired and road-weary. We had slept in hotel beds for five nights in a row, and the thought of sleeping in our own bed and getting home before it was dark was very appealing. However, this seven hour stretch would be the longest straight driving we had done on the whole trip. Were we up to it? Yep, we did it with only two stops, one in Mount Vernon, Illinois for lunch and gas and one in Dexter, Missouri for a restroom, and I topped off the gas. By 6:45 PM, we were standing in our own front door with bags in hand two days and one night before we had expected to get home. We had a great trip. I hope that you enjoyed traveling along with us!
The final proof of Uncle Boog and the Dogfight is in the mail and on the way to me. I ask all of you to help me get the word out about this short novel as soon as it goes on sale. For those of my blog readers who are not into poetry, this book is not poetic. It is not about poetry. It is about people that we know--maybe highly exaggerated and put in unusual situations, but, heck, what good is fiction if you don't exaggerate characters, situations, and places and put them in unusual situations? Who really wants to see want the Wizard of Oz was really about? That's right. No one! Give us the Emerald City and flying monkeys!
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