Road Trip: Kentucky Bourbon Trail – Buffalo Trace & Town Branch
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Mmmm cheese! None of it was too “fancy” and we polished off everything except for the blue cheese – oye – I just cannot deal with that stuff – tastes like feet!
This was the view from our room – I’m sure it’s really beautiful in the summer. There are a few different buildings on the properties for folks to stay in. We were in the actual Lodge which has 6 rooms as well as a few common areas. It’s really nice and there’s a full kitchen which you’re welcome to use which I thought was a nice feature.
The wines on the left are all the more white/red wines and the ones on the right were all their fruit varieties. Most “real” wine people aren’t fans of the fruit ones – but I don’t really like wine – so the fruit ones are right up my alley.
The trip also included free continental breakfast in the morning – there were all sorts of rolls, muffins, cereal, juices and waffles! I love me some waffles. While I was enjoying my waffle, we were chatting with them about historical sites in the area and they recommended we head to Frankfurt (maybe 20 min away) and check out the Buffalo Trace Distillery.
The distillery sits on a beautiful property and the tours are free! We were down with that! The tours are free at Buffalo Trace (they are not on the official Bourbon Trail anymore) and they also offer a ghost tour which we will definitely be back for!
This right here is their 6 millionth barrel of bourbon! They keep the barrel in there until the 7 millionth is done. It’s pretty cool that when that happens they will donate this barrel to charity and then they’ll do something special with it to generate some money.
They have quite a few buildings on the site and it’s a science as to what barrels go where and what comes out of them! Depending on where the barrel is (1st or 5th floor, middle or outside) – the taste changes. Some of the barrels have been here 23 years!
My favorite fact that I learned was about their Blanton’s Bourbon (named after the pioneer of Buffalo Trace). Blanton’s is on the right in the photo above. The stoppers that go in the bottles actually have 8 versions – and when put in order – look like a horse taking off in a race.
They go from the start position all the way through galloping. Each stopper also has a letter on it and they spell out Blanton’s. Unless you’ve been on the tour – you probably would never even notice that! I love stuff like that. (They even gave us one stopper each to take home!)
After the tour we headed to the “bar” and got ready to try bourbon (and chocolate!). I have to say – these chocolates were amazing! They had bourbon in them and were so creamy and delicious! We brought some home for Larry’s mom as a thank-you for watching the dogs.
I did try some bourbon – and I did not like it! It’s way too strong for me – I just am not much of a drinker anyway – especially this. But the tour was incredibly fun – especially since it was free!
Next up we headed to Lexington to check out Town Branch. This distillery is on the bourbon tour but they’re also a brewery. The bourbon is really the side business for them – and this is also the newest spot on the tour.
Larry was really captivated by these – I’m guessing there will be a barrel purchase in our future.
Our guide on this tour was great – while we enjoyed the other tour more – this guy was really fun and knowledgeable as well. We found out that the brains behind the operation has experience working with animal nutrition and he has it set up so the used up yeast is then used for animal feed. Pretty cool to reuse as much as they can!
