We are in bourbon country. Actually, Kentucky bourbon makers have 98% of all the bourbon market made in the world. Journeyed out yesterday to tour one of the bourbon makers, Jim Beam. And we were totally taken off guard. Seems once a year there is a marathon - of sorts - that is called Bourbon Chase where over 200 miles of relay runs takes place with 300 teams of runners, starting off this year at Jim Beam and then commencing to all the other 8 makers and ending up in Lexington. Takes 2 days for the teams to run the course. With that said - we came into a mob of runners and supporters at the distillery. Every 10 minutes a group would be sent off with people cheering them on. Pure chaos. Oh well, we are here, lets check it out.
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| Gift shop at Jim Beam - runners getting ready for start |
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| Starting line of Bourbon Chase |
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| Beginning stage of bourbon making - corn, rye, barley and yeast |
Took the 1 1/2 hour tour that took us through the beginning history of Jim Beam (founder Jacob Beam started making a little hootch back in 1795) to current times which is now in the 7th generation of making bourbon. From seeing the corn, rye, and barley come together and start the fermenting to the end product of bottling (your own if you wanted to buy) the bourbon and having it waxed sealed. At various times we were able to taste - if you wanted to - the product at the beginning was 140 proof! WHITE LIGHTNING!!
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| 140 proof - first taste |
Jim Beam is now the largest maker of bourbon (95% of the world) and also owns Maker's Make bourbon. I was fascinated by the actual plant - only 300 employees run this particular plant. Talk about efficient. And by the mechanics. My steel mill days of being a foreman were kicking in. At the end we were taken into a 9 story warehouse where barrels were being aged. At this particular plant are 8 warehouse buildings full of barrels. That's a lot of bourbon.
Some things that stood out: smell - at times you could smell strong odor of corn, other times of dough (yeast), other times you could smell CO2 from the aging process; sight - big plant, very few employees, very stream lined, very clean; sound - some areas of the plant we toured was extremely loud - turbines running, chillers, etc. The warehouses take advantage of the hot summers and the very cold winters - needed for the aging process where the wood barrels can expand and contract, adding the wood flavor into the bourbon. Taste: yuck. I do not like bourbon, it definitely burned going down. And I don't think it agreed with Dave - he had a reaction to the small amount of sips of bourbon we had from the tasting room. Sensation: people are gaga over bourbon! One woman on our tour couldn't wait for the end to purchase the stuff. People buying a lot of it in the gift shop. You could purchase a used barrel for $120! Tshirts, sauces for cooking, many trinkets - and were being purchased big time.
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| Physical plant where bourbon made |
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| End of tour - bottling your own bourbon |
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| 9 story warehouse - filled with barrels of bourbon |
The tour ended by having a taste testing where we could sample 2 out of 18 that they offered. Since neither one of us are bourbon drinkers, we were kinda at a loss - not sure what to pick. I tasted the maple bourbon which wasn't bad. By the time we left we were both a bit tipsy.
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| Their own fire department |
Back in Elizabethtown we went to the Swope's Cars of Yesteryear, an antique collection of 60 plus cars that the Swope family has. Swope is a huge car dealer here, sorta like the Liberty car dealerships of Cleveland. Beautifully restored and they all run.
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| Tucked in between the Ford and Chevy Dealerships |
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| Tin Lizzie |
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| Lots of antique cars on display |
Today is clean up day, laundry, etc. We are leaving a day early to head to Missouri, bad weather is predicted for here on Monday so we want to get gone, tomorrow is our travel day. We have had rain every day but one, seems we have been in rain for the past 3 weeks. Looking forward to the sunny blue skies of Arizona.
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