bringing drinks to life

With Tales over, hangovers recovered from and New Orleans left as a distant memory in the rearview mirror, we have finally made it into the heart of American Whiskey country. As we drove from New Orleans the countryside slowly changed from monotonous swampland (how and why anyone settled this area is a mystery to me) to heavily forested flatlands, to wooded hills and finally to more open farming land with rolling hills stretching as far as the eye can see.
 
Our original plan was to hit Kentucky and do ‘the bourbon trail’ but someone told us that we might be pleasantly surprised if we stopped in at Lynchburg to check out Jack Daniel’s. So that’s where we find ourselves on a hot and sunny Tennessee afternoon. After a quick pit stop in town for a bite to eat at the bbq caboose (if you get there try the pulled pork sandwich!) and to stretch our legs it’s up the road to the main attraction.

 
Now I’ll be honest with you, I am not a huge fan of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee sipping whiskey, I find it a bit sweet for my taste and too soft and mellow (for which I have always blamed the charcoal to the right), but with an (fairly) open mind I head up the path to the visitor centre. Even the cynic in me can’t resist being drawn into the charm of this place. On first impression it really feels like you’re visiting the home of Jack Daniel’s Whiskey, rather than some visitor centre erected to keep tourists and production separate.  As it turned out, our first impressions were right.

I will save the details of what we learned at their distillery for when our website goes live, but I have to admit that by the end of our visit even I was on the verge of buying a bottle (actually I did buy a bottle of the single barrel and the stuff they only sell locally… well it was a very good tour!).  Now obviously the distillery visit is a clever bit of marketing by our friends at Brown-Foreman, but it is an excellent introduction to American whiskey and worth the effort of visiting. All the staff (especially Bruce our tour guide) there are passionate and well informed and seemed to be genuinely happy in their jobs. Of course that may have something to do with the free bottle they get with their paycheque on the first Friday of the month!
 
I learned a few facts, dispelled a few myths and also realised that it has been quite a few years since I last tried JD (I may still have been in my teens in fact..) and that it is worth making the effort to push prejudice to one side and experience things with an open mind. Oh and the single barrel is actually a damned fine drop!
 
From Tennessee we drove north up into Kentucky to get stuck into the bourbon trail. We have a full on schedule while we are here, 4.5 days to do 8 distilleries, which should keep us busy. Tomorrow we are going to start off with Buffalo Trace and then go on to have lunch and the behind the scenes tour with the distillery manager at Woodford Reserve.
 
They will have a lot to live up to if they are going to compete with this mornings experience though. We received a kind invitation from Jim Rutledge, the master distiller at Four Roses to tag along to a barrel selection for a private bottling for one of their customers.
 
After a slight detour through the small roads of Kentucky (map reading is not my strongpoint) we finally found their barrel houses and bottling facility and joined Jim and his customers to set about nosing, sipping and comparing 7 samples drawn straight from the barrels. The barrels were lined up next to us and the samples set out complete with char residue in the glasses.
 
This really is the way to taste bourbon… undiluted and unfiltered, just as it was made. The seven samples were surprisingly different, and all agreed that each was excellent in its own right. Finally after much discussion we narrowed it down to 4 samples, numbers 2,3,5 and 7 with 2 being the leading contender as it was the most elegant and feminine of the four. Now we added water to see how the aromas and flavours would be closer to bottling strength. What a difference a splash of H2O can make! Sample 2 fell apart and became too soft without the defined flavour you would hope for from a single barrel bourbon, number 5 soon fell by the wayside too as it felt a little average compared with samples 3 and 7.
 
This was going to be a tough decision as the two were completely different but both equally tasty. Number 3 had a lot of fruit notes with hints of citrus peel, spices and ripe pears. It reminded us all of cognac and was the firm favourite of 2 in the group. Number 7 on the other hand was right up my street. A bold and classic bourbon, with a deep golden colour and a robust aroma giving off leather notes beneath layers of burnt sugar, cinnamon and pencil shavings.
 
I knew we were hanging out with the right guys when the buyer turned around and said he would take both barrels as they were so exceptional. I have a bottle of each on order as soon as they are bottled and ready to go!
 
After lunch with Jim and the rest of the guys in nearby Bardstown, we decided to squeeze in a visit to Heaven Hill. I wasn’t sure what to expect here, as their distillery is in Louisville and they just have their barrel houses and a visitor centre open to the public. To be honest we were a little disappointed by this experience. It was very dummed down and our host seemed to be intent on getting as many people on the tour to buy a bottle of Elijah Craig 18 or Even Williams single barrel, as possible.
 
This is a real shame as they have so much great heritage to be proud of and a real story to tell. That being said, the centre is an important stop for tourists just wanting a quick and basic intro to bourbon. Just be warned it wont challenge you in any way shape or form.
 
Well there’s only one thing to do after the ups and downs of the day… head to Bourbon’s Bistro for a steak and a flight or two of bourbon! I can’t wait to see what tomorrow holds!