Kentucky’s Bourbon Trail

Today didn’t start out too well. I have a really bad cold working on me. Must be the drastic changes in temperatures. What with going from Northern Indiana to Kentucky with a rise in temps of 20+ degrees, coupled with allergies! But my woes are nothing compared to those on I-65 south this morning. Two tractor trailers and a car. One of the trucks ended up in the ditch, the car ended up under one of the trucks and at least one fatality, so I’m not complaining about my cold. More vitamin C to take, orange juice and hot tea with lemon and honey will do the trick.
With all the traffic and me not feeling well, we decided to stay put in KY and move to TN tomorrow. Later in the day we headed out to the Jim Beam distillery. It’s about 6 miles from the campground. This was one of the places we wanted to visit anyway. What we didn’t know was that today was the start of the Kentucky Bourbon Race. These people have teams of 12 and they each run 8-12 mile legs over two days, totaling 200 miles for each team. Wow, I can’t even run one mile and some of the hills they had to run were pretty steep! Now, picture this…two grey haired fat people in a station wagon with a handicapped placard hanging from the rear view mirror. We pull up to an attendant and she asks us if WE ARE PARTICIPATING IN THE RUN!!! Really??? Are you serious? Do we look conditioned to run that far? I really wanted to say something, but figured I would just keep quiet and let her tell us where to park for the tour. We made our way around hundreds of runners and vans and found a place to park. We enjoyed touring the facility and listening to the band and then we were greeted by one of the descendants of Jim Beam or whoever started the company. We saw thousands of barrels of bourbon and oh the aroma. Finally, at the end, I decided to try some. I’ve never had bourbon and I can truthfully say, “How can you drink that stuff?” All it did for me was numb my throat for the afternoon.
There was another distillery not too far from Jim Beam, so we went to check that one out too. As we approached Heaven Hill Distillery we saw more runners. Ouch is all I can say as we watched them make their way up that hill. This was a nice place too. They had samples of different sauces and jams that they make with the bourbon. It was nice to be able to try them out before buying them. We didn’t spend too much there, but did buy a few more Christmas presents. That is one nice thing about traveling…we can get Christmas presents from all over that our daughter and other loved ones would never find back home. There are four other distilleries on the Bourbon Trail, but like I said in the beginning, I wasn’t feeling well, so we came home so I could rest some more before heading to Tennessee tomorrow morning. Thanks for traveling along with us on The Thomas’ Trails…till next time. Click here to see the rest of the pictures.