Rose Colored Glasses

October 6, 2014

A loud beeping sound pulled Jason and I out of sleep this morning; how I ate alarm clocks. We decided to wake up early today in order to receive housekeeping services and eat breakfast at a reasonable time. We succeeded...dressed and heading toward the lobby for breakfast, not a hotel housekeeper in sight.

This morning the lobby was quiet, wedding guests no longer at the hotel. Roughly four or five other hotel guests were already seated and eating their hot meals, leaving the buffet solely to Jason and I. We must have been extremely hungry because neither of us remembered to take any pictures of our food. Jason had eggs and a bagel covered in cheese, egg, and bacon. He also had yogurt with cranberry juice. I had a biscuit and eggs, followed by orange juice and an apple. We also ate a honey wheat scone. We decided to eat a large breakfast and avoid lunch since we had so many things on our to-do list.

As we walked back toward the room, now very full, we realized housekeeping was still nowhere in sight. Apparently we woke up early for no reason. Oh well... more time for bourbon! Here is a picture of us before starting our bourbon extravaganza!

We were going to take a before and after photo, since visiting three or four distilleries, but we never got around to the after photo.

First place on the list: Four Roses. Jason's favorite bourbon so far has been from Four Roses. We were particularly excited to tour this one. We arrived with the weather slightly chilly, dark clouds looming above. We walked in and paid for two tours, learning we would be able to keep the glasses after the tasting. Very exciting! The next tour wasn't for another 15 minutes, so we browsed the shop while waiting. Not but a few minutes later, the tour guide announced that she had seen lightening, which means we'd have to wait 30 minutes without another bolt of lighting before starting the tour. This was due to the tour taking place in a metal building. Only 15 more minutes later and another bolt struck. This time they announced we could simply have the bourbon tasting without the tour, if fearing we would be waiting too long. Jason and I opted for this, since we had three other distilleries we wished to see that day.

Our tour guide asked us to follow her to the left of the shop where the distillery bar was. She was adorable--the tour guide. She said things like "Ya'll" and "Plum out of" or "plum excited." The phrase "knock your socks off" was also heard from time to time. She was cute. We tasted three different bourbons from Four Roses. One was called the Yellow Label (the regular), then in the middle was a small batch, and the last was a single barrel.

This tasting was slightly different from our last tasting experience. Number one, the distillery didn't have a stick up it's ass. They were down to earth people who simply enjoyed bourbon. Our guide spoke very highly of the bourbon, stating she was not a good cook but used it at all times, whether it was in the pan or in her glass. Her husband also apparently never complains of her cooking. She attributes this to him either being happy, smart, or drunk. She wasn't complaining either way. Jason heard one lady say "I think she likes her job too much." Haha!

The tour guide told us the story of how Four Roses was named, which Jason and I thought was cute. Apparently the creator of Four Roses fell in love with a woman who did not return his love. He asked her to marry him a few times and each time she said no. He tried once more, being extremely persistent. This time she did not say no. Instead, said she would give him an answer by the next ball. If she wore roses to the ball, then her answer was yes. Apparently she wore roses because she married him and he named the company Four Roses after her corsage.

After tasting all of the bourbon--and I mean all of the bourbon because we were unable to pour it out--Jason and I both decided the third (single barrel) was the best. I must admit, although I never poured my bourbon out, Jason's glass had a strange ability to refill itself on occasion.

The moment the tasting was over, Jason and I headed toward the gift shop where we promptly bought a few bottles of bourbon--let's not discuss exactly how much. We left with our bourbon and our glasses:

Jason and I grabbed our bottles of bourbon and headed toward our car. Sadly the rain was more than sprinkling by this point. On the bright side, Jason and I are always prepared and had an umbrella for the occasion. Unable to take any pictures, we decided to drive to the next distillery, Woodford Reserve. These are pictures of the drive to the next distillery. It was beautiful!

Woodford Reserve was my favorite distillery. It was beautiful, old, and had the best bourbon (in my opinion). Below are pictures:

The picture above is of Woodford Reserve Distillery. This is where we purchased our tour tickets and met our tour guide. We were each given a audio set in order to hear our guide clearly. As I tried to untangle my ear bud, I accidentally pulled too hard and it broke, exposing wires. I panicked quite a bit and quickly went to the woman who gave me my audio set. Luckily she said the ear buds are only a few dollars and that they get them from home depot. Phew! Brief panic moment!

 Above is a picture of the old tile storehouse that Woodford Reserved used before Prohibition. There are three of these red tile buildings, but only one is currently in use as a storehouse.

 The picture above is a fermentation tank made out of Cyprus wood. Cyprus is used because it does not introduce a new flavor. There were four of these and they were beautiful. You could see it bubbling at the top.  I loved how this room smelled.

 Here is a better picture of the fermentation tanks which Jason took. It shows the old building as well, which is apparently the only stone building currently used to make bourbon like this.

This is a picture of the three levels of copper stills. This is where it is actually distilled and turned into higher percentages of alcohol. Bourbon is not technically considered bourbon if it's over 160 proof. Woodford said they are the only distillery for bourbon that uses three stills.

 Jason with the stills.

Here is a picture of the barrel tank. They use this to fill each barrel with bourbon. You can see a small window to the right of this tank. This window is where the barrels are rolled out of and onto a barrel run. A barrel run looks like train tracks and is used to roll the barrels in order to transport them rather than picking them up. Apparently the barrels weight roughly 100 pounds empty and 500 pounds filled. Pretty heavy. This was my favorite part of the tour... the barrel run.

 Here is a picture of Jason near all the barrels.

 This is a better picture of the stills and barrels.

 Here is a closer picture of the barrel run entry.

 This is what the outside of that window looks like and where the barrel run starts.

 Another picture of the same thing... can you tell I liked this a lot?

 This is what the barrel run looks like when used.

 I loved this building. Beautiful!

 The picture above is of the aging house. It was my favorite building... beautiful! You can see the barrel run to the right of it.

 Another picture of the aging house.

 This is a picture of the bourbon being aged. There is a Rye bourbon which is new that supposedly is coming out next year... it's currently being stored here. We plan to look for it when it comes out. So neat to see it aging and then get a bottle!

 This is a picture of the bottling process. Our tour guide was to the left of this and showed us how the master distiller would sample each barrel. She took us over to the most recent barrel that was being tested, took a small sample out and allowed all of us to smell the bourbon. Pretty neat.

 Above is another picture of the bottling process.

 This is a picture of the barrel run, the storehouse, and aging house from the top of woodford Reserve's land. Beautiful!

 The woman standing to the left is Tammy, our tour guide. She mentioned, however, that if we didn't like the tour then her name was Sarah. Haha! This is the tasting room. It was the prettiest of all the tasting rooms!

 A picture of our two samplings of bourbon. The one to the left was the Woodford Reserves Select and the one to the right was Woodford Reserves Doubled Oaked. The double oaked was my personal favorite of any bourbon we've had. It's the sweetest. Also there's a chocolate they gave us :^) Yum!

 Here is an awesome picture that Jason took of the tasting room's ice bucket, bourbon samplings, and chocolates.

After sampling our food, our tour Guide, Tammy, said goodbye to us at the door and handed us suggestion cards. She said thank you to everyone; however, when Jason went to get his card she looked at him and said "You have a really nice..." she paused, obviously at a loss for words, and gestured at his face and hair. Jason smiled and eventually she found the word "hair!" They laughed and I said "yeah, he does have great hair." She laughed and said "He your guy?" I nodded and she congratulated me. Haha! Pretty funny :^) Jason literally made a woman forget how to speak with how good-looking he is!

Me in front of Woodford Reserves. As you can tell by the bags in my hand, we may have bought some items here :^) My favorite place on the trail so far!

After Woodford Reserves we left to find Town and Branch. This was in Lexington which was pretty far, so it turned out to be our last stop of the day. We'll have to see Wild Turkey another day. Below are two pictures of a castle we saw in Lexington. Although Lexington was very similar in feel to east point, there was this gem along the way.

Once at Town and Branch, we purchased our tour tickets. We were informed the tour was not just of the distillery but also of the brewery since Town and Branch is mainly a brewery company. We waited in a small gift shop until our tour guide came in. Once he said hello he showed us a video of the origin of Town and Branch, starting with the owner, a man from Ireland. Personally I was not very interested in Town and Branch after this video. It seemed more like the man was a CEO of a large company than someone who really loved working in a brewery. But, I gave it a shot anyway.

After the video we walked over to the brewery section of Town and Branch and were shown how they make the beer. I noticed numerous birds flying around while a large vat was open in one of the fermentation tanks. I don't know about anyone else, but that wasn't too appealing to me. After showing us where everything was made, we went to a small tasting room that was build like a bar. Soon our small group became very large as a woman added numerous European people to our group. We were all given four tasting tickets when purchasing our tour tickets. This allowed us four tastes of either beer or spirits. Essentially we could use all our tasting tickets on beer if wanted, but Jason and I chose to wait for the spirits since we were doing the bourbon trail.

We were soon taken to the distillery and learned the same type of thing that we had a the other two distilleries. We didn't take any pictures because it was basically the same. The building also looked like a brewery because it mostly is one, so we didn't get pictures of it either. We were shown four spirits which we were allowed to try at the end of the tour. Only one was bourbon. We're still not sure how Town and Branch is even on the bourbon trail with only one bourbon in their portfolio, but nevertheless... here they are.

We tried four things: a coffee and cream whiskey called Blue Grass Sundown (I actually wasn't able to try this one because they ran out... twice. Must have been good at least); Town Branch rye; Town Branch Bourbon (not anything noteworthy in my opinion, Jason agreed);Pearse Lyons Reserve. All in all... not too impressive. It was okay, just confusion for why a brewery is on the bourbon trail, especially when we had to drive an hour to get to it. Very strange. Still cool to see.

After Town and Branch, we made our way back to our hotel for dinner. We actually chose to eat at Umami Sushi for dinner which is directly across from the hotel (near Rebecca's Pepperoni Grill). Here are pictures of our food:

 My chicken and veggie fried rice.

Jason's Spicy Tofu Vegetables. Both were very good! We really liked this place. The staff was really friendly and the food was delicious. Another couple in the restaurant turned to the staff and said "See you on Thursday!" when leaving. They have a standing appointment to eat there twice a week I guess. Pretty understandable with how great the food was. Yum! Glad we could end our day at a very wonderful restaurant! So good!