Two more distilleries and Shakers

This morning Lauren and I went to the Wild Turkey Distillery. The buildings there are ugly and factory like which was surprising after some the trim and house-like buildings we had seen before. We were a bit early so we spent our time talking to this old man who turned out to be the master distiller. We balked when they told us the tour would be an hour and half - what could we possible do for an hour and half? Wander very slowly it turns out.

Sherwin, our female guide, had all of her teeth, and was very informative. The tour was way longer than necessary, but we did get some new information. We saw two different grain trucks unload corn and barley. We watched fermented mash drain from an old tank and new grains shoot into another. A view out of the distillery gave us a good view of the S shaped bridge. We went over this bridge when we took the scenic road to Versailles, but couldn't find a place to take a photo. Jan says that there are only two S shaped bridges in the US (wikipedia says otherwise, but still not many). Interesting side note. Most people would pronounce Versailles like the French and say "Vair-sigh." Not here in Kentucky; in Kentucky it is pronounced "ver-sales' like rhyming with "for sales."

Anyway the tour took forever. I decided that Wild Turkey had more WT and that Lauren and I had enough experience now with bourbon to probably lead the tour. Wild Turkey does no bottling on site and ships all their bourbon off in stainless steel tanks to Arkansas to be bottled. Wild Turkey just got bought by an Italian company, and the company is making heaps of changes like new buildings and such, so Sherwin hopes to bring more jobs back to the area. They didn't offer any tastings to maintain their 'family atmosphere,' but we did get a small piece of bourbon fudge. I like bourbon balls better. We were assured a proper tasting room was also in the works. We went home to Jan's for PB&J and then headed south to Four Roses.

Four Roses is in a Spanish style mission that is beautiful. The tour was sort of a joke and took no time at all. The guy seemed very rushed. He did explain it ok, but Lauren and I can do better. At 4 roses though, they definitely follow a time line. For example one of the bourbons calls for this many 6 year barrels and this many 8 year barrels to be blended. All of the other distilleries say that they taste the barrels after a certain amount of time and then decide if they are ready and if they aren't they rest for longer. The building was beautiful, but we didn't care for the tour. We did taste three bourbons, I liked the youngest and Lauren liked the oldest and most expensive.

Our next stop was Pleasant Hill Shaker Village. The Shakers belonged to a weird religious group who thought Jesus was coming soon and it was time to look busy. They organized these large celibate family villages where people worked hard and prayed hard. They were called Shakers because of some of their violent athletic dancing-praying sessions. Men and women were separated in rooming and bathing and given tasks that were appropriate to gender (although in opinion they believed that all men, women, and races were equal). The Shakers were great artisans making quality linens, brooms, wood products, etc as well as producing good foods and running a busy seed catalog. Karrie and James would have loved going and looking at all the simple well-made wooden furniture. The Shaker Village was a lot like Colonial Williamsburg with buildings open, people in costume, and various demonstrations. Probably the coolest thing I learned today was how to make a straw broom - just like the ones at the store. The Shakers cult eventually died out because there were few new members (see procreation may sometimes be the answer) and maybe because Jesus didn't show. At the village they blamed it on the world war and the industrial revolution.

We came home and relaxed and waited for Jan to come home from work. I looked up stuff and Louisville and marked our map with some good stops and the museums we are interested in. Jan wanted to know if there was anything good to eat in Shelbyville because that is close to where her man lives and she doesn't know anywhere great to eat. and that is how we decided where to eat. I wanted to wear jeans because I thought I would be cold, so out came the sparkly $5 jeans. The only thing that looked good with it was my $5 shirt. Lauren was mad because I was dressing up, but I proclaimed that I wasn't dressing up in my ten dollar walmart special. She borrowed a shirt from Jan and felt better. Bistro 535 serves the prettiest meals I have seen - especially Lauren's Hot Brown (remember a Hot Brown is a Kentucky specialty of toast with hot turkey, ham, and cheesey gravy. We were pretty full, but we owed Jan dessert at the cafe, so we headed home to get her daughter and then see about getting some cake. To hear about that adventure - read below.