Staggering Along the Bourbon Trail

On day 2 of our Rockies Adventure we departed Tamarack and continued westbound on I-64 after a relatively cool and very restful night.  We will be on I-64 for quite a while ... all the way to St. Louis.

The West Virginia Capitol in Charleston

After two days on the road I have observed  an electrical issue with the coach.  While driving, the chassis battery, the battery that powers the automotive portion of the coach, shows low voltage.  It should show 13V plus while driving, but it is showing much lower values 12.0-12.3V, and these values seem to drop as the day goes on.  When I run the generator or when the coach is connected to shore power, the voltage does rise to 13V plus, as it should. This all suggests an alternator charging problem.  The battery itself is almost 6 years old, so we might need to replace it anyway.  I can bridge my starting battery with my house batteries to aid starting, if necessary.  Also, I can charge the chassis battery with the generator while driving down the road.  I may be running the generator anyway while driving to use the house air conditioners to help cooling in the coach.  Luckily on July 8 we will attend a rally hosted by the Diesel RV Club, which is a highly technical group.  There will be no shortage of expertise for troubleshooting and repairs.

We have allowed 9 days to get to Loveland Colorado, so we have some time to drag our feet and smell the roses ... or perhaps smell the bourbon.  Our route will take us right through the center of Kentucky bourbon country, so some tours and tastings are in order.

On this day we visited the Woodford Reserve Distillery, one of Kentucky's oldest and smallest distilleries.  The road to the distillery is very narrow, but very scenic.  It is totally surrounded by thoroughbred farms, another famous Kentucky product.

I think we'll have to pull over if we meet a bicycle

Kentucky thoroughbreds.

Woodford makes a "doubled oaked" variety, where the bourbon is aged in one barrel for a time and then transferred into a different barrel for subsequent aging.

This 750ml bottle of Double Oaked sells for $57 at the distillery

The barrel race transports aged product from the rack house to bottling 

The fermenters at Woodford Reserve are made of 100-year old cypress

All Woodford products are triple distilled in copper stills.

After distillation the bourbon is packed in charred white oak barrels and stored in warehouses called "rack houses".

What a beautiful sight!

Frankly, I'm not a bourbon connoisseur, I usually buy from the bottom shelf, but I am excited about buying a bottle of the Double Oaked.

Down the hatch!

Sadly we had to leave the Woodford Reserve Distillery, and then enjoyed some Kentucky backroads.




We parked for the night at the Walmart Supercenter in Lawrenceburg KY.  Notice the Bojangles in the background. We love Bojangles, but it is a regional chain, and this is likely the last one we will see until late September.

Our camp at Wally World

Within walking distance of our camp we found a pretty good Mexican restaurant.  Happy hour featured a 22 oz margarita for $3.50.  Ay carumba!  After dinner Dorcas  caved to her pyrotecnomania and bought some fireworks in the tent in the Walmart parking lot.

Bourbon is fine, but so is tequila

On Monday, day three of our adventure, we left in search of more of the golden elixir.  Our next stop was Heaven Hill Distillery at the Bourbon Heritage Center.

At Heaven Hill Distillery they make dozens of different products, including bourbons, rums, whiskey, vodkas, cognacs and tequilas.  Their signature bourbons are Evan Williams and Elijah Craig.  In 1996 a lightning strike started a fire that consumed the distillery and 7 warehouses and 90,000 barrels of bourbon were lost.  The products are now distilled in Louisville, but aged and bottled on site here.

Rack houses at Heaven Hill

The gray-black discoloring rising from the bottom of the warehouses is a colony of the sac fungus Baudoinia compniacensis, a natural result of the maturing process.

Bourbon aging in a rack house at Heaven Hill Distillery 

Another tasting at Heaven Hill

Finally we visited Jim Beam.  This is a popular stop on the Kentucky Bourbon Trial and tours and tasting were sold out for the day.  That did not stop us from a walking tour of the facilities.

Rack house at Jim Beam

Let's not be cheap!

Warehouses, or rack houses, are typically 7-9 stories tall and hold about 20,000 barrels each.  They are not heated or cooled and the aging process benefits from the natural draft and the changes in seasonal temperatures.  Barrels are occasional moved among different levels to optimize the aging of the product.

 After our visit at Jim Beam we hit the road buckled up for the long haul to St. Louis. We continued on I-64 and crossed southern Indiana and southern Illinois.  At one point during our drive. the temperature shown on our on-board thermometer dropped from over 100 degrees to 80 degrees and back up to 90 in about an hour.  We arrived in St. Louis late in the evening, well after rush hour, and parked at the Hollywood Casino on the outskirts of town.  The forecast for St. Louis is not encouraging.  High temps are predicted for the mid 90's with real-feel temps in the 105 range.