The Urban Bourbon Trail: Because it's not day-drinking if you are working towards a goal.

Louisville, Kentucky has a lot going for it. If you are fan of baseball bats, boxing or Bourbon, you're in luck. I hear there is also some minor event for horse racing fans but why ruin perfectly good alliteration. Of the available options, the one that really catches my fancy is boxing. It was the only sport my father was into so, growing up, fight nights were a big deal at my house. That is why on my first visit to Louisville (pronounced as if you are in the act of hurling...Lou-uh-vul), I spent the entire day at the Mohammed Ali Center, completely enthralled. The museum is fantastic! It does a spectacular job capturing his life, not only as an athlete but also as someone willing to risk it all for his beliefs. On my most recent visit, I had hoped to go back but was thwarted by one small problem. It was Monday and the museum was closed.

That left me with the other three to choose from. Horse racing- or more realistically- going to Churchill Downs, where the Kentucky Derby is run to see a museum on horse racing sounds like the opposite of fun to me. Ditto on going to the Louisville Slugger plant to watch bats being made (although it does sound slightly more interesting than watching an actual baseball game). So this left bourbon. I don't really drink it but there were two tour options that sounded intriguing enough. The first is a bus tour that takes you to a number of distilleries where I imagine you spend a lot of time sampling whiskey and hearing about wood barrels and rye. The other is a more of a do it yourself approach.
Tour #2, better known as the Urban Bourbon Trail, requires you to get a "passport" , which is a booklet listing 37 bars and restaurants, all of them local and most importantly, all serving a minimum of 50 bourbons. The idea is to visit at least six places and get them to stamp your passport. Once you do this, you can either mail in your passport or stumble over to the visitor's center and show it to them in exchange for a free t-shirt. It is kind of like the world's easiest scavenger hunt. This seemed like a perfectly acceptable way to spend a Monday in Louisville.

We started by picking up our passports and getting some guidance at the visitor's center.  It is here that we encountered what I choose to believe is the taxidermied remains of Col. Sanders.



While that did nothing to whet my appetite, it was almost noon and if we were going to survive six bars before 6pm (the visitor's center's closing time), we needed to fortify ourselves. Our first stop was Dish on Market, a restaurant housed in 1904 movie theater, with a mighty fine veggie burger. I deferred to the passport booklet's suggestion when it came to drink selection, and had the Barrel-aged Old Fashioned. I had never tried an old-fashioned, barrel-aged or otherwise and soon learned I had never even tried bourbon. (Helpful hint: Do not, whatever you do, answer the 'What bourbon do you normally drink?' question with "Jack Daniels". The Louisvillians will lose their ever-loving minds on this. For real.)

My friend, on the other hand, was a bourbon connoisseur and was comfortably conversant in terms such as muddling, charring and simple syrups. I realized early on I was going to be doing a lot of smiling and nodding. My first old-fashioned was an interesting mix of sweet and strong. I enjoyed it but could not fathom doing this five more times before the end of the day.


After only one stop, I was already ready for a break. We walked past a number of the participating bars and some of the recommended distilleries.


Instead we opted for the highlight of the day, the 21c Museum Hotel. Normally, I spend most of my energy trying to get out of hotels in order to explore my surroundings but that is because I rarely get to stay at places this cool.


The hotel doubles as a contemporary art gallery, with two floors of exhibition space showcasing a wonderfully eclectic collection.


Right off the bat, I spotted a painting by Kehinde Wiley, whose work has fascinated me ever since I saw one of his pieces at the Detroit Institute of Art.


This was created by placing photographs into clear pill capsules.

This was created by hand-sewing sequins onto a canvas!
It is not surprising that such a hip hotel would be home to Proof on Main, the #3 Best Hotel Bar in the US (according to USA Today). This meant that we did not have to go far to get our next stamp.



As committed as I was to this Urban Bourbon Trail t-shirt quest, I still was not completely convinced about the bourbon part so stamp #2 was earned with a local brew that was quite tasty.


Things were looking good, we were 1/3 of the way towards our goal and making friends.


Stamp #3 was the Down One Bourbon Bar and Restaurant, whose motto is "Distill my beating heart". They have over 160 bourbons, have been named by Nat'l Geographic as one of its “Best in the World: Must-See Places for 2014” and have bartenders with obvious pyromaniacal tendencies.

My bourbon-loving friend explained that my first Old-fashioned, while quite good, had not followed the proper recipe. The chief complaint was in the improper use of ice. They had use regular cubes as opposed to one big fat baseball-sized hunk of ice. The Down One bartender was aghast. I wanted to paraphrase Lin Manuel-Miranda and proclaim that ice is ice is ice but these bourbon drinkers do not mess around. I ordered another Old-Fashioned and drank it, as they discussed infusions, mashes and the travesty that is the Marachino cherry




Throughout our visit, I watched as the bartender took fire to every piece of garnish within his line of sight. I'm not sure that having that much open flame around 160 bottles of bourbon is a great idea but my drink was tasty and I was feeling no stress.



Stamp #4: The Bristol Bar and Grille. Why? Because it was on our way and they had a happy hour. It was getting closer to 6pm and we had to step up our efforts. I was warming to the idea of this tour so my drink here was a beer from local Goodwood Brewery. I know it is not a bourbon but it is likely to have seen the inside of a bourbon barrel at some point in its life, so it counts as far as I am concerned.

Stamp #5: We totally cheated. We had less than an hour and still had to get two stamps and make it across town to collect our shirts. This called for desperate measures. We went into a bar that will remain nameless, explained our predicament to the bartender and begged for a stamp. His reaction suggested we were not the first people to do this.

Stamp #6: The Troll Pub Under the Bridge, my favorite of all the bars we visited. It was the closest to a dive bar, had a secret room hidden behind a book shelf and exuded a smell that led me to believe actual trolls were doing their business in this underground lair. I went back to how I started and based my drink choice on the official recommendation.  Actual description from the passport: The Ramsey's Manhattan- the award-winning recipe was created by one of the Troll Pub's own. Featuring Woodford Reserve Bourbon, Copper & Kings Apple Brandy and a splash of sweet vermouth, garnished with a burnt cinnamon stick.

How does one get a burnt cinnamon stick? By setting it on fire, silly.




By this point in the day, I had decided I was indeed a bourbon fan. I was also insisting that the troll was my friend and that we had plenty of time to get to the visitor's center.


5:55pm: We run through the door, proudly waving our passports. The woman does not verify our stamps, she just reaches behind the counter and hands us our shirts. As we thank her, I do my best to keep from knocking over Col Sanders on our way out.

Now that we have accomplished our mission, we wonder what to do since time is of no longer an issue. Why not go to the Jim Beam distillery and take a tour, which is not really a tour, but more like a $6 cover charge to sit at a bar and drink 4 shots of bourbon. Sure, why not? Will my troll buddy be there?



That done, we stumbled out of the tour and continued on the trail.

Throughout the day, we had been talking about visiting the Seelbach Hotel, which served as F Scott's Fitzgerald's inspiration for the Great Gatsby and was a favorite hangout of Al Capone's.  Why not finish off the night in gilded luxury? For reasons that my more sober self does not fully comprehend, we were determined to continue collecting stamps so after exploring all the hotel's public areas, we found ourselves at the Old Seelbach bar getting our 7th and final stamp of our very successful day.








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

10 Things that made me fall in love with Bilbao and the Basque Region- parte 2

10 Things that made me fall in love with Bilbao and the Basque Region- Part 1