Kentucky Bourbon Trail: Pass or fail?
My husband and I have consumed many glasses of whisky over the past decade of our marriage, from top-shelf to bottom-shelf we have sampled more than our fair share. I am not sure why on past our travels we have not ventured to the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. From our Chicago suburb home to Louisville, Kentucky is about a 5-hour drive. After seeing my aunt’s post when she visited the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, I decided in the fall of 2022 to plan a trip to the trail to see what all the excitement was about. I had researched several recommended places to visit and lined out my own trail that included downtown Louisville, Kentucky and Clermont, Kentucky area. My trip was a 3-day trip that included downtown Louisville or Whiskey row and the Clermont area. It is not possible to taste every brand of whiskey and visit every place on the trail in this amount of time, but I wanted to get a sample of what I think I might enjoy based on my past tasting experiences.
I decided to stay at a hotel along Whiskey row, as I wanted to be within walking distance of the tastings in downtown Louisville. I knew this would be better for us and found that it was very walkable from the hotel to many different locations. We stayed at the Marriott, which I would not stay at again or recommend to anyone. They were lacking when it came to bar or dining options for the guest rooms. Our one trip to the bar we had to fight through the mob of people to get a drink and dining was next to impossible. The maid service for the rooms was lacking as well. I don’t think our room got cleaned any of the 3 nights we stayed there.
Our first night in Louisville we walked down to the On3Bar at Evan Williams location on whiskey row. This is an urban chic loft type experience, and the service was amazing. I wish we would have stayed there longer and ate there. But under the recommendations of other bloggers, I decided to go to Mussel & Burger Bar. What a mistake! The burgers seemed like they should be exciting with fancy ingredients like truffles and exciting names, but the excitement didn’t land on dreadful tasting burger.
The next morning, we woke up and walked to Wild Eggs for breakfast, which ended up being a decent place to get breakfast. They were busy, but it seemed like the line moved along well. My belly was satisfied.
We then drove to Loretto, Kentucky to tour the Makers Mark Distillery and sample some whiskey. We did a tour that included a tasting, which is what I would recommend if you were going to do a tour. Because what is a tour unless you taste? The tour got to be a little long, but finally when we got to the tasting. The tasting provided ample samples of their different types of bourbon.
We came back to Louisville and walked to Angel’s Envy down the street from the hotel. I really enjoyed the pairing of whiskey with chocolates. Two of my favorite things. The service was great, and we enjoyed the experience.
The next day we ventured down to James Beam in Clermont, Kentucky. I must be honest, I wasn’t expecting to be impressed. I associate James Beam as being a bottom shelf cheaper whiskey. We opted to do the Basil Hayden Culinary tasting experience. This was a pairing of whiskey with an amuse-bouche prepared a’ la minute for 4 different pairings. The first pairing was the most superb melt in your mouth pork lardon served with a stupendous corn salsa and a very smooth Basil Hayden whisky expression. My mind was blown. By far the best thing I had to eat in Kentucky on this trip. The other 3 pairings to follow continued to impress, I did not have a bad amuse-bouse or Basil Hayden pairing. Everything went above and beyond my expectations, including the service and the people working at the distillery. I even find myself drinking Basil Hayden more than I did before, just of how great this experience was. I don’t ordinarily rave about places too much, but this by far I would highly recommend. If ever in the area I would do it again.
On our final morning there I had myself all excited to try the famous Kentucky Hot Brown. We ventured over to The Brown Hotel that had made it famous. More specifically we went to J Grahams Café. I was all excited to place my order that morning, but the morning we were there they were doing a buffet breakfast only. The option to order The Hot Brown was not available. I was so disappointed. While the breakfast buffet was delicious, my heart was broken that I didn’t get to sample what I had come there to try. However, the waitress and hotel staff were so lovely that I had wished we would have stayed there instead of where we had and if ever venturing to Whiskey Row would give them a try again.
Overall, I would say the Bourbon Trail passed my expectations enough that I would recommend it to anyone that enjoys Bourbon. While not everything was a success there was enough successes to make it worth another trip there.
