Clanging Bell: My Semi-Annual Bourbon Excursion to Louisville

The Graceland of bourbon distilleries.

I'm not the kind of guy who doesn't take advantage of any opportunity to sip some good bourbon. In fact, I deem it more of a calling than an opportunity. At least that's what I'm telling myself as I sit in the afterglow of a day flitting from bourbon bar to bourbon bar in Louisville. It's a good thing I no longer live in the Derby City. Drunk and broke is no way to live out my remaining years. No, I just swoop in every six months or so, visit friends and put a dent in the local bourbon supply.

Let me set your mind to rest, we do have a designated driver for these little bourbon-infused excursions. Also, most Louisville joints seriously pouring bourbon are attuned to the needs of folks who just want to sample this or that. Many have price lists including half-ounce pours. So, we aren't tossing back bourbons two ounces at a time.

No serious bourbon drinker can live life without at least one visit to Louisville's Whiskey Row.

Earlier this year, I made a half-hearted attempt to put together a group of friends to spend a weekend in Louisville on a bourbon-tasting adventure. Because I just came off one of the worst earning quarters in the past several years, the Great Louisville Bourbon Gathering of 2019 was postponed – perhaps until 2020. When I visit Louisville on my own, I stay with friends and my only costs are an occasional meal out and the cost of whatever bourbon I consume. The GLBG would have entailed renting a house, securing transportation, meals and on and on and on. I simply couldn't justify it with the uncertainty of revenue-producing work this year.

I firmly believe that to be a member of the pseudo religion of bourbon, requires at least one pilgrimage to Louisville. It is, in fact, where bourbon was elevated from glorified moonshine to the wonderful elixir we know today. To turn distilling bourbon into a money-making enterprise required a broader audience. This audience was accessed by shipping bourbon south down the Ohio River to ports in New Orleans. Louisville became the obvious jumping off point for a bourbon's journey to world fame. (During your trip to Louisville, be sure to invest an hour in the tour of the Evan Williams facility on Mains Street. You will leave there with a rich education in Louisville's contribution to launching bourbon.)

Although my first attempt at organizing a GLBG failed miserably, I have not given it up. I want my fellow bourbon travelers to experience Louisville's bourbon scene as I have. I want them to belly up to the tasting bar at Liquor Barn, gaze, open mouthed, at the scores of bourbons and ryes lining the shelves spread across the wall behind the bar. I want them to be able to thumb through the 40-page booklet of available brands to sample. And, this would be just one stop on the agenda.

No, I haven't given up on the GLBG.

On these forays into bourbon country, I usually have a wish list of difficult-to-find brands to purchase. Elmer T Lee always tops this list that also includes Wild Turkey's Forgiven, Col. E H Taylor Small Batch, Weller 12-Year Old and others. One can dream, right?

Driving up to Louisville from Greenville, SC, I had mapped out a number of liquor stores in the Frankfort area to visit as I made my way to Buffalo Trace. A fraternity brother of mine in Ohio had texted me the week before to report that a buddy of his had visited Buffalo Trace that day and was bringing him bottles of Blanton's, Eagle Rare and (wait for it) Col. EH Taylor. I was stoked. Visions of hard-to-get bourbons danced in my head. I was convinced that all I needed to do was get myself to Buffalo Trace and bottles of Eagle Rare and EH Taylor would be mine.

Tell God your plans and watch him laugh, right? Just outside of Frankfort proper, Buffalo Trace is easy to find and to get to. It's not officially on the Bourbon Trail, but is surrounded by distilleries that are. You must look for it separately. Anyone investing the time and effort to follow the Bourbon Trail is missing out if he/she doesn't add Buffalo Trace to the itinerary. It is, after all, the Graceland of distilleries. It's a tourist trap of the first order. I have no clue how much revenue it generates annually, but I've never been there when it wasn't packed with tourists eager to plunk down hard-earned dinero for a tour, tee-shirt, set of coasters or some other trinket emblazoned with the Buffalo Trace logo. The only thing missing is a photographer set up in front of the huge bison sculpture, snapping photos of mugging tourists with the iconic sculpture and selling them for $20 a pop.

On the plus side, Buffalo Trace offers one of the better distillery tours I've ever experienced. And, if you are lucky, you can buy one or two of its hard-to-find labels right out of the gift shop. I was not so lucky. After parking in the sprawling parking lot and hiking to the gift shop, I found shelves lined with a Bailey's-like beverage. “Hey, where's the EH Taylor? Where's the Eagle Rare?” “Not here,” the ghost of the Great Buffalo taunted me. Nuts!


Yes!

Foiled in my plan to buy at least some of what I was searching for at Buffalo Trace, I fell back on my liquor-store list. I visited three Frankfort liquor stores before getting on I-64 to continue to Louisville. I did manage to find a single bottle of Eagle Rare at my last Frankfort liquor-store stop. Twenty-or-so miles west of Frankfort is Shelbyville. I like Shelbyville with its historic downtown. I had some time to burn and decided to take its exit and search a liquor store or two in the area. As soon as I exited, there was a liquor store. I wandered in with low expectations, but, what do you know, I found another bottle of Eagle Rare.


I was on a roll.

I found my way to State Route 60 running parallel to I-64 and headed west. The friends I stay with in the Louisville area live off of Rt 60 roughly 15 miles west of Shelbyville. I Googled liquor stores near me and found two on Rt 60. In the first one, I found a bottle of Col. EH Taylor for $49. Trumpets sounded, a flock of white doves ascended and angels wept. Once again I was little Rusty falling to my knees in awe of the mountain of gaily wrapped presents under the Christmas tree. Wiping the tears away, I climbed back into the Kicks Nissan provided me for this extended trip and moved on to the next liquor store on my list.

I walked in the store and found a second bottle of EH Taylor. Here it was priced at $65. Having just bought a bottle for $49, and thinking if two stores each had a bottle, others must, as well. I passed on the $65 price tag. That may have been a dumb thing to do, but I couldn't justify spending $15 more.


This a liquor-store tasting area done Louisville style.

That was Friday. Saturday was our day to wallow in the bourbon experience. We visited a couple of big liquor stores where we sampled a few bourbons and I found a couple of new bourbons to add to my stash at home. Then we hit downtown Louisville's Whiskey Row. This is an 8-to-10-block stretch of Louisville's Main Street that is almost entirely devoted to all things bourbon. There are bourbon distilleries, bourbon bars and bourbon restaurants operating in what used to be a warehouse district just a couple of blocks from the river. Although two or three bourbon joints we visited had Elmer T Lee on their bourbon list, they didn't actually have it to pour. Elmer T Lee is an elusive label distilled at, you guessed it, Buffalo Trace. I have unsuccessfully hunted it for the past two or three years.


Two birds, one stone: This is a stout-barrel-finished bourbon aged and bottled by Goodwood craft brewery.

We hit a couple of joints, had a sip of bourbon in each and then headed for home to rest up for dinner and then post-dinner bourbon sipping. Dinner was at Eddie Merlot's, a steak house in downtown Louisville. There I found another bourbon I had never heard of called Wathen's. It will be on my list to buy on my next Louisville junket. After dinner we stopped at Checks BBQ and Blues for a nightcap. Running my finger up and down the columns of bourbons in its whiskey list, I discovered Elmer T Lee. With absolutely no expectation of them having it, I asked the server for a pour, neat, of course.

Imagine my surprise when she returned with it. Not only did they have it, the bartender told me he had three more bottles in the back room. What? I know where my first stop will be on my next Louisville visit.