Kentucky Bourbon Distilleries

We visited two more Kentucky Bourbon Distilleries - Jim Beam and Maker's Mark.  I have learned that you can visit two distilleries (not 5) in one day.  Each tour and tasting with shopping afterwards takes from 1-1/2 to 2 hours.  The rest of the time is driving country back roads from one distillery to another. So we did Jim Beam in the morning, had lunch, then visited Maker's Mark in the afternoon.

We started today by checking out of the French Lick hotel, having breakfast at McDonald's down the street.  We were on the road just after 7:30 am.  There were 7 cars when we started out.  PJ and George were leaving later and driving to Mammoth Cave.  Dennis dropped out to go direct to Johnson City to visit family.  Jim dropped out just afterwards.  We saw several Amish buggies and 2-wheeled carts on the road as we drove the back roads to Jim Beam.

Then the 5 of us arrived at the Jim Beam American Stillhouse.

Doug, Gary, Ron, Ken

Our tour guide Shelby (a member of the Beam family)

Ron and Bill pouring wine from the barrel which will be mixed and later bottled

Pat selected a bottle on the line, cleaned it, it was filled and capped, and the cap was dipped in wax, and the bottled was engraved - HAND MADE

We each had our choice of 2 of all of the Jim Beam brands to taste

We decided to have lunch at the cafe on the Jim Beam campus.  Afterwards we drove to Maker's Mark.

Our tour guide Cindy

The bottling line

Our taste testing

Taste testing room

Pat bought two bottles of Maker's Mark and got to dip them in the red wax

During today's driving we had to stop a couple of times to check out the cars and to make a repair.  All in a day's travel in an MG.

Replaced a coil in Doug's MG

After our distillery tours and tastings, we drove to the hotel in Somerset, KY.  We met back up with PJ and George and an MG from Wichita.  We all went to dinner.  We met back at the hotel lobby to discuss the next day's itinerary.  We decided to make a change.  We will not tour Cumberland Gap National Park, will cancel our hotel in Kingsport, and finally decided to take the interstate highways and drive through Knoxville, TN, to just east of Asheville, NC, where we will spend the night and then travel to our respective homes on Saturday morning.