Bourbon trail for NYE

This year on New Year's we did things a little bit differently than we have always done. We decided to celebrate during the day and take it easy at night. Mike has been wanting to go on the bourbon trail for a while now, so I suggested that we visit a few distilleries that are close to where we live. Of course Mike was in. I will tell you-at first I was a little blah on the whole bourbon trail. I didn't really have any interest, but after going to 3 different ones, I am hooked. It it so neat to hear the history of the distillery and how their product is actually made. Out of the 9 distilleries on the actual trail, we visited two. Well, we actually visited 3, but one is not a part of the official bourbon trail. 

So, Mike, Drew, Brittany and myself met at Wild Turkey's distillery on New Year's Eve to begin the "journey" if you will... They gave us a tour, a tasting and then these cool little passport books that you are supposed to keep notes in from each distillery that you visit. Each place will also give you a stamp when you have completed the tour of their facilities.

Wild Turkey

The view from the tasting room. It was absolutely beautiful!

Then we ventured to Buffalo Trace Distillery, which is not actually part of the Bourbon Trail, but it was by far my favorite one that we visited that day. Buffalo Trace is the oldest distillery (started in the late 1700's) and is absolutely beautiful. All of the buildings were this dark red brick color and all the shutters and doors were a hunter green. It was just so rich in history and I fell in love. Of course the bourbon wasn't too bad either ;)

I loved Buffalo Trace because the people were so nice. They even let us go into the packaging room where men and women were stamping the bottles and labeling them before they were packaged and distributed. The picture from below is a large container that had bourbon in it. A woman who worked there was adding water to the mixture in order to make the proof of the liquor correct before it was bottled.

Blanton's

Our last stop of the day was to a new distillery that is downtown in Lexington. It is a distillery and also a brewery. The outside of the building was beautiful!

Mike had a good time!

If you haven't ever been to any of the distilleries on the bourbon trail, I would highly recommend it! We had so much fun and plan to keep visiting the other destinations on the trail very soon! Happy new year, friends!