Steve Wernick's Trip to Kentucky and Tennesee Pt. 1

On occasion, Joe Canal’s staff members are able to go on trips to meet the producers of the items we sell. Whether we travel to the great wine regions, or any other location, the trips are educational, great for team-building, and, of course, they’re fun.

I recently had the opportunity to travel to Kentucky and Tennessee, to see how American whiskey was made. This trip also included Dave Carver, Director of Purchasing for our corporate parent, Birchfield Ventures.

We flew from Philadelphia on a recent Tuesday, heading to our first road home in Louisville, KY. Our airport hotel was convenient to downtown, where we had a relaxing dinner at a beer garden, and also close to the interstates we would need to reach the distilleries.

If you’ve never traveled the Bourbon Trail, or to any of the other distilleries in Kentucky or Tennessee, you don’t know that they are a fair distance from each other, and they’re often in pretty remote areas. You can find yourself on some local roads that are, let’s just say, interesting.

Our first stop was the Buffalo Trace Distillery, owned by the Sazerac Company.  In addition to Buffalo Trace Bourbon, Eagle Rare, Blanton’s, W. L. Weller and E. H. Taylor are among the brands produced at their distillery in Franklin County, KY.

We got the full tour, although not in chronological order. We actually started on the bottling line, where Blanton’s was getting its distinctive labeling and topper. But the sweet smell of corn being cooked does dominate the area. The grounds crew has made the property truly beautiful, and they were doing work at the main offices when we arrived for our tasting.

The tasting was held in those offices, where we could sit and relax. The whiskies we sampled were the W. L. Weller, Buffalo Trace, Eagle Rare and Sazerac Rye. We were, however, offered a taste of a new product, not yet available to us in New Jersey: Buffalo Trace Bourbon Cream. If you’ve had any of the Irish creams, you’ll have an idea of what the Buffalo Trace Bourbon Cream tastes like. The Bourbon Cream, however, has a richer, deeper flavor. Sort of like the difference between an Irish whisky (light and sweet) and a Bourbon (bold and cinnamony).

After the tasting, the Buffalo Trace team treated us to a real Southern lunch right there in their offices. They didn’t have sweet tea, but they did introduce us to something called the Kentucky Hot Brown. It’s very often served as a sandwich, and there’s even a Wikipedia entry for it. This was served more like a casserole in a chafing dish. It was a tasty lunch, and very rich.

We hit the gift shop before leaving, where Dave picked up a bottle of that Bourbon Cream, then we were on our way to Maker’s Mark, in Loretto, KY.

I would have to say that Maker’s Mark felt like it was the furthest in the woods of all the distilleries that we visited. It wasn’t remote enough to come off as a moonshiner’s location, but you also don’t want to be on those country roads late at night. Regardless, once you reach Maker’s Mark, you get a comfortable, old-time feel from both the look of the buildings and the slower pace of operations.

Our tour guide was Dave Pudlo, their Distillery Education Director, and he was a true believer in Maker’s Mark. Unlike some others, Maker’s Mark does not use a pressure cooker to cook their grains. From their perspective, this slower cooking method makes for a better-tasting bourbon. And they were confident enough to taste us on the Maker’s Mark against several of their competitors. But since that was at the end of our tour, I’ll come back to that in a bit.

As at Buffalo Trace, our first stop at Maker’s Mark was the bottling line. We can confirm that those bottles are hand-dipped in wax for the famous Maker’s Mark seal. The old-time feel continues with their label-making, where Maker’s Mark uses a press that’s about 80 years old; that’s a replacement unit, and was actually bought on ebay.

Dave presented the tasting like it was a combination science and math class. We discussed how the different types of wood influence flavors, the characteristics of the different grains used in the mash bill (by law, Bourbon must be at least 51% corn), the impact of charring and toasting the barrels, and how the bourbon ages within the warehouses. And Dave used a flip chart to illustrate his points. Dave also showed us a cut-away of a barrel used to age the Maker’s Mark 46. It gains its additional flavors from the use of seared French oak staves inside the barrel. With all that education, we were more than ready to taste the whiskies in front of us.

We were presented with eight different whiskies: Maker’s Mark Under Aged, Maker’s Mark Fully Matured, Maker’s Mark Over Aged and Maker’s Mark 46, plus Bulleit Bourbon, Crown Royal, Jack Daniel’s, and Woodford Reserve. It was great to have the opportunity to see, smell and taste these competing products on a side-by-side basis. Generally speaking, the sweet corn notes hit the front part of your tongue, and the rye gets to the back. And since Maker’s Mark provided us water and crackers, we were able to cleanse our palates and fully appreciate the differences in the whiskies.

Although our heads were stuffed with information, we were still alert enough to handle our personal bottle dipping exercise. The gift shop is the end of the tour at Maker’s Mark, just like it is at so many places. But Maker’s Mark keeps a tub of hot wax ready for anyone who picks up a bottle, as we did. We all got to hand-dip our own 375ml bottles of Maker’s Mark. I don’t really want to open mine, so I have it on display with my industry collection.

Our work day was now complete, and we headed back to Louisville. We found a quiet restaurant, shared a bottle of wine, and began planning for the next day of our trip.