For my last visit to distilleries I drove to Maker’s Mark and then to the Bourbon Heritage Center and Heaven Hill distillery. Maker’s Mark had beautiful grounds and an excellent gift shop.

Their characteristic dipping of the whiskey bottle top with red was available on my items. I thought the shot glass was nice and purchased one.

 

The Bourbon Heritage Center was interesting. It provided background about how bourbon was developed in Kentucky.

 

I almost bought this t-shirt in the Heritage Center gift shop.

In the midst of a big rainstorm, I drove to the Louisville Slugger baseball factory! I am not a huge baseball fan, but it was fun to see such a famous and favorite American item. Many, many famous baseball players have used Louisville Slugger baseball bats. All kinds of bats were available for purchase. I discovered a special treat that they would make bats with specific inscriptions. I bought each of my grandsons a small baseball bat with their names and birthdates!

After buying the baseball bats, I walked down to the Evan Williams distillery store. I was able to join two other people in having a taste test of various Evan Williams products. I especially like tasting whiskeys that are not commonly available. I especially liked the Single Barrel vintage flavor of the Evan Williams, so I bought a bottle.

Woodford Reserve is a very famous distillery and I needed to drive near Lexington to reach it. The windy, narrow, country roads were surprising. However, I thoroughly enjoyed driving through horse farms to reach the distillery.

 

I looked through the gift shop and purchased a 30ml taste of straight (“neat”) malt whiskey. It was very flavorful and I enjoyed sipping on it as I walked through their visitor area. The grounds of Woodford Reserve are gorgeous!

I next drove to Four Roses Distillery. This distillery is now owned by the Japanese company Kirin. From my time in Japan, I remember that whiskey is very popular there. I enjoyed seeing some of the products in the gift shop. I also bought a taste of their 3 products. I think these products are going to be quite popular as I enjoyed them very much. I think I liked their “small batch” product the best.

I had a surprisingly sentimental visit to the Jim Beam Distillery. This was the drink my Dad preferred. Seeing all the Jim Beam logos and products made me miss my parents and think about sitting in the backyard in Flagstaff as I was growing up and Dad you open up a bottle of Jim Beam. Special memories.

I was surprised at the number of Jim Beam products that have been developed. I asked several people in the gift shop which product they preferred, and everyone game me a different answer. I guess it is good they have expanded product development. The Double Oak product seems to be quite popular.

After visiting Jim Beam, I drove to a much smaller distillery called Boundary Oak. What was interesting about this distillery is that they worked with the Patton Museum and developed the whiskey that Patton put together and made famous.