While in Louisville this past weekend for my son's game, we decided to travel up a day early and tour some distilleries. My wife and I, along with the parents of another player, spent the day on Friday touring three distilleries. We began the day at Kentucky Artisan, the distillers for the Jefferson brands. It is a small distiller (compared to Buffalo Trace), but a really nice tour to start the day. I enjoyed the tastings and ended up picking up a bottle of Jefferson Reserve Ocean - Voyage 23. Of all the bottles I tried on Friday, it was the smoothest and was definitely one of my favorites.

After Kentucky Artisan, the driver (we hired a driver for the day), we headed to Buffalo Trace. The distillery is huge and they are currently undergoing an expansion that will double their daily production. They have a second still, that has just begun production and will be fully operational later this month. Compared to Kentucky Artisan, the place was incredible. We got a full tour and tasting at the end. One of they people I was with, picked up two bottles of their daily special bottle sale (E.H. Taylor Single Barrel) and he was very excited to be able to get it. I got a bottle of Buffalo Trace to add to my Buffalo Trace stock, but was not able to get any Eagle Rare, since they did not have it for sale in the shop. They did have a full pallet of Eagle Rare sitting right outside the gift shop, but nothing for sale. My wife picked up a bottle of their Wheatley Vodka, since she prefers vodka to bourbon. I'm not a big vodka drinker, but it was very good. Being a wheat vodka, it had a smooth, sweet flavor.

The last tour of the day was to Stitzel Weller. Another interesting tour. Their main brands are Blade and Bow and I.W. Harper and they also bottle Bulleit brands. I picked up a bottle of Blade and Bow after the tastings at this distillery.

We wanted to tour Woodford, but they were booked up several weeks ago when we arranged our trip and we ran out of time to visit their gift shop. If you ever have the chance to tour some distilleries, I highly recommend going. The tours were all informative and it was awesome to get to try so many different brands in one day.

stuartmcarthur5 said:

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They had EHT Single Barrel at the gift shop? I was only able to get Small Batch

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I did see EHT Single Barrel in the gift shop, but the bottles I mentioned were remains from their one day sale. It was being sold just outside the tasting rooms (upstairs, near the stairs to the gift shop), as you head down to the gift shop. Once it was sold, it was gone. We were told they do these one day sales every week and they typically sell out not long after the sale begins. On this day, they had a handful of bottles left around 1pm and a couple of people were able to get the last remaining bottles. They may have had 5-10 bottles available when my friend purchased his two bottles. Our tour guide was shocked when they told him that they had a few bottles available and my friend was basically running to the special sales table, once he found out they had some available. I was hoping for the Eagle Rare, but other than the pallet sitting outside, near the gift shop, there was none available for sale. I'm wondering if the pallet was sitting there in preparation for a future one-day sale.

My friend was beyond excited to get two bottles and he is planning to break one open for Christmas, after the season is over and his son gets home. He said the other one will be for a future special occasion and it is going in his collection until that day arrives. He bought a lot more bourbon than I did no Friday. At Kentucky Artisan, he got a couple of bottles of Jefferson Reserve Ocean Wheated from Voyage 29. He also got a couple of bottles of Whiskey Row from Kentucky Artisan.

Hopefully, in 10-20 years, the increased capacity Buffalo Trace has coming online will kick in and there will be more available. Our driver for the day was telling us that Buffalo Trace has some distribution issues with some of their brands that impacts availability in the US. According to them, when the bourbon industry hit hard times in the US, the Asian market helped to keep them in business. During this period, long-term distribution contracts were put in place with many of the larger distillers and as a result, a lot of the bourbon has to go to Asia first and what does not get distributed there, can come back for sale in the US. They said you have a better chance of finding some the harder to find brands in Asia than you do in the US. I am not sure how accurate it is, but it seems plausible. Some of you guys may know if it is accurate.