Visiting the Bourbon Trail

I've never been the biggest fan of whisky or bourbon in particular, but this year I arranged a trip to Kentucky with my family and visited the bourbon trail after seeing so many advertisements for it while traveling on I-75 and trips to the Smokey Mountains. For a family trip, with something for everybody to do the way we did it was pretty good, but it definitely wasn't the best way to maximize your time at distilleries and hitting up all of them on the bourbon trail.

The first recommendation I have is to pick up the Bourbon Trail Passport. Each distillery on the trail has a page to stamp and they date it for you as well. The distilleries are split into sections so when you finish a section you let the distillery know they are the last one in that section and they'll put a special qr code stamp or provide the challenge coin, but eventually you end up with a barrel stave challenge coin holder for two different trails; one for the bigger names and a separate one for the craft distilleries.

My second recommendation if you are maximizing distilleries would be to probably do one of the tours that takes you from location to location by van. I wouldn't go that route, but the other keys are to schedule a day in Lexington, Louisville, and Bardstown and a fourth and fifth day for the random distilleries outside those cities that require a little bit more of a trip. Most are in those three cities so there isn't a lot of extra driving to do. Those days are going to be Wednesday through Saturday where they are all open and you're going to have to start your drinking early as the distilleries seem to run on bank hours of 9AM-5PM. Ideal if that's what you're there for, but makes it a little difficult to get your family excited to drink liquor that early.

We stayed in Bardstown the whole time and took day trips to the cities as most of the people weren't drinking too heavily so we had sober drivers. It works as a nice hub being an hour from Lexington, a little over a half hour from Louisville, and an hour from the Mammoth Caves. I'd recommend adding a trip to the caves as it is just cool to see, but gives you a break from a bunch of drinking so your body can recover and rest for a little bit. If you want to do a more family oriented trip this is a good way to do it as it's a smaller town so you can find a good AirBnB to stay at and have a nice downtown area to visit. The town does tend to shut down earlier so always be aware of that, although there is a good amount of chain places that you can visit that stay open later.

The Bourbon Trail passport is a very useful resource for planning your trip. There is a key that lets you know if they are a bourbon distillery, electronic booking, cocktails available, onsite food, other spirits, and size. Each distillery has a signature cocktail listed as well although some are lazier than others. Old Forester, Green River, Heaven Hill, Wild Turkey, New Riff, Dueling Grounds, Castle and Key, and James Pepper all list some variation of the old fashioned which is pretty weak to me, but it's a classic and I get wanting to put your own twist on it. Evan Williams is probably the laziest with theirs being a whiskey sour that tells you to use sour mix. Jim Beam and Preservation also put in variations of the sour and Bardstown went with the Manhattan, but they were the only ones who did that so I guess it's not that egregious. Several distilleries have prebottled versions of the cocktails for sail to take home or the ingredients that are special for their drink. Those were a nice pickup as well as several new bitters to try out. My girlfriend really enjoyed that many of the places had bourbon chocolate balls. There were many different barbecue sauces with bourbon added and other foods that were also fun to pickup and try.

Having only visited eleven of the forty-one distilleries on the passport I can't give a definitive ranking of all of them and what they offer, but I can offer impressions of the places that I visited. The places in Bardstown and just outside of the cities offer the best overall view and are impressive with the sheer size of the complex and all the rickhouses they have setup. The places in cities are more compact and have to utilize space better and often have their barrels aging at the larger complexes.

For overall impression I'd have to put Lux Row at the top. You pull into their driveway and go through a tree lined path up to their welcome facility. We did the deluxe tasting and it's paired with chocolate which was nice chocolate and did add some different flavors to the bourbon and we sampled some great bourbons and was the place where we bought our expensive bottle after tasting the seven year aged single barrel. The best part of the tasting was going into the rickhouse where we got to thieve from a barrel that was was one of the first that they produced and have aged at the facility without having to use any other companies product or aging facilities and it tasted amazing.

Right on the backside of that facility is Bardstown Bourbon Company and like them it has a beautiful welcome facility and an impressive rickhouse setup. I just got a sampler flight at the location and they had a nice selection of cocktails as well. The entry also has live camera feeds of the boiling pots and a digital view of the whole process and the current temps, which I didn't know what it meant, but it looked cool. This is where I tried the most expensive bourbon which didn't seem to utilize a lot of their product, but was very good stuff. Definitely a place where I'd want a tour next time to understand the process they use. They didn't have a huge selection of bourbons to buy, but it was a great facility and had very friendly staff.

Heaven Hill and Jim Beam fill a pretty similar spot in my mind. They are huge facilities and are impressive just to look at and you're probably going to see one of them on your way into town and they'll catch your attention. Heaven Hill has a nice self guided tour and both have very extensive gift shops. Both have bars that you can get flights or cocktails at and are good experiences. Heaven Hill had free samples of some of their stuff when we went to the self guided tour as well. The Jim Beam facility is on some beautiful land that is a great backdrop for pictures.

Woodford Reserve is as good looking as you'd expect from a company with their reputation. Their welcome facility and rickhouses are on one side of the road and is a very nice looking place. The tasting bar is on the other side is right next to some stables so you can check out some horses on your way in. Cocktails come with souvenir mint julep cups which is cool, because a lot of places were charging quite a bit for those.

Copper & Kings was my favorite visit on the trip which is funny as they aren't really a bourbon distillery. They do have some bourbon they buy and finish in their brandy barrels since it made them more money than selling the barrels to other bourbon companies to do the same thing. We got there close to closing and they had a short tour so they threw us in with them for the tasting part and the guy who checked us in gave us a rundown of the company and how they do things which was informative and the tasting was great. A great selection of different liquors and the tasting let us choose our own after starting with their base brandy. Since I was with my gf we shared our samples and got to try six other of their products which had a nice selection of liqueurs, gins, and one of the bottles we picked up absinthe. Since they're a smaller company they don't have the people to rotate the barrels so they just have music playing to get the same vibrations to move the liquors around in the barrels. When we bought their brandy barrel aged bourbon we got to fill our own bottle which was fun. Definitely the place I would most highly recommend checking out in Louisville whether you're going to try the bourbon trail or not.

Angel's Envy and Michter's were the other two in Louisville we visited and definitely would have needed better planning to visit Angel's Envy doesn't have a bar to try stuff and Michter's was full with an hour wait to get in. On the plus side when you visit Louisville almost all the big distilleries are on one road and there is other places to visit. Across the street from Envy we went to Against the Grain brewing and had some good beers and smoked meat which was good, and across from Michter's we went to Barrels and Billets which had their own bourbon which wasn't great and was connected to the Louisville Slugger location so we got to see the giant bat outside the building and get some souvenirs there. Just down the road from Michter's was a Art Eatables which has a huge selection of bourbon chocolates using liquors from many of the distilleries on the trail.

Bluegrass Distilling in Lexington is where we took a tour of the production of bourbon and they have a small area where they distill the liquor and age it, but they are building a much bigger facility near Versailles so I don't know how much my time here will reflect on them in the future which could be good. I had a great experience with the tour guide and the small nature of the facility, but the bourbon left a lot to desire. They had a bunch of bourbon adjacent food products that all tasted really good that we did pick up so don't write them off just yet and maybe once they have their own aging facilities they'll be able to get better product out. For lunch afterward we went to West Sixth Brewing which had some nice beers and I did bring home some of their Oktoberfest that I didn't finish there. Smithtown Seafood is connected to them and provided much better seafood than you would expect from a place in the middle of the Kentucky.

The other two distilleries in town are right next to each other, but sadly Barrel House wasn't open so we only visited James E Pepper where I really liked their products and picked up a barrel. Their facilities are pretty small, but they offered a more rye forward bourbon which was smooth with a nice spicy not to it. After that we took a break at Crank & Boom craft ice cream which is right next door and if you're not tired of flights yet you can get a flight of four of their different flavors and I'd recommend it because you get a lot of ice cream and it is amazingly good ice cream.

The final distillery we visited was Willett in Bardstown on our way home. Perhaps the best example of what you'd hope to find on your trip to Kentucky and visiting distilleries it's just a bit down the road from Heaven Hill which has its own road going through it, but Willett is a dirt road that takes you past their homemade signs to direct you through a pretty good sized complex with rickhouses and several fountains on your way to their gift shop and restaurant. They have a small menu, but with some nice looking stuff and the trout dip we chose was excellent. I got a flight of bourbons from here and they were very good and the best part is that the price on the bottles was some of the cheapest that I saw and came away with a Bottled in Bond Bardstown Bourbon that was around $20 and will serve as my mixing bourbon. Definitely a place you're going to want to make sure you stop in to visit.

For the non-drinking parts of the vacation we had two real destinations which were the Louisville Zoo which I found to be a nice zoo. How much animal activity you get depends on the temperature and it was pretty good for seeing a lot of movement when we went there. It was pretty cool out and feeding time when we saw the polar bear and it's impressive to see an animal that size move when you can get so close with just a glass barrier when the other bigger animals tend to be further away. One of the nicer things was that the animals who were trying to stay warm or were napping tended to do it near the viewing areas so you got some nice close up views of the animals. They had some really nice displays and while it's kind of annoying as a visitor it's generally good for the animals that there was space between the displays. Although since it was near Halloween the zoo had a bunch of displays setup between the enclosures to add some fun to it. It's not a top tier zoo, but it's a really good one and has a good selection of animals to enjoy.

The Mammoth Caves was a very fun excursion as well. An important note that I found out the wrong way is that when you go there you will enter the Central Time Zone so we were super early for our tour, but I managed to switch it to the Domes and Dripstones tour earlier and the visitor center there has tons of shopping with two separate gift shops and a big display of the history of the caves and current exploration going through the caves which is a lot of fun to walk through as well. The onsite hotel was undergoing renovations, but I imagine spending a night there would be very cool. Going into the caves is just a very cool experience. It does have modern steps in it, but you're still twisting through some narrow areas and going down steep descents. Photos you take don't really do it justice and it's just so cool to see with all the drops and areas that aren't on the stairs or path to look at. The first stop when the tour guide tells the story of Floyd Collins who got caught in a cave trying to explore it and turns the lights off so you're in the pitch black of the cave as he continues was very cool. A pure experience of what pitch black really is. The tour we took ended in the Frozen Niagra area which is the one part of the cave with stalagmites which is just so cool looking.

A small excursion about halfway between Bardstown and Louisville was Bernheim Forest and the giant wooden sculptures there. The three giants are very cool to look at and it was a very nice walking area and you can drive to most of the areas and have less of a walk if that's what you prefer.

The Bourbon Trail proved to be a very fun vacation with a ton of great and interesting stops for people interested in trying out a bunch of different bourbons, but many stops for people who were looking for excursions that don't involve drinking. If you're into horse racing you can also plan your trip around that as well. We went in the right month, but the distilleries in Louisville tended not to be open on Tuesday when there was horse racing which would have been cool to see. So my biggest take-away from this trip is to be a planner and schedule things out, but don't let that deter you, because it is a trip well worth taking and fall weather in Kentucky was a great break from the Florida heat.

AEW Revolution and Dynamite

This week I went to my first wrestling pay per view when I traveled to Orlando for AEW's Revolution and followed that up with the Dynamite afterword since it was just twenty minutes down the road from me. I went solo to the PPV, but went with my girlfriend and sister to Dynamite. Revolution plus the preshow was a long show, but full of damn good wrestling and the crowd noise died out in some of the later matches after Punk and MJF. Personally it was hard to still be loudly into the matches no matter how good the matches are.

Honestly the Punk/MJF match probably should have main evented as it had the hottest story going into the show and it was going to feature a lot of blood. I get why they put the world title match as the main event, but it just didn't compare to the emotion in the dog collar match. All of the matches on the preshow over delivered and were just as good as anything on the main show and really Statlander/Hirsch was better than a lot of the singles matches on the show. House of Black vs. Pac, Penta, and Redbeard was just an insanely fun fast paced match that I didn't really care for going into the show and then fully captured my attention. Redbeard really impressed me as he really showed a lot of skill in this match and was fun to see him facing off with Brody.

The crowd was loud and into the show, but of course there were annoying people and they were like two rows behind me and to the left and kept shouting annoying shit. The guy sitting next to me just went “I fucking hate those guys,” after one of their attempts at a joke which got a laugh out of me.

Starting with Kingston vs Jericho ruled. I loved the start with the half and half suplex from Kingston and Jericho being on the back foot right away. Kingston is in charge all the time unless Jericho goes for the eyes and unloads offense from there. I know it's because Kawada is his favorite wrestler, but it never doesn't impress me how Kingston does the enziguri exactly like Kawada did. The selling especially, but everything about how the match was worked and paced felt like a classic All Japan Kings Road match. Jericho did a bunch of eye work to trying and slow Kingston down, but he was determined to win and after Jericho accidentally hit the exposed turnbuckle with the Judas effect and Kingston nails a couple of backfists before getting the submission win. This match was great and exceeded my expectations for it. Kingston really brought out the style that Jericho hasn't wrestled in a long time and it really helped the match even if the crowd wasn't always responsive to booing Jericho's cheating despite being strongly behind Eddie.

I don't really want to review every match because being there live makes every match seem better so its going to be more the high points of the show although some of the matches were that good and I felt the need to really going into detail on them. The tag title match was really good and the ladder match was fine with some really cool spots by Orange Cassidy, but didn't have any really good hoss off moments except them facing off a couple of times. Jade vs. Tay was the best match of Jade's run so far and had a lot of really good moments including Tay getting some good offense in.

Being there live for CM Punk coming out to “Miseria Cantare” and in his RoH gear made the show for me. After Punk leaving wrestling for seven years getting to see him come out to that song and in that gear was just the best experience. The match afterword lived up to that feeling as well. A nicely paced match and they tease out the violence and really utilize the gimmick match well using the chain to choke each other and whip each other. Punk is bleeding early and gets an intense crimson mask. I was surprised how well that popped even though I was up in the second level. Punk's tombstone on the apron was phenomenal and it was nice that both men had an injured body part and sold it throughout the match. Definitely the highlight of the show and a great match.

Britt vs. Rosa really had no chance to follow the dog collar match and nothing on the show did. As a follow up to their hardcore unsanctioned match this couldn't live up either as there is a ton of bad blood and it was a normal match and Rosa not being prepared for the interference from Rebel and Hayter just didn't seem right considering how long they have been feuding even if it is a loss to setup a big title win in Rosa's hometown. Danielson vs. Mox was a really good match that took a while to really get the crowd into it, but was largely fought like a classic NWA style battle for control with grappling and hard hitting strikes that didn't necessarily get an advantage they were struggling for. I loved the match, but it wasn't the kind of match that gets the crowd loudly behind it.

The tornado six man tag of Sting, Darby, and Sammy vs. Andrade, Matt Hardy, and Isaih Kassidy surprised the hell out of me. Except for the chance to see Sting wrestle live I would have been happy to have dropped for time. And then the match started and it was an insanely fun brawl between these two teams. Darby nailing Jose the assistant with a suicide dive while he had a trashcan over him was crazy and it kept escalating from there. Marq Quen and Butcher and the Blade joining into the brawl made it more fun as well and almost let the heels get the win. Sammy's insane Spanish fly off the set through two tables to Kassidy was nuts and then Sting jumped off the balcony onto Andrade through four tables which was even crazier.

The main event was really good even if I did get tired of the “Adam” chants that people were doing. The ones were it was just the normal cheer for a wrestler, but we chanted Adam for both was great, but once they just started replacing random words with Adam I got tired of it. The Halo gear that Adam wore out to the ring was pretty half-assed and looked goofy and for a little bit I thought he the backpack was going to shoot off fireworks, but if it makes him happy good for him. The crowd reactions were pretty muted after the Punk/MJF match, but this got the people awake and back into it. I don't know why the good guys friends are always so slow at saving their friend when the heels friends are there cheating so much earlier, but other than that it was a really good match and the Deadeye off the apron through the table was fucking nuts and looked brutal for both guys. I was really worried about Cole winning so when Page got the win it was awesome. I kind of thought they were teasing a slow heel turn for Page with how he finished the match, but Dynamite kind of put a rest to those thoughts.

I loved the show and had a great time even though I took a lyft to the venue and with how busy it was after I couldn't get one back to the hotel and had to walk two miles back to my motel. The show wasn't setup correctly to build up to the best match, but it was still a great show with a lot of great wrestling. It was a great time and I was so happy I made the trip up to Orlando to see it.

After I had bought the tickets to that PPV they announced the show in my hometown of Fort Myers so I got tickets to that, but I knew my girlfriend would be willing to make that trip and got my sister to come down as well since its been a while since she's been to a live show and she's a huge fan of Moxley.

We got there a little late into the Dark taping and saw half of the Emi Sakura/Bunny vs. Kylinn King/Kelsey Reagan match I believe and it was a lot of fun and a great way to start the night. The rest of the matches on the preshow were fine and ending with the Dark Order against Chaos Project was great.

Since it was a post PPV show Dynamite was a little heavy on talking segments which my girlfriend who doesn't follow stuff wasn't really into, but she also made jokes about the wrestling so its tough to say the right move for her. Loved Kingston's promo and how well he plays off of Jericho and the inevitable heel turn for Jericho wasn't surprising to me, but was well played out here. I really like the contrast in Jericho's more polished promo style and Kingston feeling more raw and realistic and dealing with his emotions. The surprise World Title match with Hangman vs. Dante Martin was really goddamn good, and does the thing that I appreciate the most from AEW which is that when a surprise guy gets a title shot its still a back and forth match. Dante got some great offense in and looked really strong in that match.

The next match is the one my sister was most looking forward to as her two favorite wrestlers were teaming up even if they did just run through The Workhorsemen. It was nice seeing JD Drake in person again after buying a shirt from him at a local show even if he didn't get to do much tonight. Regal cut a good promo after the match and has me really looking forward to the future of this team and whatever young guys they add to the stable. Pac vs Yuta was a short but fun match. Pac dominated, but Yuta got to showcase a little bit of what he brings to the table as well.

Next was what ended up being the segment of the night. The Andrade/Hardy Family Order fell apart as we knew it was going to. After the family turned on Hardy we got Sting and Darby to try and fail to make the save and then the Hardy Boyz music hit and Jeff Hardy came out. The crowd came unglued and while I'm not excited about current Hardy Boyz ability in the ring I'd be lying if I said I didn't get super excited about this moment. Jeff helps the rest of the good guys clear the ring and hits a Swanton bomb on Blade.

Wardlow talked next in a solid promo, but since it was one on one it really felt weird that Schiavonne and Wardlow were looking at the hard cam were almost nobody was sitting. Jurassic Express vs. The Acclaimed was an awesome match. I though this was going to be a glorified squash match, but Acclaimed really came close to winning at times and this was a lot of fun. Rosa vs. Hirsch was a fun match with Rosa picking up the win. Scorpio Sky vs. Sammy Guevera was a pretty boring match with a lot of time spent on a fake injury for Sammy although at least the 630 off the top through a table looked awesome. It was cool seeing Scorpio get the win here as I've been a fan of his since seeing him in early PWG shows.

The Rampage taping was fun although it took quite a while for them to change the ring apron and mat which they did quickly between Dark and Dynamite. Marq Quen vs Darby lasted too long for my taste especially since Darby got nearly no offense in and Quen doesn't really have the kind of offense that works well to control a match against a baby face. The 450 from the top to Darby on the floor was fucking awesome to see though. Keith Lee squashed QT nicely and destroyed the rest of the nightmare family. Mercedes Martinez and Jamie Hayter had a good match which was nice to see. The main event of Swerve vs. Nese was good, but after that much wrestling it was a little hard to get too invested in the match.

It was a fun pair of nights and even though both shows were quite long to sit through I had a great time both nights. Obviously Revolution was way better than Dynamite, but Dynamite had stuff going for it as well. It will be a long time before either show is topped for as live experiences go. My ass wishes that the seats were more comfortable and Revolution definitely could have used an intermission, especially since AEW PPVs don't have terrible matches that I'm happy to miss to take a piss break. The prices for the show were much more reasonable than WWE PPVs so I'd definitely recommend checking out a show if its near you.

ABBA - Super Trouper

 

The overall impression for this album is fine. It's got a lot of songs I really dug and some that are fine and none of them are bad, but almost all of them just kind of keep going and last like a minute too long. I'm a fan of long songs when they've got something to say, but for this album its largely repeating the chorus a bunch of times and not introducing anything new too the song.

“Lay All Your Love on Me” its just a fun song that has a great tempo and feel to it. The standout songs are “On and On and On” and “White Sombrero” the first is a really fun upbeat song and Sombrero is a nice song with a bit of latin flavor to it that sets it apart from the rest of the songs on the album. “The Piper” is the best song on the album. I liked it at first and it was good, but its the song that has been stuck in my head since then and has really grown on me.

I found it funny that I really liked the B-sides on this album better, especially more than the title track and other big songs from it. “Super Trouper” was the most surprising because I remember liking it before and it's still fun, but damn it goes on too long and the parts of the song that aren't the chorus are just kind of there. And both of the songs end with the chorus getting repeated too much to even take out the joy of the best part of the songs.

The rest of the album is mostly fine, but it doesn't really stand out and everything is pretty samey except for the weird inclusion of “Happy New Year” which feels weird to listen to not on New Years although, it is January and not that far from the holiday. If you like ABBA you'll enjoy the album, but its not one of their stronger works.

For how long this album is its definitely not something I'd recommend listening to, but checking out the best tracks on the album aren't a bad use of your time.