Hot Tub, Loretto, KY and Louisville Tour

The hottub Friday night was AWESOME except when we had to get out. Boy was the air cold when it hit your really hot body. :)


Saturday we went to Loretto, KY to the Maker's Mark Whiskey Distillery. Maker's Mark is the whiskey that has the red wax on the neck of the bottle. It was a very interesting tour and best of all it was a FREE tour. Driving out in the Kentucky countryside it was amazing to see all the distilleries out there. There are these huge buildings about 10 stories high just sitting there. Inside they are full of aging whiskey. I didn't get a picture because we were driving and no place to pull over. The roads were very narrow.


On the Marker's Mark tour we were actually able to stick our fingers in the vats in the fermenting room that contained the sour mash to taste it. I've never been on a factory tour where you can actually walk right up to the product and touch it. It's funny though, it smelled like fresh baked bread in there. From there we went to the bottling house but since it was Saturday nobody was working. They had screens in there with video of the dipping line. That was pretty cool. Since it's such a monotonous job they change every 30 minutes and go do something else like shipping or packaging or something like that. From there we went to the barrel warehouse where the whiskey ages. These are small warehouses for the tour and only hold 4000 barrels. The big buildings we saw from the road hold 15,000 to 20,000 barrels. The plaques on the barrels are people who have registered to be Ambassadors for Maker's Mark. All you have to do is go to the website to sign up and promise to tell people about their whiskey. Then they put your name on the plaque and send you emails about how "your" barrel is doing in the aging process. Then when "your" barrel is properly aged you have the opportunity to buy a bottle from "your" barrel. Pretty cool.

The fermenting room


The video screens


The barrels


The Ambassador's plaques


They have a pretty cool thing you can do in the gift shop after the tour and that is to dip your very own bottle. Rod wanted to do this for a souvenir. I bought some chocolate bourbon balls. They gave us free samples of the whiskey before it was aged and after the aging. The stuff before it's aged is clear and tastes like tequila but after it ages in those barrels it takes on an amber color and a more mellow taste. They also gave us samples of bourbon balls. Pretty good stuff.


Rod enjoying his taste

Steve and Lisa REALLY enjoying their taste!

Rod dipping his bottle

We left there and went to get a bite to eat at this place called Joe's OK Bayou. Funny name but good cajun food. Rod had red beans and rice, gumbo and crawfish etoufee. Lisa and I had the muffaletta. It was sooooooo good. In case you don't know a muffaletta is a warm sandwich filled with salami, ham, provolone cheese and an olive relish. So yummy. Steve had the the crawfish where you rip off the head and suck out the juice and then eat the meat that's in the tail.


Today we started the day with a brunch of quiche, country ham, biscuits and fruit salad accompanied by mimosas. Thank you Steve and Lisa!!! Then we did the Louisville tour compliments of our hosts. They drove us all over the place, from out in the country to see the horse farms to the old part of the city and all places in between. We even went out to the Kentucky Truck Plant where our truck was "born". That's where they build all the super duty trucks for Ford. We stopped at the Homemade Ice Cream and Pie place for a snack and then we picked up barbecue for dinner and brought it back to their house. Whew!! We're exhausted and are back in the rig at 7:30!

Self explanatory







Tomorrow we have to get everything arranged and put away for our trip SOUTH on Tuesday. Can't wait to get into some warm weather!! We sure have enjoyed our stay here in Louisville and we couldn't have asked for better hosts. Thank you Steve and Lisa!! You really made our stay in this COLD, COLD weather enjoyable.