First and foremost on our list in Bluegrass Country was to visit Woodford Reserve. Since we have had litres of the stuff, it only seemed appropriate to stop and see where it was made. However, being a Saturday, lots of other people had had the same idea. It was busy!
The distillery has remained on the same sight since Elijah Pepper began distilling in his backyard in 1812. Nowadays, Woodford Reserve is owned by a multinational (who isn’t though really?) but manages to maintain an old-world feel with its beautiful grey stone buildings, and small scale production. The highlight of the day was obviously, the sampling.
Next, was a visit to the Keeneland racetrack, home to the world’s largest reference library on thoroughbreds (it contains more than 10,000 volumes on the subject). While we didn’t explore the library, we did tour the track and got a glimpse of the early morning training. It was wonderful, green and tranquil, and I have a feeling I enjoyed it a lot more early one Sunday morning, then I would have, if it were a busy and bustling race day.
The rest of our visit to Lexington was foiled, by being Sunday, being too early in the day, being too late in the day, not having adequate parking etc. so we decided it was time to move onto Gatlinburg and the Great Smokey Mountains National Park.
The distillery has remained on the same sight since Elijah Pepper began distilling in his backyard in 1812. Nowadays, Woodford Reserve is owned by a multinational (who isn’t though really?) but manages to maintain an old-world feel with its beautiful grey stone buildings, and small scale production. The highlight of the day was obviously, the sampling.
Next, was a visit to the Keeneland racetrack, home to the world’s largest reference library on thoroughbreds (it contains more than 10,000 volumes on the subject). While we didn’t explore the library, we did tour the track and got a glimpse of the early morning training. It was wonderful, green and tranquil, and I have a feeling I enjoyed it a lot more early one Sunday morning, then I would have, if it were a busy and bustling race day.
The rest of our visit to Lexington was foiled, by being Sunday, being too early in the day, being too late in the day, not having adequate parking etc. so we decided it was time to move onto Gatlinburg and the Great Smokey Mountains National Park.