The ULTIMATE Visitor's Guide to Bardstown, KY: Bourbon Capital Of The World - Bourbon Real Talk 158

are you thinking about taking a trip to the bourbon capital of the world town kentucky well we have the definitive visitor's guide so stick around [Music] so i don't know about you wes but when i'm traveling one of the main features is food absolutely you cannot travel with me without planning to eat at least three to four times a day you would be shocked at how much food this man can still eat i put it down he does put it down i used to be like that but you know my metabolism is getting slow now that i'm over 40. i just don't mind being fat so one of the places in bardstown that we recommend is la horadura mexican bar and grill which you're thinking kentucky mexican bar and grill well we we need to tell you yes the food's great yes the atmosphere is cool but the whiskey selection in there is not what you would expect from mexican and that's like the first time that somebody recommended it to me i was like are you serious i mean it's like it's typical tex-mex type fare and we had a whole debate of do you call it tex-mex if it's kentucky i don't know but it's not like authentic mexican food it's more of like what you would you would expect and like what we're used to here but the owner of the restaurant is personal friends with some of the people that work at will it and in kentucky bars are able to buy bottles directly from the producer which is illegal here yeah in in texas and so you go in there and they have like this ridiculous whiskey selection and their poor prices are reasonable because it's not like they have tons and tons of people coming in there just just for that you know there's locals obviously that drink bourbon but the whiskey selection is stellar yeah it is and so it's definitely on the list if you're planning to go through bardstown on a whiskey tour on the hitting the bourbon bourbon trail up you should definitely stop there if you need a bite to eat some really good pours um and along those lines i want to talk about the restaurant that's at bardstown bourbon company oh my goodness that chicken oh that fried chicken y'all hey so you've heard of kentucky fried chicken right yeah yeah it's like the national food of kentucky yeah yeah of course that's according to freddie johnson by the way yeah but yes kentucky is known for delicious fried chicken and i think some of the best that i've had in kentucky is at bardstown bourbon i'm willing to go on record it's the best fried chicken i have ever had in my entire life hot take i mean it is so good and everything else on their menu is good as well they've got like a buffalo burger and some other stuff but i mean when i know that i'm going to kentucky i i start i i think way more about eating that fried chicken again than i do the whiskey i'm gonna drink and the burger they have there too because i can get some of the whiskey we're going to drink here in texas but i can't get that fried chicken oh no yeah and i think it's the way they make it it's not your traditional dunk in the big old vat of grease i think that's like a pan-seared pan-fried it's pan-fried it's like it's just amazing it's amazing so now let's talk about distilleries because if you're going on the bourbon trail you're probably mostly going for some distilleries and along the lines of the pan fried chicken bardstown bourbon company offers some pretty cool opportunities yeah and i mean it's it's it's that new school vibe okay so you're not going to get these rick houses that have been around for 150 years no but if you're looking for a cool modern experience their technology is really cool their rick houses are pretty neat they've got some top of the class like the restaurant and the gift shop and everything is super cool um and so i mean i've i was really impressed with i've never that was my first time there last month and i was super impressed not only uh all of that but they have one of the world's largest collections of uh antique bottles or dusty bottles of whiskey and they have them all on a menu with poor prices there are some very reasonably priced pours there we had some stuff from the 40s i think we even had some stuff that was pre-prohibition and they have really unique tasting experiences so they have a normal tour that's very similar to the other tours where they take you up and you see the fermentation tanks and you see the still and you get to taste whiskey out of the the safe and all that stuff but they have some other tours where uh didn't we have the opportunity to bottle our own box yeah you can bottle your own bottle there yeah put your own label on it and there's like tasting tours where you sit down and somebody from the industry educates you and stuff so really check that out and all of that's on their website uh another place we went to was uh jim beam jim beam of course near and dear to my heart if you follow my personal channels at all i'm a massive jim beam fan they're single barrels they're obviously knob creek has got a soft spot for me so i love that distillery and of course that's one that you're going to get all the history yeah yeah not only is it a historic place it's great opportunity for photos but they've invested millions of dollars in their visitor experience recently and i hadn't been there since they had done it and we got there there's all of this beautiful landscape for you to sit outside and look across the hills because it's kind of high up and then there's a bar there yeah and we got to go into the bar and they had some really amazing hard to find bottles of like bookers that they were selling by the poor price is extremely reasonable so that is also an excellent experience and i didn't do the tour la this time that we were there but the last time that we were there there were some opportunities to um like bottle your own knob creek you got to see them dump a barrel and do like a single barrel experience and they let you taste all the barrel so really great experience there hey nice hat hey thanks nice lanyard nice rocks class thanks man nice travel case nice glen topper thank you nice candle nice bottle bag thanks man that's a nice tumbler next woman's t-shirt oh thanks nice uh extra schmedium shirt get yourself some nice things and get all the compliments that come along with it shop urbanrealtalk.com [Music] and another distillery that's got all the history that you want is 1792. barton 1792 is a super cool distillery um it's one that is fun to visit because literally it's not spread out like some of the other distilleries are i mean all the buildings are and rick houses are just right there you can kind of move around fairly easily on a tour and um again the history is just crazy and that's one of the things that you'll notice when you go to these different distilleries is that some of them were designed in the modern era for visitors and when you go to 1792 it's a manufacturing plant right right but that's one of the ones that when you go on your distillery tour you're going to be seeing you know the way things were done just post prohibition right you'll go into a rick house and they have plum bombs that are that are that are hanging from the top all the way down to the bottom and you can see like markings underneath that show because the warehouses are so old that they have to load them a certain way so that the weight is evenly distributed and the plumb bobs will move and tell them whenever they're not loading them right and it's just kind of a cool thing that's crazy yeah hey we're a little left bob put a couple barrels over here on row f you know okay and and the thing is that it is like you said man i mean they are focused on making really good whiskey so when you pull up to park you're not sure am i in the right spot right like there's forklifts there's a big old grain truck driving by and like we're right in the mix like you park right there and you may be you know 20 feet away from a grain truck that's dumping grain right there but they got some cool stuff to see there too if you go up they've got like this really big barrel and there's a fountain and all kinds of stuff there's yeah there's some cool stuff to see and then uh we also stopped by luxe row lux row a fabulous gift shop so if you're looking at gift shops and saying hey i not only want to get a good tour i want to see the cool distillery but i want to buy some really cool merch lux row has got an amazing bar an amazing gift shop and it's a really cool spot yeah and they had like some uh orphan barrel uh packs that they were selling um occasionally they'll put out like blood oath and things like that and so that was one of the places that you're not gonna get a distillery tour there um but they typically are selling drinks by the poor they had cocktails so if you've got people that are in your party they aren't super into drinking whiskey meat they have that available and then they do put out some pretty you know hard to find bottles on almost a daily basis so that's a good place to stop by and along those lines just around the corner is heaven hill yeah and that's the thing about bardstown is i mean literally across the street or down the road a half mile there's going to be another massively well-known distillery that you can just hop around all of these and and so heaven hill is just right there um really cool setup beautiful gift shop beautiful visitor center uh they got the old vintage antique truck out there in front uh with some barrels in the back of it uh just a really cool spot i love that place yeah and that's another place where you're not gonna do like a regular distillery tour and the reason is is their 1996 distillery fire destroyed their that facility um so that is just a visitor center their whiskey is actually made off-site uh but they do put out really rare about bottles almost on the daily yeah and so um it's not uncommon for people to be lined up hours before they open up because they're trying to get like an old fits fitz gerald 16. um when when we were there we got an elijah craig 8 18. um they usually will have uh uh elijah craig barrel proofs and then of course the grenade oh yeah so they they sell these uh 375 bottles at uh it's a foolproof so it's a 125 uh proof but the glass is shaped like a barrel yeah and it's kind of a cool thing you know you're not gonna find one of the stores you're part of the well they only sell them there right so you're part of the cool kid club when you've been to heaven hill and you got your grenade yeah um and we did make it sound like everything's super close jim beam's a little bit further out and the next one that we recommend which is maker's mark that one's a little bit further out yeah but maker's mark is an amazing place to visit because all of the i mean it is the most picturesque i think of any distillery maybe in the world i don't know i've not been to scotland but all of the buildings are historic buildings because um the bill samuels wife she worked to get all of those buildings certified as historic buildings and so you know they're all protected they're all very well maintained everything is so beautiful and picturesque there yeah and uh they have some really cool distillery experiences there too so they have the i gotta say it right because i always say the hot sauce and not the glass blower yeah it's ch cholula cholula's the hot sauce yeah chihuly i think is the glass blower okay so they have a beautiful display in the ceiling of their visitor center that's uh you know this famous glassblower um and there's like some imagery in there with some cherubs and stuff yeah and when you walk through there and you go into the back side where the gift shop is you get to dunk your own body dunk your own bottle so right now it's like super popular they've got the the the super deep dunked bottles that everyone's trying to get well you can just go and do that yeah yeah you dunk your own so that that red wax on the top you put on there pretty cool yeah and so speaking of bardstown they have history that goes on forever it feels like every building every distillery of course every every little shop you go into looks like it's been there forever which is really cool and one place that we went and they were already closed when i went so yeah you talk a little bit more of it but it sounds so cool so it's the whiskey museum yeah oscar getz right yeah so right right in downtown there is this old historical building it's got all kinds of history but part of it has been converted into the oscar getz museum of whiskey history and they they've got a really cool exhibit of uh of uh pre uh pre-prohibition coming real soon but if you're i mean i feel like if you're going to the whiskey the bourbon capital of the world and you you're into whiskey it's definitely worth a stop to go through the museum you're going to get a lot of of the the backbone that really tells you about the the place that bourbon has in american history and so it's really cool there and just around the corner from there is one of the coolest i mean i think it's like the oldest i think it's the oldest bar in the united states uh it's close i don't know if it's as old as lafitte's blacks blacksmith shop okay but it's it is called the the talbot tavern yeah and it's been there if i remember correctly before kentucky was even in a state yeah right so it opened up in 1779 yeah and kentucky became a state in 1792 right so crazy it's the oldest surviving stagecoach stop in the united states yeah okay that which is crazy and some crazy people have stayed daniel boone stayed there daniel and um and in 1792 the year that kentucky became a state daniel boone had to uh give some testimony or something yeah and so he actually stayed because it's a hotel and a tavern so he actually stayed there who was the who was the bat or the kind of the renegade that stayed upstairs and there's bullet holes still in the wall uh well that'd be jesse james okay so that's cool like if you get to go upstairs which you can it's just open but it's kind of they've got it roped off where you can see in the room but apparently jesse james had stayed there and got into a gunfight one night or no he's not gonna fight he had a bad dream no no so so what actually happened is in in 1797 the king of france there was a upheaval and he had uh fled to the united states to keep from from being killed by his people and he and he stayed there that's like he and his court stayed at this hotel the king of france and while they were there somebody some people say it was the king some people say it was somebody in his court painted this like really elaborate mural right on the wall of his room yeah so years later uh jesse james comes and he stays in the same room he's drunker than cooter brown and he has like this flashback nightmare yeah thinks that the stuff that's on the wall is moving so he starts shooting at it with his gun and the bullet holes are still there yeah and that's cool i mean there's literally holes in the wall uh from this dude shooting at ghosts that's kind of cool uh the founder the naacp was born in the kitchen all right see tons of history i mean abraham lincoln stayed there abraham lincoln when he was five years old his his parents were involved in a legal battle and he stayed there while they were there dealing with their stuff william heaven hilf of heaven hill fame owned it as well as jim beam's brother and thomas moore who owned uh 1792 distillery so famous people owned it famous people stayed there check it out they've got a great whiskey selection yeah all right so let's talk about shopping so right where the uh tavern is it's like on the city square right it's like a big roundabout right like there's a courthouse there's literally a roundabout yeah it's right around the courthouse uh there's so many cool shops there of course a lot of them have whiskey paraphernalia uh merch and shirts and stuff uh one of our places we would definitely recommend would be fire and fluff of course there art studio and boutique yep so um shout out to the fire and fluff people because they are viewers of the podcast and they reached out to us about carrying some of our merch so if you are a fan of bourbon real talk and you happen to be in bardstown you can go over to fire and fluff and our merch is for sale in their store right there and they've got a lot of other cool things there too lots of cool things they got glenn's from different uh distilleries they've got shirts and stuff and hats and and cool cool stuff that you can already know all your friends all of the whiskey tchotchkes yeah yeah it's a really cool place and they're great people and quite honestly they were part of their impetus for us doing this episode because we were going to kentucky and he was like come by the shop and i was like well what if we did like a visitor's guide right yeah so no those people are really cool so if you're there let them know we said hey uh you definitely won't leave empty-handed though you'll definitely find something there that you'll like yeah if you're if you're headed to bardstown and you're in someone see whiskey or bourbon world talk community and you want to set up a visit just uh message jd stan yep before you go to fire and fluff so that's pretty much it that's it that's all i mean there's of course so many more places tons of other places but this is the top this is the top top this is cannot miss yeah we'll do another more expansive uh list of distillery tours that we find that we would definitely recommend but we're a series maybe we'll do one for every city we go to yeah let's do it let's do it let's do a series well for now let's let's tell them about the show philosophy show philosophy is about bringing people together around whiskey absolutely and connection's important to me and part of the reason why i wanted to start this channel because i did lose a loved one to suicide and i was looking for ways to help people feel connected so they didn't feel so alone the way that my brother did when he made that decision and seeing whiskey you know bring people together of all different walks of life different ideological views made me realize if i can find a way to get people connected to whiskey the whiskey will do the rest of the job and get them connected to others so they don't feel alone and through that process getting involved in the enthusiast community i did see you know some negativity from the trolls you know trying to run everybody's fun and being hateful to strangers online and that inspired bourbon real talk community where we don't allow trolls and two it made me realize that hey if they can hate you nothing that stops me from loving you yeah and they don't even like that when you try to love somebody right they don't even know what it looks like it makes them even more mad makes them more mad and that's why we end every episode the same way and that's this if you woke up this morning and you're unsure whether or not anyone loved you just know that we love you and we'll see you next time on bourbon real talk cheers [Music] all right did you trim your beard now yeah i thought you were going to grow it out i was what happened lindsey stop kissing me ooh yeah that's makes sense yeah and i was just like bruh i can't live the rest of my life i can't live with kisses i need i need i need it i need it like the desert needs the rain you know um yep that's it yeah just like that yeah a whiskey troll is a person who seeks negative attention and uses contrarian attitudes to derail civil discussion in online forums they communicate in ways they never would face to face because they're keyboard warriors their only goal is to make other people feel inferior hey guys i'm new here i just got my first blatant and trust me you probably paid way too much i don't care much about the blends but nice there's no way that she didn't buy that at secondary idiot oh i know how you got that bottle so are you sick and tired of the whiskey trolls ruining your fun online well that's why we started bourbon real talk community congratulations let me know what you think when you open it up hey welcome to the group let me send you over a sample of blatant's gold and straight from the barrel see how you like those i remember back to my first bottle of blanton's it was a birthday to my son and we enjoy it every year on his birthday congrats so if you're looking to connect with some people online who aren't head over to facebook.com and join bourbon real talk community today [Music] you

Channel: Bourbon Real Talk

Views: 28,538

Keywords: bardstown kentucky, visitor guide, bourbon trail, bardstown, bourbon, whiskey, distillery tour, kentucky bourbon

Id: Vv__OuNn3nc

Length: 19min 57sec (1197 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 24 2022