Woodford Reserve

On our second day in Kentucky, exploring the area continued with a trip to see how they make bourbon. We chose the Woodford Reserve, official bourbon of the Kentucky Derby. Beautiful drive along a creek to get there and a good view of "wild" Kentucky. The facility was just as beautiful, huge stone buildings set along the creek. Tour starts with seeing the huge vats they cook the sour mash in. Very fragrant! There several of these huge vats cooking the stuff in various stages of "done". The mash is then sent along to other cooking processes til it's tested and ready to go.

Then it's sealed in a barrel and rolled out on these tracks to another building for storage.

Many, many barrels of bourbon aging - they are all labeled and occasionally taste tested by the experts.

After the tour, a sample of the bourbon is passed out and chocolate bourbon bonbons... yum! Relaxing on the porch of one of those great stone buildings.

And when in Kentucky... all things horse. Even the distillery sports it's version of a horse statue. Thanks to some old bourbon barrels!

The evening of day 2 we went back to the Kentucky Horse Park to watch an FEI competition of reining. Something completely different that many of us here had never seen. That was pretty amazing too!