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Thank you for stopping by, and welcome to SB.

Finishing up some paperwork and now on to fixing dinner with a Compass Box Delilah’s 20th. Beautiful dark honey notes melding with that crisp, outside breeze dried linen notes, that I love. I’m nearing the end of this exquisite CB bottling.

My fermentation keeps shutting down early and I can’t get it going again. I made three double batches no problem. I moved and change my water source and my first batch was fine. Water quality test strips look good. My mash bill is 11# of milled corn, 2# milled, malted rye and 2# milled, malted high diastatic power barley; total of 15# grain, 5 gallons water. I add 2 teaspoon gypsum and adjust pH to 5.2 to 5.7 before adding corn. I add two tablespoons of Alpha Amylase at 148-150 degrees and steep for an hour. I add two teaspoons Gluco Amylase at 90-100 degrees and steep for another hour. I throw in the malted grains at 90-95 degrees and steep overnight. I use 10 grams of FermPro927 (brand new and kept in refrigerator) and 2.5 Tablespoons of Fermax Nutrient at 85-90 degrees and maintain that temperature range with warming matts through the fermentation. Initial pH is 5.2 to 5.7 and I keep the pH above 4.0 by hanging oystershells and adding about eight Tablespoons of calcium carbonate over the first three days. I have never been able to get it above 4.4, but FermPro tells me anything 3.6 to 6.0 should be fine. The first double batch doth stalled out at about1.010, the second at 1.016 and 1.020. I couldn’t taste much sweetness and an extra shot of yeast and nutrient didn’t wake it up. Yields have been about 75% of the first double batch with this same water/yeast combination. The first (good) batch came off at 1.001; it was down from the day before and still bubbling, I only took it off because I had to travel the next day. What to try next???

That’s exactly what I’m hoping for between our Buffalo Trace and Woodford tours.

I think that's Texas....

Hmmm. I actually do not know if the BBC restaurant is open for dinner. Now that I think about it, I've only ever had lunches there, so maybe not. Easy to find out, I imagine. Good Luck. flahute mentioned the beauty of the Castle and Key grounds. The building's facade is something special, as well. If you're pressed for time, just a quick "park and wander for 5-minutes" will be worth it, IMHO. ....More, if it can be worked in.

WTRB after an early dinner of homemade pesto.

Thanks! Drinking curtailed and purchasing ceased so I sometimes have to remind myself to come see my friends in this corner of the internet.

I’ve been carrying this beer around for a week. Finally got around to popping it. Excellent easy drinking beer out of Maine.

Oh, c'mon. I keep hearing all these stories about OWA being in every store there like it's water.

Haven't tried it yet.

The regular shelf bottles? Not too hard. This is a really good single barrel pick that the restaurant did. They serve it in the bar, as well as sell bottles. Since the wife and I enjoyed it so much, I bought a bottle.

Wild Turkey 101 is regularly $29.99 at BevMo, or, as I like to call it, BevPayMo. But it's currently one of the items included in their Buy One, Get One for $.05 sale. So, I bought two for $30.04 or $15.02 each plus tax. Not bad. I've only had one of the "new bottle" release several years ago and liked it so I'm anxious to try it again given that I've heard mixed reviews. If it's as good as I remember, I'll probably get four more at that price.

If you can fit it in, Castle and Key has incredibly beautiful grounds so even if you don't have time for a tour it's worth seeing. An added bonus is that just a short drive down the road is a great restaurant called The Stave that you can hit for lunch. https://kentuckyprojects.wixsite.com/thestaveky/about Woodford Reserve is only 5 minutes away from there.

Even though I'm generally a Turkey and Roses guy these days GTS remains my singular favorite bourbon. I've never had a bad one. I'd give it another chance from a different bottle.

Exactly this. And good to see you around again.

Who isn’t! Liquid beauty.

Yes! And I’m a big Chihuly fan! I’ll try to figure out how to get it in the schedule.

Entrance to gift shop.

I keep seeing how beautiful MM is! It looks like they have a 9:40 tour on Sundays but it would wrap up at 11 then we have a 3 hour drive to the airport. We could make that work. I will just need to extend our rental car for an extra hour. We just have to be at the airport by 3pm.

Is the restaurant at BBC open for dinner? It looked to only be available for lunch. I actually had a reservation there before the blending tour but switched it to Willett after he sent me a TikTok to “add to the list of we ever go”. I can definitely look at adding a tour at Willett. Maybe do that one Friday afternoon and just pop over to Preservation for a tasting if time allows? There are just so many options and I’m trying to keep it a total surprise. So I’m trying to avoid bringing it up very often to him.

A solid stand by for sure

How was the 7 year Old Fitzgerald?

Is it hard to find for you?

I thought the same which is why I am going to sample again.