rob Posted August 17, 2005 Share Posted August 17, 2005 Greetings all, My first post on this forum, so bare with me In July I was fortunate enough to visit several of the distilleries in Kentucky. All had their pros and cons, but one of the distilleries offered so much more than the others. Being from Sweden, it is not very likely I will ever be able to go back, but if I do, I will sure go to Buffalo Trace again. Which distillery do you think offered the most in terms of tours, products, tasting etc? /Robert Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BourbonJoe Posted August 17, 2005 Share Posted August 17, 2005 IMHO, the very nicest distillery and one reminicent of what one thinks a Bourbon distillery shoud be...nestled in a lonely hollow with pristine surroundings, etc. without a doubt is Makers Mark. All the others are way way too commercial for me. But I'm just a country boy. Now if only the whiskey was a tad better........... Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barturtle Posted August 18, 2005 Share Posted August 18, 2005 Four Roses They take you up on the cat-walks through all the equipment, get to see the yeast being propagated, best video I've yet to see(I've been to Buffalo Trace(can't count how many times), Makers (I was once told that they were the only distillery producing bourbon with wheat), Beam(private tour with Freddy Noe) Labrot & Graham (Pretty, very pretty), Wild Turkey (more than once, miss the cypress fermenters). Haven't managed to get a tour through Bernhiem, Barton or Early Times, yet..(Anyone offering?) Anyway, Four Roses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gr8erdane Posted August 18, 2005 Share Posted August 18, 2005 My best experience was last year at Wild Turkey where Jimmy Russell conducted the tour and the company made it the more pleasurable. The tour group? SB.commers of course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angelshare Posted August 18, 2005 Share Posted August 18, 2005 My best experience was last year at Wild Turkey where Jimmy Russell conducted the tour and the company made it the more pleasurable. The tour group? SB.commers of course. We'll second that, Dane!As far as a tour that was not specially arranged, we have to agree that Four Roses was very good also. Our tour was part of the Bourbon Festival Four Roses breakfast event. Not sure if it's standard, but we got to taste white dog and the single barrel right out of the barrel.All things considered, the only "bad" tour we've ever had was the Jim Beam outpost visit we made in 1997 - no tour at all, just displays and such. We hear they've got tasting now, though, so that probably makes even a stop there worthwhile. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barturtle Posted August 18, 2005 Share Posted August 18, 2005 I know the Jim Beam Outpost sucks, but I also (having been through the distillery myself) understand why. I went as part of a small group from a restaurant buying qa barrel of Knob, and even at that (maybe 15 people) it was duck under this, watch out that's hot, ok now turn around and go back here, and mostly NOISY. Thought the tour with Freddy was special and I was very happy to be a part of it, as a regular tour it would be miserable...20 or so people you don't know crowding up to see whats actually happening, and that one person who can't hear what was said always asking what it was.Even so I still want to see Barton and Bernhiem and Early Times...Come on somebody's gotta have an "in"... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mobourbon Posted August 19, 2005 Share Posted August 19, 2005 Fred Noe gave my wife and me a tour of Jim Beam last Sept. It was a very good tour. I'm a manager at a PA liquor store, so that might have meant something. And it was just 2 of us. He took us from the fermentation process to the bottling. We even got to taste some white dog. We each got a velvet bag with 375 ml bottles of JB Black and other goodies.We also were given a very good tour through WT given by Jimmy Russell. The stories that Jimmy told us were great. Both tours were excellent! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobbyc Posted August 19, 2005 Share Posted August 19, 2005 A small group from SB.com had a tour of Jim Beam last year, I recall that I enjoyed it immensely. Jim Beam Tour As far as Bernheim, there is one here that has and can arrange that. Can a tour of Bartons be arranged? I think she has the "In" over there too.Will it happen? Hard to say, these off the beaten path tours are limited by their very nature, when one only has a dozen spaces as I had last year, the list becomes a hand picked one, and I apologise for not being able to open the whole thing up and give a blanket invitation. It just could not be done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob Posted August 19, 2005 Author Share Posted August 19, 2005 I concur, Maker's Mark was incredibly pretty. Unfortunately I was not too satisfied with the tour, except I got to taste the mash! For someone living so far away from Kentucky, I enjoyed all visits, Buffalo Trace the most. Woodford Reserve was also incredibly beautiful. (tasted their mash too) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gillman Posted August 19, 2005 Share Posted August 19, 2005 Heaven Hill. The people were genuinely nice and interested in their work, the tasting was great, the visitor center was stunning. There was (as inevitably) a corporate feel but not as much I felt as the other places, you could sense it was still a family run place.gary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fricky Posted August 19, 2005 Share Posted August 19, 2005 I visited Buffalo Trace, Wild Turkey, Four Roses, Maker's Mark, and Heaven Hill's visitor center. I enjoyed Maker's Mark the most. The Wild Turkey tour was quite good. I was a bit disappointed with the lack of knowledge of at least one person in Heaven Hill's visitor's center. Being a novice, I was interested in learning a s much as I could about their various bottlings. Since it is readily available in PA and one of my favorites I asked questions about 1783. The gentleman (tour guide) told me that he never heard of it. He even mentioned that he did not really like bouirbon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gillman Posted August 19, 2005 Share Posted August 19, 2005 But consider the exhibits at the HH visitor center, which in effect is a bourbon museum. To learn about bourbon, what better place to start than there? Maker's had nothing similar. The warehouse tour at HH was more informed and prolonged than the one I experienced at MM. 1783 is one of the lesser known HH labels, not everyone there will know about it (I didn't myself until about 2 years ago). If the gent said he didn't like bourbon, well, it wouldn't bother me. I'd rather the overall experience speak to bourbon - not that the MM tour was bad, I still liked it - but HH's tour met the bill and was capped by an informative tasting at the round table. Maker's did not offer a tasting as I recall.Gary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BourbonJoe Posted August 20, 2005 Share Posted August 20, 2005 Gary, Makers did not offer a tasting but at least you got to see an operating still and stillhouse. I'd rather have a knowledgable tour guide to ask questions than look at a couple of posters on a wall to learn about bourbon. Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gillman Posted August 20, 2005 Share Posted August 20, 2005 Well Joe, of course the HH distilling is in Louisville now. The pictorial exhibits at the visitor centre were quite amazing I thought plus the bottle exhibits. I guess there are pros and cons to each. At MM what stood out for me were the cypress fermentation vats which were empty at the time, quite a sight.Gary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barturtle Posted August 20, 2005 Share Posted August 20, 2005 It would be practically impossible for any tour guide to know all of the bottlings that Heaven Hill does. I'm not even sure that Heaven Hill themselves could easily answer questions about every bottling they do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gr8erdane Posted August 20, 2005 Share Posted August 20, 2005 Not to be argumentative, but Gary and I toured HH together and I got the feeling that our guide had worked there for quite a while before taking the guide position. If she had taken the position to get off the bottling line, she might surprise you with how many dogs and cats she was knowledgeable about. Many employees take great pride in knowing what their company does and that's the feeling I got at HH. I miss that working for a multinational conglomerate whose newsletters quite often leave me asking "We do that?" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boone Posted August 20, 2005 Share Posted August 20, 2005 I'm not even sure that Heaven Hill themselves could easily answer questions about every bottling they do. Heaven Hill owns a lot of labels. Lots and lots of 'em. I have taken many of my guest to the label room, during a tour, to show them the "books" with everything we bottle. They are amazed. It's a impressive line up My job requires me to know the labels. I know them a bit better than most because I "was" a label machine operator for seven years. Everyone, on the line knows the labels. To insure that things run smooth (especially EXPORT) and folks keep the legals in order, they will attach a label to the order sheet. This insures accuracy. The operators, label machine, line captain and Supervisor's have to sign the paper as soon as the first bottle is sent down the line to the inspectors. The signature is assurance that they checked the cap color, bar code, proof, age etc... It's a good idea and everyone benefits from this practice. It used to be a awful mess when suddenly a inspector "notices" that the product is 90 proof and the label states 80 Bettye Jo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barturtle Posted August 20, 2005 Share Posted August 20, 2005 I didn't mean to offend. My comment was based on the fact that I have some idea as to how extensive the product catalog is, and unless it happens to be either your job to know every one or your obsession, it would be very difficult to know all of them. And to know them inside and out, not just do they exist but the proof, age and basic flavor profile plus whatever else a enthusiastic fan might ask, all off the top of your head, could prove challenging-to-impossible. Obviously Heaven Hill is very lucky to have you as one of its tour guides. I hope that you spread your knowledge far and wide, blanketing not only the guests, but any of the other employees who aren't as steeped in bourbon lore as you seem. I have not yet made it to the new Bourbon Heritage Center, but hope to either during the festival(though it might be a little crowded for my tastes) or the next time I come home in October. I was invited to the opening, but was stuck in Louisiana as I am now. Bettye Jo, my hat is off to you and I am more than a little jealous of your knowledge, as I have seen much evidence of it in your posts, thank you for sharing it with us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobbyc Posted August 21, 2005 Share Posted August 21, 2005 Obviously Heaven Hill is very lucky to have you as one of its tour guides. That's not quite how it is............ BettyeJo has a pretty impressive resume, she is a Bottling line mechanic who just finished an arduous course in "Industrial Maintanence" and she has some other certification that she could roll a barrel into the dump room and do every job in succession and finally load a case of finished product on the truck with a forklift. She has an impressive hertitage in being a descendant of Jacob Beam, surpassed only by her own children who can claim that plus Daniel Boone on their Fathers side. She is carrying on the work of her aunt to take care of the history of the Beam family, not just the Jim Beam side but all of them. She does from time to time take small groups of SB.com members and friends thru Heaven Hill for the truly inside look, and actually she would easily be the best tour guide they have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barturtle Posted August 21, 2005 Share Posted August 21, 2005 Wow! And I was impressed before... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThomasH Posted November 28, 2005 Share Posted November 28, 2005 I have been to everyone offering a tour and Buffalo Trace is also my favorite. If you ever go there again, contact them ahead of time and see if you can get a hardhat tour. They show you everything on this tour.Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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