Kentucky Bourbon Trail

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Golf, spirits abound on Kentucky Bourbon Trail

On a winding two-lane country road, past hand-lettered signs offering firewood for $40 a rick, creeks swollen by spring rains and fields waving their winter wheat, the search for a national landmark comes to a halt.

There’s a wild turkey crossing the road.

At least one of us knows where he’s going.

Up around the bend, as Kentucky Route 52 swings east through the one-stoplight town of Loretto (pop. 713), a sign at Burks Spring Road greets wanderers: “You’ve just found the home of Maker’s Mark.”

Bourbon drinkers have put this scenic hideaway – with its Victorian black outbuildings dating to 1805 and trimmed in the brand’s signature red – on the map. It’s the southern way station on a Kentucky adventure known as the Bourbon Trail.

But before carrying out this assignment – sampling the local brew and golf across the trail – there’s some history to savor.

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Central Kentucky – a 100-mile arc from Louisville south through Bardstown and northeast to Lexington – is home to 95 percent of the world’s bourbon production. That’s no accident of geography.

For hundreds of millennia, the limestone bedrock has served as nature’s water filter. That purified aquifer and rich soil for growing grain have made this part of the country a natural kettle for distilled spirits. The brown elixir – by federal law, made from at least 51 percent corn and aged in a new, charred oak barrel – predates statehood. Two centuries after the first barrels of excess corn distilled for ease of transport were shipped down the Kentucky River, the spirit – named for the original Bourbon County – enjoys a large following.

Greg Davis, the master distiller at Maker’s Mark, embraces that heritage. During a recent tour (they’re free at most distilleries and run hourly), he stops to pose for pictures and sign the trademark red-wax-topped bottles of Maker’s Mark bought and hand-dipped by tourists.

These aren’t the “tipsy tours” that dot California’s Wine Country. Visitors get an education in the art of bourbon distilling, how mashed corn, other grains, water, yeast and years of aging – at least two, often many more– work their magic.

“Maker’s Mark is a model of inefficiency,” said Davis, 41. “It’s stepping back in time and preserving how things used to be done.”

Stand in one of the hundreds of warehouses that dot the green hills along the Bourbon Trail, look up amid the rows of 53-gallon barrels stacked floor to ceiling and inhale. That’s the pungent aroma of bourbon in maturation, evaporating at about 5 percent per year. Black stains streak the sides of warehouses and leave an ashen look to nearby trees. For the pilgrims on the Bourbon Trail, though, it’s a free sample that doesn’t even need to cross the lips. It’s a tariff to the heavens known in these parts as “The Angel’s Share.

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