Bourbon, horses and BEER

Now we move 37 miles to the NE side of Lexington. But, before we left, we made one more trip to the Woodford Distillery.

We had to get some Mint Julep Balls and Bourbon Balls made with their signature bourbon. How good with a glass of wine.










Then back on the road. I think Freddy is bored.














Through more horse farms










and tobacco farms to Georgetown, KY.

Then to one of the three "brewstillerys" in America.
, Town Branch. They have a brewery and a distillery.

The visitor center

The processing steps










The yeasting and mixing

The heating











the fermenting

Filtering and into these tank waiting to be bottled or put into kegs.












Last stop at the brewery side, the tasting room.

Each person has four tickets to use for tasting. You can use all four here or save them for the bourbon tasting room.
Cathy and I picked out four beers and shared.







My favorite.
This one is aged in used bourbon barrels. It gets bottled at 10% alcohol and is very smooth.
They only sell it in four packs.
It is sold in large liquor stores in several states including Florida.










I had never seen hops growing.

They don't use these, they import them.










This distillery uses two stills.

Storage barrels. By regulation, all barrels must be charred inside and can only be used once.
These used barrels are the ones used for aging their Bourbon Barrel Ale.








The tasting room for Bourbon.












Now horses.
Off to the Kentucky Horse Park

entrance

visitor center











The Trojan Horse

The Mechanical Horse

The Blue Horse











On to the "Big Barn".  At 463'X74', it is the largest barn in America.

You need binoculars to see the other end.











There are two famous horse statues here. Probably the two greatest race horses ever.

First "Man O War". Born 3/29/17 died 11/1/47
Contrary to popular belief, Man O War did not win the Triple Crown. His owner did not like to race in KY and did not enter him. He set records in the Preakness and Belmont.

He is actually buried under this statue. He was the first known horse to be embalmed and buried whole.

this is a life size statue.












Two of his off spring are buried here also, 1937 Triple Crown winner War Admiral and War Relic.












And, my favorite race horse of all time, Secretariat, the 1973 Triple Crown winner.
He set a new track record in each race.

 Perhaps the greatest performance by a race horse in history is the Belmont win. Secretariat won by 31 lengths, the largest on record of any race, and was still going away at the finish. His tract time of 2:24 minutes is still the track record.

I had to try to give him some sugar.












And the babies


Next stop, the Smoky Mountains