We had a busy day today, but everything was easy-going and enjoyable. We began by driving 20 minutes into downtown Lexington; we attended services at the 2nd Presbyterian Church…
The 8:45 am service was very sparsely attended; maybe 60-70 people. I trust the 11:00 am service would be better… It was a very traditional service; it was a little odd that their hymns had familiar tunes, but totally different words.
We returned to the Villa, and then we walked over to the Horse Park.
We saw horses.
The big barn houses the draft horses – Clydesdales and similar hard working horses…
The Big Barn is supposedly the largest horse barn in the USA…
There was an interesting display showing the earliest and biggest horse farms and estates. There was no mention that the horse farms, dating to the early 19th century, used slaves to work the horses. In fact, all the early jockeys were slaves, and later, former slaves, until the Jim Crow laws and attitudes eliminated blacks from horse racing tracks altogether; this changed finally in the late 20th century…
We watched a potion of the “Showcase of Breeds”, where we saw four different saddle horses on display…
We walked through the “Hall of Champions”; this is where former winners are spending their twilight years living in the lap of luxury…
And we walked back to the Villa…
We drove to the tiny town of Midway, so named because it was at the halfway point of the Ohio and Lexington Railroad; it was the first town in Kentucky founded by the railroad. It was a delightful town, with railroad tracks running down the center of Main Street… Did I mention that it was laid out by the Railroad?
This corner building used to house the local IOOF lodge – Oldfellows. If I ever wanted to move to a small town I would find a building like this to convert to living quarters… What could be better than living in a place like this?
The former train depot is now a bank…
We had lunch at the Brown Barrel. Good burgers (a blend of ground brisket, short rib, and chuck – just like I use at home…), and The Best French Fries Ever!
The building is a former distillery, but I suspect the roof had caved in, because this roof structure looks pretty new and pristine to me…
After lunch we drove to do another bourbon tasting. We are in the heart of the Bluegrass country – green pastures and horse barns as far as you can see…
We arrived at our destination:
Woodford Reserve is a very pretty place! The distillery was built in 1812, and is on the National Registry of Historic Places. But Woodford Reserve was founded here in 1996…
They have a nice deck area where you can enjoy a cocktail or a light lunch…
We started the tour overlooking the 1812 stone buildings…
You know the song, “Roll Out the Barrel”? This is where the barrels are rolled out from the distillery to the Barrel House…
The traditional cypress wood fermenting tanks…
The pot stills…
Woodford Reserve is unique in that they use ONLY pot stills; there are no column stills here. The fermented mash is distilled three times to get the whiskey to about 168 proof…
The barrel house…
The tour guide talked about the historic stone barrel house… However, when questioned, he told us that it only holds 5,000 barrels. They have five other modern barrel houses over the hill, which each contain over 50,000 barrels each…
Another thing we heard for the first time is that they use steam heat in the barrel houses during cold winter months; they add heat, then turn it off; the result is that the temperature changes from high to low many times throughout the winter. I was shocked! This would kill any fine wine; wine needs a constant temperature to mature in the bottle. But bourbon ages in wooden barrels, and the hot-cold cycle allows the wood to expand, sucking whiskey into the wood, then contract, pushing the whiskey back out of the wood. This is what provides the flavor to bourbon, and it seems like they know what they are doing…
We tasted the Woodford Reserve and the Woodford Reserve Double Oaked. The regular WR was good, the WR Double Oaked was better. The Double Oaked is aged in the regular way for 4-5-6 years, then the bourbon is poured into another new oak barrel that has been heavily toasted and charred; the bourbon is aged for another 9-12 months…
Driving back to the Villa we saw even more beautiful vista across the Bluegrass countryside.
We enjoyed Happy Hours (6:00 – 9:00 pm) with another couple that we had not met at the various GAMs… And an enjoyable time was had by all…
Adventures in the Villa 
May 9, 2019 at 9:34 am
Great post 😁
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