by It’s like the Kentucky State Fair of Bourbon, but without the rides. And with lots of bourbon samples standing in for cotton candy and deep-fried Oreos.
The Kentucky Bourbon Festival continues to evolve in its 31st year in Bardstown, the Bourbon Capital of the World. The event features more than 40 distilleries on hand, plenty of artists and craftsmen selling bourbon-related products, live music, food trucks, educational exhibits, and a host of opportunities to interact with the rock star men and women of our ongoing Bourbon Renaissance.
Two years ago, the Kentucky Bourbon Festival was held as a virtual event online because of the pandemic. Last year individual tickets were $25 per day, but distilleries charged for samples and cocktails at their booths. This year, after feedback, ticket prices were raised to include samples and the ability to purchase bottles from the distilleries was added. Every ticket level sold out well in advance.
The week of bourbon festivities in mid-September kicked off on Tuesday when the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame inducted six new members. The event was held on the grounds of the nearby My Old Kentucky Home historic mansion.
The Kentucky Bourbon Festival takes place on the Great Lawn of Spalding Hall. The pre-civil war historic building has housed a college, seminary, and a hospital. Now it’s home to the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History and the Bardstown Museum.
Ticket options offered access to the main events of the three-day Festival that began on Thursday. In addition, there were several premium add-on events available for an extra fee. Many of the extras involved special tastings, food, and a chance to meet and greet some of the men and women who work daily in the world of bourbon.
The one free (and family-friendly) event is the World Championship Bourbon Barrel Relay Race on Saturday. What’s that? It’s where men and women (both individually and in teams) roll, wrestle, and wrangle full 500-pound barrels of bourbon around a predetermined track. You don’t see that every day.
The Bourbon Marketplace is the Place to Shop
There were two areas on the grounds labeled Bourbon Marketplace. Here you could purchase a wide range of bourbon-related items. They ranged from furniture and flags made from barrel staves to bar accessories, and from bourbon-infused food to leather goods.
Many talented artists were onsite, including Kim Perry, with some spectacular paintings usually involving bourbon glasses and bottles, in a variety of mediums. I approached a nice couple from Tuscaloosa, Alabama who had just purchased one of Perry’s prints called The Weller Collection. Right then the artist came up to thank them for their patronage. The print illustrates seven different Weller expressions.
The husband said, “All your work is just beautiful. Weller just happens to be one of my favorites. It’s going to look beautiful for my bar. Or in our bedroom.”
The wife quickly interjected, “That’s what he thinks.”
Perry had been working on a new painting under the shade of a nearby tree. The wife said, “I loved when I saw you painting over there. You have your picture, how you outlined the drawing, mixing the colors…it puts a face to the painter so you can see where the work is coming from. It’s fantastic.”
Perry donates ten percent of the price of each painting and print to a drug and alcohol recovery program called Adult & Teen Challenge in Louisville. “It’s ironic that I paint bourbon, but you know, God has a sense of humor,” Perry said.
The next day, in the other Bourbon Marketplace section, I discovered Lincoln County Reserve, a fourth-generation maple syrup, family-run, company from northern Wisconsin. My Dad, Ron Miller, had asked me just days before if there was a bourbon drink using maple syrup as an ingredient. Well, it turns out there is both Bourbon Barrel Aged Maple Syrup and Maple Bourbon Whiskey.
To make the former, Carley Coker of Lincoln County Reserve told me they age their 100 percent maple syrup for six to nine months in bourbon barrels from Colorado’s 291 Distillery.
Turns out there’s a maple syrup version of the ‘Angel’s Share’ (Pearl Milling’s Share?): they lose about ten percent of the syrup when it leaks from the barrels.
Once the maple syrup is aged, they return the barrels to Colorado where 291 Distillery finishes one of its bourbons in the syrup-infused barrels.
I asked what it’s like offering samples to festivalgoers. “It’s very surprising,” Coker said. “At first, they think they’re drinking bourbon, and we say, ‘It’s actually maple syrup.’ And then we get the usual reaction: ‘Oh, this is really good.’”
Coker was quick to point out that their maple syrup is thicker than what comes out of Vermont.
Visitors Come from Near and (Really) Far
The Kentucky Bourbon Festival has been the subject of some controversy the past several years. What started as a family-oriented, mostly community celebration three decades ago has grown into a (mostly) adults-only, ticketed event that draws people from around the country and the world.
But that does not mean local folks are not welcome and they are certainly involved in the success of the event in large numbers. On Wednesday night at the pre-event called “Bourbon in the Air” I met a local couple who has been coming to the Kentucky Bourbon Festival for decades and had tickets to virtually every event this year. They acknowledged that, as America’s love affair with bourbon has grown, the Festival has had to change with the times.
The next day, once things officially began, I noticed a gregarious group with matching t-shirts and had to get their story. The four couples drove from the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area. They admitted the nearly seven-hour drive took twelve hours due to all their stops along the way, looking for unicorn bottles of bourbon.
Although they have been to Kentucky before, for distillery tours, this was the group’s first time at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival. “This is the happiest place, the friendliest people,” one lady said. “It’s the most relaxed festival we’ve ever been to, and the samples are great.”
Their shirts were made by a printer in the group. This year’s slogan was “Bourbon and Sunshine: All the BS I Need.” The group gathers regularly for bourbon tastings back in Wisconsin and is already working on next year’s t-shirt tagline.
Later, I attended one of the premium add-on events called The Bourbon Engagement with James B. Beam Distilling Co. Beam Master Distillers. Father and son master distillers Fred and Freddie Noe treated the crowd to four of Beam’s signature brands, bites from The Kitchen Table restaurant, and personal stories about their family’s eight generations of distilling Beam spirits.
I sat with two true bourbon fans from Australia, Brynley Kennedy from Melbourne, and Barry Hine from Brisbane. Their original plans to come to the Kentucky Bourbon Festival in 2020 were thwarted by the pandemic. The pair has been working on this trip for more than a year.
“I’d be booking distillery tours at 2:00 in the morning,” Brynley said. “I preplanned it all. I knew when they were going to open up and bang, I’m in – I either stayed up or set the alarm.”
The long hours paid off. The two toured the distilleries at Maker’s Mark, Jim Beam, Four Roses, Buffalo Trace, Woodford Reserve, Wild Turkey, and Heaven Hill (all brands available in Australia) before coming to the Festival.
During their multi-week trip, the duo had also visited Los Angeles and were headed to Las Vegas next. The sojourn includes tickets to both NFL and MLB games.
I asked my new Aussie friends if they have a favorite NFL team. “Not really,” Brynley said. “We just love our sport. If they’re beating the shit out of each other, and scoring, we find that really entertaining.”
After spending four days wandering the Great Lawn in Bardstown, here is my professional advice: If you have a bourbon bucket list, the Kentucky Bourbon Festival needs to be on it. With more than 40 distilleries in one place, seemingly endless samples (please drink responsibly), and lots of friendly people to meet who are just as passionate about bourbon as you are, what’s not to love!?
You do not want to pass up the opportunity to come to the Kentucky State Fair of Bourbon.
This article originally appeared in Whiskey Network Magazine.
