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JR's notes:

You can read about my whiskey-tasting experiences elsewhere (BOURBON - TAKING THE BISCUIT - September 1999 and THE AMERICAN SPIRIT - November 1999) but, of course, Kentucky is a wonderful and hardly-known part of holiday America. This piece appeared in THE [DAILY] EXPRESS in February, 2000. The EXPRESS website is at www.express.co.uk

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Down Home - The Kentucky Experience

John Radford seeks the Spirit of America

Take the green and pleasant England of the 1950s, transport it magically into a new-world incarnation with wide roads, big cars, stately houses like something out of Gone With The Wind and immaculately-trimmed lawns, and you have Kentucky - big on hospitality, passionate about horse-racing, and home to America's favourite spirit: Bourbon whiskey.

The best place to start is probably the Old Seelbach Bar at the Seelbach Hotel on South Fourth Street in Louisville, Kentucky's largest city. Perhaps they don't have every brand of Bourbon whiskey here, but they certainly have most of them, and they'll mix you a Tom Collins or an Old Fashioned or serve you a straight Bourbon over ice in the time-honoured manner. After a week or so you might graduate to the Oak Room Bar on the mezzanine floor. Here, Max Allen, son and grandson of bartenders, has been mixing cocktails for forty years and tells some of the tallest tales in the business.

One of the most fascinating distilleries is Labrot and Graham (L&G) at Versailles, about 70 miles east of Louisville towards Lexington, in Woodford County. The surrounding area is mainly given over to farming thoroughbred race-horses, and the farms and fields are as manicured as an English lawn. Established in 1812, the L&G distillery was re-opened and refurbished (to the tune of $15 million) in 1992: three brand-new copper pot-stills, designed and made in Scotland, turn out 'Woodford Reserve', which many people consider to be Kentucky's finest whiskey.

About 20 miles south of Versailles, on route 68 - the Harrodsburg to Lexington road - you'll find the meticulously-restored Shaker village of Pleasant Hill. You can shop, eat and even stay overnight in this time-slip recreation of the nineteenth century, and learn something about the pious lives which these simple, hardworking farmers and craftspeople lived. One of their tenets was celibacy, which goes some way towards explaining why they've almost died out - and don't ask for Bourbon in the restaurant: 75 of Kentucky's 120 counties haven't repealed prohibition, and this is one of them.

The Jim Beam distillery is near Bardstown, about 50 miles south of Louisville, with a new visitor-centre, incorporating a cinema detailing the family history. The film features Booker Noe, Beam's grandson, who now runs the business and was instrumental in the concept of 'small batch' whiskey which has revitalised interest in Bourbon in the past ten years. As with any naturally-made product, the ageing process throws up the odd exceptional barrel, and Booker had always kept these aside for friends and family, and for Christmas presents to good customers. Increasingly, by the late 1980s, those customers were asking if they could buy some stock to sell. The results - Knob Creek, Basil Hayden's, Baker's and Booker's - have changed the face and image of Bourbon.

While you're in Bardstown there are other places worth looking into: the Oscar Getz Bourbon Museum, with fascinating whiskey memorabilia; My Old Kentucky Home State Park, a beautiful old house and grounds where Stephen Foster wrote the state anthem 'My Old Kentucky Home' as well as 'Oh, Susannah!', 'The Camptown Races' and 'Beautiful Dreamer', amongst others. Another is Kurtz's Restaurant, where you can eat real Kentucky down-home cooking: fried chicken, hominy grits (corn pudding), corn bread, Kentucky beans, baked country ham and a good deal more. The owner, Marilyn Dick, used to come home from school and help out in the kitchen when her mother ran the restaurant. She recalls that, almost every week, Colonel Sanders would come to eat lunch and try to sell her mother his famous recipe of 'eleven different herbs and spices'. Her response was always the same: 'Colonel Sanders, I'm not paying you a dollar every time I serve an order of fried chicken and that's final. My customers co me here for my own recipe, thank you very much!'. They still come back (as did he).

The most famous distillery in Kentucky is probably Maker's Mark, in Loretto, about 20 miles south of Bardstown. It dates back to 1805, but its modern history began in 1953 when Bill Samuels bought it and decided to make his own style of whisky using wheat instead of rye in the recipe. The result is a softer, richer spirit with a gentle, golden finish, and the recipe is the same today under Bill Samuels, Jr. Visitors to the distillery are offered the chance to dip the top of their own half-bottle in the famous red sealing-wax - still done, as is almost everything else in the distillery, by hand.

And, if you have a weekend to spare and you're in Louisville from April to June, a day at the races is the best way to end your trip. Churchill Downs is one of the most beautiful race-courses in the world, and you don't even have to be interested in horses to enjoy the museum and visitor-centre, which is open all the year round. If you happen to be there on the first Saturday in May, you may find yourself caught up in one of the most exciting occasions in the sporting world - the Kentucky Derby. Louisville is the centre of the racing world on that day of the year, and the atmosphere is electric. Once you've experienced it, you'll have to go back.

Indeed, a good deal about Kentucky calls you back - wonderful scenery, beautiful climate, honest, open hospitality and, of course, Bourbon whiskey - one of the world's greatest spirits. The strains of 'My Old Kentucky Home' will haunt you for ever.

Contacts:

The Kentucky Distillers' Association produces a leaflet listing distilleries which welcome visitors: KDA, 110, West Main Street, Springfield, KY 40069; Tel.: 001-606-336-9612; Fax 001-606-336-9613; E-mail kydistil@nwpt.net

For information about small-batch Bourbon try the Kentucky Bourbon Circle (an offshoot of Jim Beam): KBC, PO Box 9569, Downers Grove, IL 60515; Fax: 001-630-241-4343; website www.smallbatch.com; E-mail kbc@xnet.com

Kentucky Tourism: Kentucky Travel, PO Box 2011, Frankfort KY 40602; website www.kentuckytourism.com

John Radford travelled to Kentucky as a guest of the Kentucky Distillers' Association.

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