Bourbons with the Bros

The bachelor partying was now in full swing.

My lovely Aunt Rita sent me this retro picture of me on my birthday.

The big move of the day was a tour of Old Forester Distilling Co.

Most of this stuff was review for me. I don't usually brag but I've actually completed the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. I won a t-shirt to prove it, but it was so ugly that I promptly threw said shirt in the trash. One thing that I have never seen is much attention paid to the barrel which is a pretty important part of the process. It gives the bourbon all of its color and much of its flavor.

They even torched the barrel in house! Mind blown.

We tasted a taster.

The guy closest on the left there was actually a judge in rural Illinois that I met on this trip named Ramon. Kyle has known him since college. I had a lot of fun terrorizing him with random legal questions which he handled with grace. He would be killed three months later by some giant truck driving hillbilly while riding his bicycle in broad daylight.

Having a drink on the roof of Patrick O'Shea's was fun because we just happened to be there during the Thunder Over Louisville airshow and fireworks display which begins the two week long Kentucky Derby Festival. This was kind of awesome.

I somehow resisted the sweet taste of street cigars.

We ended up at the Fourth Street Live! entertainment district and were attempting to leave. Well it turns out there are a lot of people in town during the Kentucky Derby Festival. The word about the derby really seems to have gotten around. Traffic was so bad that Ubers couldn't get to us. This effectively killed the night.

Luckily I am a genius and my hotel was a block away from this disaster.

I do think that I met up with the survivors a bit later but for the most part the deed was done. 

My wonderful cousin Allison sent me an invite to her wedding reception some time later to be held in Louisville. This trip there wrecked me with the lack of sleep, the terrible non direct flights, and the cost of travel skyrocketed because everyone was thirsty for traveling as covid finally started to go away. Not only that but Lydia would have come which would have doubled these costs. We gamed it out and I think it legitimately cost more than a Europe trip should cost. We declined the invitation and I still feel bad about it.