Float Trip at the Scene of the Crime

Friday after work we headed toward Blue Springs Ranch in Bourbon, Missouri for a little floatin'.

We stopped at Walmart on the way for ironically patriotic supplies.

Lydia was swept up in the patriotism and insisted that I buy her this shirt. Who was I to infringe upon her freedoms?

The bugs beat us there.

I haven't been back to Blue Springs since college. The distinguished gentlemen of Phi Alpha Literary Society came here for Spring Weekend, stayed in their cabins, and destroyed them. We regarded the posted lists of rules as a checklist. Through the haze of time and alcohol I distinctly remember someone making a game out of slapping baloney on the wallpaper. I also recall a lot of furniture being burned in the fire pit... and maybe a clock in particular. One nice thing about getting older is that once the statute of limitations is up you can publicly brag about your crimes. Through the magic of email and my inability to ever delete them, I present to you the circa 2002 email that Blue Springs sent to the men of Phi Alpha:

"Bros,

Although this is a fairly serious letter, it has got to be one of the funniest

things I have read in a long time.  I could go through this thing line by line

and make fun of it, but I think it truly speaks for itself.  I particularly

enjoyed the itemized list of our atrocities.  I also like the implementation

of the new "Phi Alpha" rules.

Baldwin

PS- I included the pictures they sent me from Dan's Monster Truck Rally

Dear Cortney:

This letter is written in reference to your group's recent visit to Blue

Springs Ranch. Illinois College is one of the few college's who are still

allowed to come to Blue Springs during their spring breaks. In the past, we've

had other college's who are no longer allowed to make reservations to stay at

our facility. I want your group to be aware that the relationship that we have

with Illinois College has been placed in jeopardy.

After the repeated warnings to several members of your group this past

weekend, it should come as no surprise to you when I tell you that we are

disappointed by the ill mannered behavior, property damage, peace disturbance,

the disregard for our other guests regarding our quiet hours, along with the

customer complaints that we received during your group's brief visit. It

should also come as no surprise that you have already forfeited your $200

damage deposit and still have a balance due which will have to be paid before

your group is allowed to make another reservation.

When your group left our facility it was reported and witnessed that your

members left the cabins and yards completely trashed, vomit on the carpets,

urine on our beds, pictures missing, chairs broken, property damage from

vehicles driving off roads, fireworks trash in the yards, and towels racks

ripped off the walls.

When a group checks out, we expect to find unmade beds along with linens to

wash. We expect to do a reasonable amount of vacuuming and cleaning of floors.

Your people should be mature enough to understand the defInition of

"reasonable". Anything beyond "reasonable" is not acceptable and will no

longer be tolerated.

Because of this group's behavior, we've been forced to change our policies for

future groups from Illinois College.

These changes are as follows:

1. The damage deposit is increased from $200 to $500 being paid in cash on

arrival. Checks will not be accepted unless they are sent at least three weeks

in advance.

2. The group leader must arrive and pay the balance in full before keys will

be issued to any member. The group leader must arrive before the store closes

or no one will be admitted.

3. There will be a $50 clean up fee for every cabin if it is not cleaned up

prior to check out. This will be deducted from the damage deposit if the

cabins are not left in a reasonably clean condition - including but not

limited to trash picked up inside and outside, vomit cleaned up. If a bed has

been urinated on there will be a $200 fee to replace the mattress. If a sofa

or chair or carpet is urinated on, the entire damage deposit will be forfeited

immediately.

4. One person will sign a contract taking responsibility for the entire group.

One person from each cabin will sign a contract taking responsibility for the

individual cabin

5. The tax exempt letter for the group will be faxed to us before arrival or

you will pay sales tax on arrival

6. If quiet hours are not adhered to, any or every individual will be escorted

off of the property without no refund.

7. Any damages exceeding the damage deposit, will be billed to the

organization and must be paid before that organization can make another

reservation.

We look forward to having the Illinois College groups come and stay with us.

Your staying with us does provide a welcomed source of income in our

pre-season months. However, if your people intend to destroy our facility or

terrorize our other guests, you cannot possibly pay us enough to be welcomed.

I feel we've been pretty lenient when your groups visit but feel that certain

members have become disrespectful, inconsiderate, and have abused the latitude

that we've allowed in the past.

I've enclosed a statement for the damages incurred from the past weekend.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments.

Sincerely,

Sharon Strauser, Manager

Toilet severely stopped up with a complete roll of toilet paper not reported

to maintenance, store, or housekeeping

Two destroyed kitchen chairs            $60 (from cabin 6)

Two kitchen chairs destroyed            $60 (cabin 2)

One mattress urinated on                $100 (to replace)

Vomit cleaned up                        $50

Picture missing                         $30 (cabin 2)

Kitchen clock missing                   $10 (cabin 2)

Towel Rack tom off wall                 $20 (cabin 4) (labor to replace)

Off road damage to property             $100 (labor to repair)

Labor to repair and clean up            $40 (cabin 6)

Extremely trashed and filthy cabin cleanup      $50 (cabin 2)

Pissing off rednecks                    Priceless

Damage Deposit Received                -$200

Balance Remaining                       $320"

I recall the other societies being butthurt that we partied so hard that the entire college would now be punished with higher security deposits. I say unto them: let freedom ring.

The staff of Blue Springs was kind enough to include photos of some of the damage that was done to the grounds. A large gentleman named Eric, affectionately referred to as Big E, drove a large white Ford Explorer, I assume because it was the only car that his oversized carcass would fit into. Anyway it was dubbed the "Hosplorer", which is of course a portmanteau of the words explorer and hoe. Big E after what I'm sure was much thoughtful deliberation drove his large vehicle all over the grounds and tore them up real fine.

I include this one because it looks an awful like someone took a picture with an old school camera, had the film developed, then poorly scanned the photo.

Anyway we're back, thankfully under the cover of darkness. Lord only knows what inflation has done to that $320 we owe. I really should tell Lydia not to pull any upper deckers here because these people do not forgive and they do not forget.

The Bourbon Trail Part II: This Time, It's Personal

We woke up at our crummy motel, and to our surprise, neither of us had been raped even once! So that was good. After a couple of celebratory high fives we had to make a decision: stay in Bourbonland and see more, or take a trip to Kentucky's Creation Museum and very likely witness a life size diorama of Jesus riding a mastodon.  Decisions, decisions. The museum ultimately lost due to high cost ($25 per soul) and being about 2 hours out of our way. That place is definitely still on my list though.

We had picked up these cool little passports at Jim Beam's. They had a spot for a stamp from six of the area's bourbon makers. One you got all six, you could mail it in and get a free t-shirt. Challenge accepted.

The six stops on the trail were Jim Beam, Wild Turkey, Heaven Hill, Maker's Mark, Woodford Reserve, and Four Roses. This map, the printable version of the passport, and additional information can be found here. The Creation Museum is all the way up to the west of Covington.

With sacred quest in hand, we hit the road. As you can see from the map, many of the locations are a bit off of the beaten track. Maker's Mark and Woodford Reserve in particular I recall were in the middle of nowhere. The countryside was a sight worth seeing in itself though. The drive was very pleasant most of the time.

Heaven Hill was our first stop of the day. They had a really nice visitor center with a large museum type area. It also had the best tasting experience of all six locations. It was like a mini bourbon tasting class rather than the typical "here drink this and then get out of here" treatment we usually received.

You can see on these rack houses there are black stains on towards the bottom. They mentioned the phenomena at Jim Beam's, just saying that the bourbon aging process was releasing a lot of evaporated alcohol and that it turned the surrounding trees black. Our guide said these telltale black trees were one way the feds would find hidden moonshine stills during prohibition. I had assumed that this was just some sort of a stain. Well our guide at Heaven Hill talked a bit more about it, saying that it is actually a fungus. It's called Baudoinia compniacensis, it eats ethanol, and versions of it grow on stuff everywhere from the cold whiskey stills of Canada to the cognac cellars of... Cognac. According to a really interesting Wired article on the subject, it was only just properly classified a few years ago. Here some Louisville residents are suing the local distillers for causing their cars and houses to be covered in the stuff. 

You might think that sort of going on the same tour multiple times would get boring, but for me it was like taking the same class from three different teachers. Each had different parts of the story to tell. By the end I felt like I had a pretty good handle on the process. I wondered how much, if any, coordination there was by the different companies to cover different facets of the experience.

The rack houses are built with these x-beams in the center for stability. Our guide said the buildings are so heavy and flexible that they get hit by tornadoes with little effect. Here you can see a little string hanging down through a hole. The people that operate the warehouse use these to gauge how much the building is leaning while they add or remove barrels. 

This little elevator was wood on wood in order to prevent sparks. 

The tour ended in this barrel shaped tasting room. We smelled, swirled, tasted, added water, tasted again, and learned a ton.

 Here we were talking about the "legs" you seen after swirling the bourbon in its glass. The time it takes for them to fall back down tells your something about the mouthfeel of the bourbon.

The third and last tour we experienced was Maker's Mark. This place was really nice. The buildings were so well kept, and the grounds so scenic, and everything was so consistently branded that the place had a theme-parky sort of feel to it.

Speaking of theme-parky, I was startled when some family portraits started arguing with each other in the house where the tour begins.

 "Quart House. The oldest standing retail package whisky in America, circa 1889." Our guide said the building was raised so that the booze could be easily loaded onto a wagon.

Maker's Mark showed a great deal of the actual distilling process, which the others did not reveal.

Bourbon is basically just distilled beer. I don't think I knew that.

Despite what seemed like a big health code violation, I stuck my finger in the big vat of lumpy beer goop and  retrieved a big wad of it. It was not delicious.  I thought it was cool how warm and bubbly it was from all of the serious fermenting going on inside.

Here's a pretty cool little run through of the Maker's Mark bourbon assembly line. A Maker's Mark label says that it's "hand made", which I'm pretty sure they can claim only because the workers hand dip the bottles into the wax at the end. Another cool little tidbit was that the empty bottles come from the supplier in the same box that the full bottles will be shipped out in. You can see the empty boxes traveling in the background.

Kentucky Champagne

The Maker's Mark gift shop was definitely the coolest. They understood that the dipping part is completely awesome, so they allow tourists to dip their own special labeled bottles. Not only that, but my understanding was the staff would dip anything purchased in the store. There were golf balls, caps, and shot glasses each with a splash of red on them. Pretty cool, but I resisted. A wax dipped necktie is one of those things that seems amazing at the time, but I would probably wonder two weeks later what the heck I was thinking. Sightseeing will do that.

Lydia did a bottle for her daddy.

I thought this was odd. Not only were their prices higher, but they seemed to be proud of that fact. When I asked the cashier he said something completely different, that they had a souvenir license not a liquor license. Government is an interesting force.

The mom of the founder's family came up with the wax dipping, and she experimented on everything in the house.

Four Roses was by far my least favorite of the six. Parking was extremely limited, forcing us to park in this odd lot that seemed to be for employees. We walked in briefly to get our stamp, and didn't get a good vibe from one of the employees doing the tours. I wasn't impressed.

By this time we were concerned about having enough time to collect the rest of our stamps, so it was just as well that this place was sub-par.

We did a similar fly-by of Wild Turkey.

I decided we did have time for turkey-barrel riding though.

The ride to Woodford Reserve was gorgeous. There were grassy hills and horses all over the place. It was pretty much a living Kentucky postcard.

We made it in before close, but I think that the last tour was already over. This was the only place that charged admission to their tours, so we probably would have given this one a pass anyway.

Even their rack houses were fancy stone. They looked kind of like prisons.

Lydia got to try a Hot Brown in Woodford before we began the drive home. I had mine at the Brown Hotel, but I'm a pretty big deal.

The Bourbon Trail

"If you think fishing takes patience, you've never waited eight years for a bourbon" -Booker Noe

With the trials and tribulations of Kentucky Derby 2012 past, I was hoping for some quality Kentucky sightseeing. I knew that Bourbon Country was nearby, and I really wanted to see what that was all about. I'm really glad we did.  It was Sunday, and it took us a while to get our lives together, eat, and get out of Louisville. This was one of those days where you wander around with no purpose and everything just works out. My kind of day.

We were looking for somewhere unique to have lunch, and Lynn's Paradise Cafe fit the bill. It was filled with wacky stuff inside and out. There was a man walking around inside in a horse costume, for example. The wait for a table was like 2 hours though, so our time here was short.

We continued towards Bourbonland hoping to find something to eat with little success. We eventually gave up and ate at a Waffle House. We then drove to one of the closest bourbon operations from Louisville, Jim Beam. Beam was one of the nicer places that we went to. They put a strong emphasis on their history and storytelling.

I could smell the bourbon from the parking lot. It was a really sweet almost caramel or maple syrup sort of smell.  Earthy and sweet at the same time. 

The first thing one sees are these giant barn looking structures called rack houses. Bourbon has to be aged at least briefly to legally be a bourbon, but the length of time varies drastically. I can't remember exactly, but I think 12 years might have been the oldest I heard of during the trip. The mass market white label Jim Beam is aged 4 years. A bourbon like that will be blended though, so it will probably contain older bourbons, but the label has to read the youngest year in the bottle.

The warehouses were by far the coolest part. Except for the tourist fitted ones, the average warehouse has no electricity and minimal metal to avoid sparks. I saw a couple of pictures of what happens when a place filled with booze catches fire. It's pretty intense. The buildings are spaced a good ways apart so as not to domino each other, as awesome as that would be.

The smell in this place was amazing. It has really changed the way I smell whiskey when I drink it. I used to concentrate on the alcohol burning smell, but now the sweetness of it is really distinct to my nose. A nearby sign had all sorts of fun rack house facts: 

Anatomy of a Beam Bourbon aging warehouse. David Beam first adopted this innovative warehouse to work in harmony with the seasons. Built tall like a chimney, so the hot air rises to the top, and fresh air following in the bottom vent. We don't heat our warehouses and we don't cool them either. We give nature that responsibility. As a result, the hot Kentucky summers and cold winters play a big role in aging-and shaping-our whiskies. During the summer, our Bourbon expands and during the winter, it contracts, subtly changing the way those charred whiskey-filled barrels mature. Seven to nine stories tall, these warehouses hold around 20,000 barrels each. That's over a million gallons of Beam whiskey in each structure. Every barrel space has its own aging characteristic, depending upon its position in the warehouse. And the aged whiskey character mirrors that variety. Thus is the opportunity, Beam Bourbon-makers have mastered the "Art of the Cross-Section". "Cross-Sectioning" is a process of selecting barrels from across the house-top to bottom and inside out. Mingling select barrels in the "right" combinations, produces the complex and distinctive flavors that make Beam Bourbons the finest in the world.

Not only are the barrels apparently rolled by hand down these narrows passages, but the barrel has to be rolled perfectly so that the plug is facing upwards.

Our guide said that if a barrel leaks they can't just patch it with whatever because it would come in contact with the bourbon and ruin the magic. They would use an old school method of shoving a slice of cattail into the space between the wooden slats. This would expand and hopefully stop the leak. I had to resist sticking my tongue out when I spotted a leak.

Here was a reproduction of the traditional way of making the bourbon.

Booker Noe, grandson of Jim Beam.

The fact that there was a Jim Beam leather biker jacket, just the right size, on the sale rack in the gift shop seemed to me to be a sign that we shouldn't ignore. The gift shop also featured tastings of various bourbons. I'm pretty much an expert now.

Old stencils used to label the barrels.

Next on our journey was Bardstown, the self proclaimed Bourbon Capital of the World.  We stopped by the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey to brush up on our history. My favorite part of the museum was the artifacts from Prohibition. What a stupid time in American history.

The federal government was a popular topic during the Beam tour, and it is an important part of the story of bourbon.  Prohibition obviously had a large impact, but even present day they said the government is very much involved in their business. I believe the figure tossed out was that 60% of the cost of a bottle of whiskey is taxes applied to liqour before it's even bottled.  Because the government gains such a large amount of revenue from this business, they watch it like a hawk and regulate it in numerous ways. The term "bourbon" itself is protected by Congress and enforced internationally through trade agreements. For example a bourbon must be produced in the US. It doesn't have to be made in Kentucky, but something like 95% of it is anyway because Kentucky has magical water and the right grains and whatnot. The law also saws that their can't be any added flavors or colors or anything, which I appreciate. I think I am a convert due to just the American and natural aspects.

This was one of my favorites. If you drink liquor, the troops are going to starve. Why do you hate America?

Oh my favorite part of the Prohibition story was the federal government filling the law with loopholes for its friends. Certain distilleries were allowed to continue operation in order to produce alcohol for medicinal purposes. It was really startling how similar the situation at that time is to our current ridiculous treatment of marijuana. I don't smoke it personally, but I'm sure it will become legal in my lifetime.

Our tour guide spoke about the barrel "char" that Jim Beam used, and said that it differed with different manufacturers. We both agreed they all looked the same.

"Jim Beam Distillery, 1938" It doesn't look much different now.

Downtown Bardstown was decent looking and kinda touristy. By the time we got there everything was closed, but it was still nice for a stroll.

White trash chalices were for sale.

We happened upon the old Kentucky plantation home called Federal Hill that supposedly inspired Kentucky's state song "My Old Kentucky Home" which is sung at the Kentucky Derby. According to Wikipedia this story is BS, but the place is still a state park. Amusingly, it wasn't until 1986 that the song's lyrics were changed from "darkies" to "people".

The home is featured on the reverse of Kentucky's state quarter. The place reminded me of Beecher Hall a bit.

A sort of strange statue of the song's author, Stephen Collins Foster, likely about to be stepped on by a giant.

I insisted that Lydia try the Derby Pie. The only other time I've had it was at last year's Derby.



We ate the pie right out of the pan like a couple of hobos. It was breakfast, and dessert, and probably another meal.

View Kentucky Trip in a larger map  To complete the awesome make-it-up-as-we-go nature of the day, we had not reserved any lodging. We decided on this kind of run down little motel near the center of town. I don't think I've ever stayed at a place like that before. It was pretty great.