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.

The Seelbach

My St. Louis friend Kyle is getting married and someone decided to have his bachelor party in exotic Louisville, Kentucky. I pulled some hero friend moves and actually committed to attend. What a class act. The flights were brutal. I took a redeye planning to sleep on the plane but I was unable to, plus the time zone difference combined to be a tortuous situation.

Louisville airport is actually kind of cool. They do a lot of work showcasing local cool things.

I did pull an adult move and dodge the large group Airbnb in favor of booking myself a hotel. I actually got here a day early and worked out of the Seelbach Hilton Louisville. It was very conveniently located near the Fourth Street Live! entertainment area. Pretty much the same thing as Ballpark Village.

The hotel was a beauty. It opened in 1905 and has a lot of fun history.

F. Scott Fitzgerald frequented the hotel in April 1918, while training for his deployment in World War I. One night after expensive bourbon and cigars however, he had to be restrained and was ejected from the hotel. This experience seemingly did not tarnish his memories however, as he later included a fictional hotel akin to the Seelbach as the setting for the wedding of Tom and Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. In this story it is referenced that Tom "Rented out an entire floor of the Mulbach hotel" which could either refer to the Grand Ballroom (once located on the roof of the hotel) or the Rathskeller room (located in the basement) where Fitzgerald often went to the bar.

I had a sip in the bar.

The Seelbach is such a baller hotel that it has its own cocktail, the Seelbach.

1

ounce bourbon, preferably Old Forester

½

ounce triple sec

7

dashes Angostura bitters

7

dashes Peychaud’s bitters

5

ounces domestic sparkling wine, preferably Korbel Brut, chilled

Orange twist, for garnish

After work instead of immediately going to hang out with my friends it's possible I... took a tour of the hotel.

Our tour guide Larry Johnson has worked at the hotel since 1982. Here's a picture of him with KISS.

He even wrote a book about the place.

A bunch of US presidents have stayed here, as well as some famous gangsters including Al Capone. One of the rooms had a secret door in the wall that people would use to evade the police.

Upon seeing the barracks packed with unwashed mouthbreathers I was happy with my decision to instead stay where Al Pacino and Russell Crowe filmed scenes from the Insider. Sorry plebeians.

We hit some bars.

I was having trouble remembering a lot of the new guys' names so I just called this man Snoopy the rest of the trip.