NEAT Bourbon Chase
This past weekend we ran about 200 miles through Kentucky just to drink bourbon.
Was it worth it? Abso-frickin-lutely! We also had some other fantastic experiences that you might not think to do while in Kentucky (not including running). So whether you’re an avid runner or are just interested in unique things to do in Kentucky, here’s a play by play from our neat weekend!
Ragnar Bourbon Chase
The main reason that we traveled to Kentucky when we did was for the yearly Ragnar Bourbon Chase Relay Race. Our team of 12, aptly named This Team’s NEAT, ran from Bardstown through Springfield, Danville, Lawrenceburg, Frankfort and finished in Lexington. Our race started at 8:30 am on Friday (Oct. 15th) and we crossed the finish line just before 4:00 pm on Saturday (Oct. 16th).
If you’ve never heard of Ragnar Relays before, the way they work is that the course is split up into 36 legs and each team member on your team of 12 runs three legs. The team of 12 splits up into two vans composed of runners 1-6 and runners 7-12. The first van starts with runner 1 who then passes off to runner 2 after their first leg and they continue to run in relay-style. Runner 6 then passes off the metaphorical-baton to runner 7 in the second van (we actually pass off a GPS tracked slap bracelet). This continues to relay through runner 12 and then back to runner 1 to start off the second set of legs. This is then repeated a third time where we end at the finish line!
Our team was from all around the country (California, Florida, Louisiana, New Hampshire and Washington) so we flew into Louisville on Thursday before the race. We all stayed at the Sleep Inn & Suites in Shepherdsville (originally, Bourbon Chase was starting at Jim Beam in Clermont), which was only a 35 minute drive to the new starting line at Bardstown Bourbon Company. I would definitely recommend this hotel for its proximity to the Louisville airport and distilleries, affordable price and comfort. It was a no-frills hotel with all your lodging necessities and great customer service. Seriously, they came and replaced a full AC unit right away for one of my team members because their unit was acting up.
At the starting line we had beautiful, crisp fall weather and a lovely pink sunrise over the rickhouses on Bardstown’s campus. However, shortly after our race started, the clouds rolled in bringing rain. Lots of rain. Everyone on the team was a good sport about running in the rain and luckily we prepared properly with raincoats and most of us had an extra pair of running shoes. Pro tip: pack each running outfit in a plastic/water proof bag, so that after you wear it, you can put it back into that bag and you don’t have to worry about it getting the rest of your clothes wet (or smelly). In the middle of the night the storm got so bad and brought lightning along with it causing the race to be paused for about an hour. After the storm passed, the sun came out and we were all able to really enjoy our final legs of the race!
We were able to stop periodically for short breaks along the course while our other teammates were running. One van was able to stop at Copper & Oak in downtown Danville for a delicious lunch. The restaurant is a part of the Bourbon Trail (and is even on the Bourbon Trail Passport) and I highly recommend stopping in here for food. And make sure to grab some amazing locally roasted coffee just a couple doors down at Dry Stack Coffee Co. The other van got to pop their heads into Wilderness Trail Distillery and get a taste of some of their bourbon. After the runners in the first van finished all three of our legs, we were able to head to downtown Lexington and grab some breakfast while waiting for the rest of the runners to finish their legs. We stopped at Doodles and they were uncharacteristically busy for a Sunday morning, however their breakfast is well worth the wait. Everything we ordered was delicious and don’t forget to order the beignets! And in case you’re wondering, yes, they do have cocktails! The hot apple cider with bourbon was perfect for sipping on their patio while enjoying the brisk fall morning.
At the finish line we were able to taste a variety of bourbons from Town Branch, Bluegrass Distillers, Bardstown Bourbon, Maker’s Mark, Jim Beam, Four Roses and Barrel House. I tasted Bluegrass high rye bourbon, Four Roses single barrel and Maker’s Mark cask strength. These were all Kentucky straight bourbons, meaning they’re produced entirely in Kentucky and aged for at least 2 year in new charred oak barrels. Each one was quite tasty, but my team was hungry and tired, so we didn’t stick around to try each bourbon available.
Saturday night: No more running!
I’m sure you can imagine that after running for 30 hours with very little sleep, getting dressed and going out for a nice meal is extremely low on your priority list. However, food is a top priority. So I ordered plenty of BBQ from Blue Door Smokehouse for us to eat at my AirBnB. As soon as I walked into Blue Door to pick up the BBQ, my stomach started growling because it smelled like heaven. On Saturdays they close once they sell out and that’s usually before 5 pm. They’re brisket and pulled pork are crowd favorites and I can clearly see why! Both were juicy, tender and so flavorful. Their sides are no joke either. We got the collard greens, baked beans and potato salad and there wasn’t a single bite of food remaining after dinner.
The rest of the team stayed down the road at the Avid Hotel in Lexington. This is a brand new, very modern hotel that opened a couple months prior and has all your hotel essentials. It’s not necessarily in a walkable area of Lexington, but it’s about a 15 minute drive to downtown Lexington and is close to Keeneland Race Track, which is a popular place to be in October.
Sunday Funday
After a shower and a great night's sleep, we were all ready to adventure in Kentucky! First on the itinerary was of course coffee. We popped into A Cup of Commonwealth, where they serve up coffee made by local roasters, Magic Beans. Their coffee is delicious and the coffee shop is clearly centered around community!
We then drove about an hour back to the Bourbon Chase starting line: Bardstown Bourbon Company. There we did the Honey Spot Barrel Thieving, where we tasted three different bourbons straight out of the barrel in their rickhouse. Bardstown Bourbon just began operations in 2016, so being that they are so young, the bottles that they have released so far are blends of mature whiskeys that they've sourced from other distilleries. Some of those blends include their own younger distillate, however in 2023 they plan to start releasing bottles of whiskeys produced entirely from their distillery.
During the tasting, they started us off with a wheated bourbon (68% corn, 20% wheat & 12% malt) that was distilled in March of 2018. There was some light, fruitiness that came across, however I was getting a lot of waxy notes. Then we moved on to a traditional bourbon (78% corn, 10% rye & 12% malt) that was distilled in November 2016. This had some spicy notes on the palate with a lot of syrupy notes on the nose. The third barrel we tried was a rye whiskey (95% rye & 5% malt) that had more malty and fruity flavors than the two bourbons. We finished the tasting with Bardstown Fusion Series #6 in a beautiful speakeasy that was built into the rickhouse. Honestly, my palate was exhausted after having three cask strength whiskeys, so I don’t remember my tasting notes from Fusion #6. It was a lovely tasting! Pro-tip: bring your own travel sized glencairns because they use plastic cups in the rickhouse and those aren’t ideal for tasting. I included a NEAT Dram in each team member's swag bags and we were so glad we brought them. They’re compact, hard to break and the ideal shape for properly tasting spirits, so perfect for touring multiple distilleries.
After the tasting, we grabbed a quick bite to eat at Wings & Rings down the street (because I forgot to make a reservation at the Kitchen and Bar at Bardstown Bourbon and they book our weeks in advance). It was affordable, everyone was happy with their food and they were able to seat all 12 of us together. Then we headed straight to Copper & Kings in Louisville for our Barrel-to-Bottle Experience.
I know what you’re probably thinking, you went to a brandy distillery while you were in bourbon country? Yes, we did and it was awesome! A lot of the tasting notes that you get in bourbon, you can also find in brandy. And they barrel age their brandies at Copper & Kings, so the familiar notes of vanilla and caramel come through. I’m not saying the brandies tasted like bourbon, but you should give brandy a chance and test your bourbon palate using a variety of spirits. Anyways, we toured the distillery and got to see their beautiful Vendome copper pot stills that they use for distilling their brandies, gins and absinthes. Then we ventured through the basement, where they age some of their spirits while blasting bass heavy music. We started the tasting with their signature American brandy that’s pot distilled from fermented muscat grapes and aged in Kentucky bourbon & American oak barrels. We were then able to choose 3 other spirits to taste, some of which were available for us to bottle ourselves if we chose to take some home with us.
I tasted their grape brandies aged in a Wilderness Trail barrel and a High West barrel and liked both of them so much that I took both home. I was pleasantly surprised by how much of High West’s distillery character came through in the brandy, but it added wonderful spicy and herbal layers of complexity to the brandy. My mom also liked the brandy aged in the High West barrel and took that home. Another team member bottled one of the barrel aged gins to take home. It was a very memorable experience that I highly recommend checking out.
Next we were off to use our palates in a completely different way. We went to Maddox & Rose Marketplace for custom candle making! I bet you weren’t expecting that plot twist. Smell is, without question, the most nostalgic sense. And your nose is so important when it comes to tasting whiskey and other spirits, so it’s imperative to train it if you want to improve your ability to analyze spirits. We used our noses to pick out a variety of scents that we were drawn to from a library of options. And then from there we combined 2-3 of those scents together to create our own unique candle fragrance. It was so fun to see what everyone picked and how different our preferences were. I went with pumpkin spice, hazelnut and caramel crunch, so clearly I like my candles to smell like a delicious, fall dessert. This was such a unique and fun experience that I would definitely recommend doing while visiting Louisville to take a break from distillery tours.
For dinner, we headed around the corner to Feast BBQ (BBQ ends up being the theme for the weekend). They had great sausages and sides and their bourbon section was pretty top notch! I was excited that they had the three recent releases of Old Fitzgerald Bottled-in-Bond. I love Heaven Hill and haven’t been able to find any Old Fitz for a reasonable price, so I was thrilled to be able to taste some. I went with the Fall 2018 release, which is a 9 year old bourbon because I’ve read great reviews about it (check out the review from Breaking Bourbon). It was certainly tasty and had an amazingly rich mouthfeel. I don’t trust my tasting notes because I was surrounded by flavorful BBQ, but there were definitely classic Heaven Hill notes of caramel, spice, vanilla and toasted nuts.
On our way back to our AirBnb, we stopped at Decca for a classy cocktail to cap off the night. Their basement bar has a cozy, speakeasy vibe that pairs well with their well made cocktails.
Casual Monday
Since I didn’t know how exhausted the team would be after a jam packed weekend, I played it safe and didn't book any distillery tours or tastings for Monday. Unfortunately, that meant that all the distilleries in Louisville were booked up when I woke up Monday morning. So we took our time packing up and getting out of the AirBnb. We went to Please & Thank You for coffee and the best cookies in Louisville. Then we strolled down Market Street and popped into the Angel’s Envy gift shop. They weren’t able to fit us into a tasting, but you can peek into the distillery through the windows to get a glimpse of the action at the bottling line. We then wandered along the waterfront and enjoyed the perfect weather.
We stopped at Doc Crow’s for a wonderful BBQ lunch (see, I told you BBQ was the theme for the weekend) before we headed to the airport. It was so hard to pick a whiskey from their 60-ish page long menu. Make sure to get a plate of the Heap’n Chips (it’s their take on pulled pork nachos) to share for the table. To close out the weekend, I ordered a glass of Bardstown Bourbon finished in Copper & Kings American Brandy barrels. This was a 10 year old MGP bourbon (75% corn, 21% rye & 4% malt) that was finished for 18 months in American brandy barrels from Copper & Kings as a part of Bardstown Bourbon’s Collabor&tion series with Copper & Kings. It was released in 2017 and is/was only available in some KY retail stores. It was the most delicious bourbon I had tasted all weekend!
Bulleit Points:
If you’re part of the team TLDR, then here’s our weekend itinerary with the addresses for every place we stopped. Make sure to book things in advance!
I hope this itinerary helps you to have just as wonderful of a trip as we had!
