Programing made possible by Bardstown, Kentucky.

There's something beautiful about a small town.

And for Rose's bourbon.

Thank you for your support.

Did you know Kentucky has more navigable miles of water than any other state in the U.S. except Alaska?

Is Alaska still a state?

It's 90,000 miles of streams and dozens of rivers.

It's also quite famous for some other liquids, those which flow from a barrel.

That being beers, bourbons and wine.

Many of the world's best known distilleries can be found right here in the Bluegrass State.

And interestingly enough, pretty darn close to many of our lakes, rivers and streams.

We're here to take you on an expedition of the secrets and histories of our intricate waterways while visiting Kentucky's distilleries, breweries and wineries.

I'm Carrie.

And I'm Kyle.

And we're two Kentuckians who are very proud of our state.

And we share a sip of what the Commonwealth has to offer.

My plan.

Hey, Kyle.

Well, hello there, Carrie.

How are you?

Yeah, this is a beautiful old home.

Well, you know, it is a pretty historic old home.

This has some significance in Kentucky.

It's mild, but not really mine, Actually.

Would you be talking about Stephen Foster and our state song, My Old Kentucky Home?

That's the fella.

Yep.

He did that, too.

That's one, you know, at home.

A few, But I'm going to spare me one that.

Oh, come on, Kyle.

The sun is shining bright.

That it is.

And what a fantastic day for it to be shining.

This is the annual Kentucky Bourbon Festival in Bardstown.

Hi.

I'm going to go and check out how to make bourbon, how to mix it, and how to pair it with food, huh?

Well, I know you know how to drink it, so we don't have to worry about that.

What about you?

What are you guys going on?

Well, I'm going to learn a little bit of the history about Bardstown, and then I'm going to take a couple of paddles on two different forks of the Salt River, the beach fork and the bowling for it to the salt.

Well, you know what?

We've got a very full day plan.

So how about this?

Let's meet up for breakfast at a local cafe watering hole and catch up when we learn.

That sounds great.

Don't stay out all night.

Have fun.

Wow.

We are here in historic Bardstown, Kentucky, at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival.

Standing outside the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History.

We're going to go inside that Museum of Whiskey History and learn a little bit about the grains that it takes to make that wonderful concoction.

Let's check it out.

You know, and the hall some.

Excuse me.

Please.

In order to save us before we start the class.

So, Tyler.

Very interesting session you just went through.

Thank you.

What?

You guys are doing this moonshine university.

Tell me just a little bit about that.

So, Moonshine University.

We are a spirits education facility located in downtown Louisville, Kentucky.

And we opened up in 2013.

That's when we had our first class was in January of that year.

And what we do is we teach people how to start their own distilleries.

So you guys came down today to the Bourbon festival to talk a little about whiskey grades and what goes in there, which we had a little display here at the museum behind us on that.

We don't know how many varieties.

So there are four main grades that comprise about 95% of all of the whiskeys out there, and that is corn, rye, wheat and malted barley.

So I say I am only giving that caveat to malted barley because you can.

Yes, you can.

Malt and grain.

But malted barley has the highest enzymatic potential out of all of those different grains.

And you want those enzymes to convert those starches that are present in those grains into sugar.

Science, we all know I love science and bourbon.

So by converting those starches into sugar, that is what those yeast yeast or the little fungus that create alcohol.

So they eat the sugar and give them to alcohol and carbon dioxide.

Right.

So depending on so, for example, bourbon, this is bourbon.

That's you must use at least 51% in a recipe.

That's all it says.

The rest is up to interpretation.

So you can use any other kind of corn that you want to use.

So be it.

White corn, blue corn, Purple corn, caramel, corn, caramel corn.

I mean, it doesn't say the word that's better.

Corn.

I don't see any issues with that.

Craft distillers, they they're all alchemists in their field now because they know they don't want to.

They can't beat these big heritage brands that are all present, you know, here in Bardstown.

They can't beat them at their own game.

They know that.

Why try and fight a behemoth on at its own, you know, in its own playground.

So they do something else.

So that's why they want to do blue corn or, you know, you know, Jeff, the Creed, for example, out in Shelbyville, these billy butcher corn.

Right.

And that creates a vastly different flavor profile than just, you know, your typical standard yellow two, number ten corn, which is what's typically used in the majority of the industry.

And that's what at this bourbon festival, when you go around, if you come to Bardstown, right, you're going to be able to try a lot of the.

Oh, yeah, I think we should probably go find some of those.

What do you think.

We are in Bourbon country.

This is the place.

To do it.

Good point.

You know, and my garage looks a lot like this room.

Is there a problem with having the stills at home?

I understand that you're going to tell me a little bit today about the history of barge towns formation.

Right.

And, you know, I talk history like other people talk sports.

So I always want to people when they leave here to understand more about where they've been visiting.

Carrie, I want to take you down Broadway.

I have some of my beautiful old homes here and I think you would enjoy seeing.

Oh, absolutely.

I love old houses.

So tell me a little bit about the history of Bardstown.

Well, it goes back to 1780 when William Barr, the surveyor, would lay out like a town on the land that his brother David Barnett owned.

They had acquired this land through a land warrant from the French Indian War.

They laid it out on top of this hill because it's so much healthier to live up on the hill where all the water, plus all the dirt and manure and everything over the hill.

And so that's what would happen here.

Sounds state in 1780.

We became a county in 1785, and then we became Bardstown, Kentucky, in 1792.

Wow.

We have over 300 houses are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Wow.

You're standing in the middle of 20 of them.

You see the plaque on the wall?

Yeah, we know that all over town.

And different houses give you a little history and also lets you appreciate what the early settlers did and what they had to face.

Lots of people ask me where Bardstown got its name and they first saw it is Shakespeare, you know, the Bard.

And of course, I have to tell you, that's not exactly why the Bard came from the Bard family.

And they didn't call it Bardstown.

They call it Salem.

So Salem was the name for the first three years, but everyone referred to it as Bard's Town because he planned it and he was marketing it.

So from 1784 on in Bardstown.

So the railroad arrived here too, not too long after.

Right before the Civil War, one year before the Civil War, just in time to start hauling the Yankee materials.

This tombstones, the horses, the hospital goods.

Well, so now, after the Civil War is when bourbon really became a big thing here.

You know what we like to say?

The union soldiers came and we gave them a taste of bourbon.

And from then on, they were going to buy Kentucky bourbon.

And when the railroads expanded out west, that's where our market expanded.

We put our barrels of whiskey on those car, those rail cars, sent them to Colorado, to California, to Texas.

Anywhere that rail with our bourbon can go.

How?

Well, Dixie, you're going to take me to where it all started?

I hope so.

If you don't have it, you don't have bourbon.

All right, let's go to you.

This is some kind of museum.

I got to say.

They've got a little bit of everything in here.

And anyways, all this science talk has made me thirsty as usual.

So I say we go check out some mixology and maybe go try a drink.

So, Linda, we're here in this pretty cool old saloon in historic Bardstown, Kentucky.

And what exactly are you doing here at the Bourbon Festival?

A day?

I was actually very honored to be asked to participate in a class.

I'm called The Art of the July, and we're going to be sharing with or we did share with folks the history of the julep, where it came from and how it became the classic for the Kentucky Derby.

Right.

I've heard about this at that big horse race in Maine.

So the Derby and the Julep, they do go hand in hand.

Absolutely.

The essential ingredient for a mint julep.

This good crushed ice.

You fill it up with crushed ice, you add a little bit of simple sirup, you put the bourbon in and then you put disfigurement.

I'm not sure.

But today you went through some fancier stuff.

Actually, a little bit of a twist on these things.

I actually did.

We had fun with The Julep today, and part of the deal of Julep comes back from way, way, way back when.

And the ancient age where it was the word julep, which is a Arabic word for julep, or it was rosewater that was mixed with liquor.

And it was kind of like the old adage of a spoonful of sugar will help the medicine go down.

It was something to add to elixirs and medicines to help make it a little bit more palatable.

And when it came to the south, they there was a lot of different whiskeys being made out there.

Some more good, some were not so good.

So to make them more palatable, you'd add a little flavoring, a little bit of fruit, a little bit of sugar, and make a cocktail.

Today what we did is we did the classic mint julep, but we also had a couple of different twists.

We made a BlackBerry basil julep using a BlackBerry basil, simple sirup and bourbon.

Every family has their own recipe and their own traditions of when and how they served juleps.

And so we wanted to bring that to life today for some of our guests.

How cool is that?

So but what you're saying is that spoonful of sugar or this medicine of this medicine, it's.

Gotten a lot better over time.

If you go back in old age when back in the 1800s where, you know, whiskey was a hot commodity, people were making it and trying to make it look brown with a lot of different things and such.

Well, rusty nails, tobacco, spit flavor, really delicious, right?

So to make it to more palatable, you put a little sugar in it to make it to where you would drink it.

Well, thanks so much for taking the time to show us some of these these beautiful, wonderful cocktails.

Thank you.

I appreciate.

It.

Thank Linda.

So, Joy, you know, we're up here in the VIP loft.

Yes, we are.

And, you know, I've been told you're somewhat of a VIP.

They take good care of me when I come down here.

Well.

Why is that?

What?

What, what?

What is going on?

I've been a bartender for over 50 years.

I live in Louisville, and I was lucky enough to write two cocktail books, the Kentucky bourbon cocktail book and more.

Kentucky bourbon cocktail.

Because you need to see so many years bartending in you.

So bourbon cocktail, You had something to do with that.

I was telling you about.

So?

So I started doing all of these crazy infusions and making crazy cocktails, and I got a lot of sweat.

You were new to Bourbon and, you know, all the old, you know, the old cigar smoking dude.

You go, Hey, I'm mine.

The bottle of bourbon.

I can do anything I want to do.

You surveyed every bar in Kentucky.

I guarantee you, 50% of the bourbon drinkers drink it with Coke or Sprite or ginger ale or Diet Coke or, God forbid, tonic.

Oh, but, you know, it is what it is.

And here I am.

And I knew.

Because of that we're going to talk to you.

So it's all over me drinking the exact toilet and.

Notice a little glass window where we're advertising right.

Here.

This is the Kentucky Bourbon Festival.

Joy, it's been an absolute pleasure.

Enjoy the Kentucky bourbon Fest.

Count on it.

Enjoy the.

I'll take see.

What is this behind us?

Well, remember I told you I wanted to take you where you had to find this one ingredient that's very important to whiskey making.

From the very beginning, the first settlers, they would come and they plant their corn, but they had to have water, and they had to have pure water.

And we're sitting in front of the Tom Moore Spring.

Wow.

So this is where bourbon began.

Began at this distillery.

Yes.

Because Tom Moore and Natalie Moore were partners.

They started distillery right over the hill here.

They use this spring as their source of clear, pure water.

Well, Mr. Mattingly, Mattingly was kind of loose with his money and he and Tom Moore divided.

And Tom went 100 feet down the road, I mean, within spitting distance, almost started his own distillery.

So we have Tom Moore and we have Mattingly, Moore, two distilleries, one source of water.

Wow.

And that water is still running.

And we're talking 1884, 1890.

We didn't have city water here.

We call it city water now treated water.

We didn't have it here until about 1920.

Wow.

So if you were a distillery, you had to find your limestones first.

And most distilleries are located where the limestone springs are.

It's nice if you're along the railroad, but you've got to be along the limestone spring.

Well, Dixie, if we're not using this water for bourbon anymore, where's it going?

Well, it's where all water goes downhill.

In this case, this spring is coming out of the side of this hill, like many in Kentucky, goes downhill to the creek.

The creek runs downhill to the river, which is directly ahead of us.

That's the beach fork where the beach park runs into the rolling fork.

The rolling fork and the salt and the into the Ohio.

Now, why do we want to keep up with those rivers?

Because that's where we put the bourbon barrels on the flat boats.

Send them down the river to Natchez, New Orleans, and they brought the money back.

Well, Bardstown seems like it's the real heart of Bourbon country.

So it's perfect for the Bourbon festival to be here, right?

Well, we've been doing the Bourbon festival 26 years, and the thing that makes me so happy with it is the volunteers that helped do it.

And then we bring everybody from the distilleries together.

We bring the guys who wrote the barrels, we bring the people in the bottling house, we bring the drivers of the trucks.

All of them come together as a big family and they make their their cohorts and other distilleries.

Now, I can remember when there were only nine distilleries here in Kentucky.

Today they tell me there's 52.

There's no way I'm going to know all a distillery, master distilleries and 52 to still.

Wow.

Well, thank you so much, Dixie, for showing us this great spring.

Well, it's one of the few in Kentucky that I can say has been providing water to distilleries since the middle of the 1800s.

That's incredible.

We're here at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, which is a pretty fantastic event.

And there's some bourbon.

And today there was some ham.

So my question is really, you know, on a scale of 1 to 10, how sexy do you find the salted meat category?

That's a great question.

I think it's a ten because, I mean, cured meats to me is fantastic.

Cured meats.

Just really there's something about that's essential.

You know, people don't always understand just how good it is because they are eating it.

And two large portion is instead of a paper thin slice and they don't know what to pair it with.

And that's apparent with people.

You do.

That's what we're learning today, is this pairing of interesting that the cured ham with different types of.

Bourbon and you see they complement each other.

They have the shared flavor note of smoke, obviously the char of the barrel and the smoke of the country ham.

And you also see the caramel aspects, the citrus aspects also in whiskey that offset the the porky, tangy, salty flavors of ham.

So it works really, really well together.

And it can work well with tequila.

It can work well with wine.

It just ham plays well with alcohol.

I came across the pairing on a late night editing this book and nibbling on some ham and had a little whiskey.

And I thought, Eureka, this stuff matters so extremely well.

And that's really where.

It came from.

Aren't accidents the best way to discover great The truth?

Absolutely.

I mean, that's it.

So you wrote a whole book on this, and now we've we've here at the Bourbon Festival have been pairing these things.

You can really pair anything.

You just have to enjoy them and put them together.

And that opens up your interest in and it opens up your palate to new flavors and an explore.

That's what you need to do with flavors.

Explore.

And I think there was a gentleman there who poured all his bourbons into one glass, took a shot in the name of ham before you started.

But, you know, I mean, you know, to each their own right.

With ham and bourbon, it's just kind of a match made in heaven.

So your ham, you've got like this nice.

It's almost like a savory and saltiness.

And then it mixes so well with the sweetness of the bourbon and the characteristics that can be pulled through.

And food really enhances the bourbon experience.

What can I do to learn more about this?

Or how do I go about this?

What's experimentation is really great when it comes to this.

I'm just going to say sitting down, sipping and tasting and going through.

But in all honesty, when you're talking about how you compare, well, what I would do is, is taste your bourbon first and figure out what characteristics it is that you're finding in this.

Is there a sweetness, is there caramelized, Is there you know, are you getting a corn note out of it?

What are you really pulling from it?

And then how do you counterbalance that?

So if I get like a pear note, maybe I want to pair it with something a little bit more cinnamon, or if I'm getting already the bacon spicy notes, I want to take something that's going to kind of pull away from the spice of it and really kind of accentuate maybe there's a dried fruit note that would make it taste almost like a pie.

You know what?

Let's go.

Fine.

Eating and drinking.

I think there's something going on and I want to go check it.

Let's do it.

Let's do it.

All this well, it is a beautiful day for paddle on the beach.

Fork is a spiteri of the rolling Fort Cramer, which makes its way into the Salt River.

And the salt eventually makes its way into the eye of a river.

The Salt River is actually named for the first commercial industry that took place in Kentucky, which was Henry Crist.

Salt works at Bullitt Lick, which is in Bullitt County, close to here.

But the Salt Fork is is named for his operation there.

That started in 1779.

They used to make salt the old way then where they would boil off 400 gallons of water to make a £50 take a salt and all of that salt to get to.

The pioneers either had to go overland on old buffalo trails or it had to go down the river.

So being on the river was really important to those early pioneers who loaded all of their cargo onto flatbeds.

The Salt River was never one that could be easily navigated by steamboats, so flat boats went up and down this river until we found it our modern day highways and carried treads while we're on the beach, talk of the Salt River, and it drains about 600 miles of Anderson in Nelson.

And I think Washington, while they don't use the water from the beach fork to make bourbon, certainly why they founded Bardstown, the beach fork is the bottom of the hill, so the water can kind of wash things down.

There's actually a great little story about the beach fork.

During prohibition, some Boy Scouts were paddling and they thought would they smelled was maybe mom making some bread or some biscuits, but they went back and their parents called the sheriff's office and led the sheriff back to where they were smelling those scent sweet smells.

And it turns out there was an illegal moonshine still.

So they arrested seven people and impounded the still back in 1924.

So jail.

We're here at the Bourbon Fest Kentucky Bourbon Festival.

Lucky Bourbon Festival.

We're kind of a neat event.

Tell me about what events going on tonight here.

So this is called Bourbon Cigars and Jam.

We are at my old Kentucky home, Right.

Which is just a glorious venue.

The weather is spectacular.

So we've got a wonderful night.

We've got a little jazz trio play.

I hear some jazz music.

Yep, great music.

Why?

Why did this start?

What?

What was the idea?

How long's it been going on?

So this is our 26th year.

26 year.

And this started as one dinner on a golf course just to celebrate bourbon and the bourbon industry and everybody that's a part of that.

And when I say everybody, that's a part of that, I mean the farmers that grow our grains and I mean the truck drivers who transport all of our products, glass suppliers, label suppliers, all the fans.

Cooper Jones I met some guys in the.

Cooper just I mean, they're here.

Yeah, you got to have those barrels.

All the people that work in those industries.

So this has has turned from one night into a full week to celebrate that industry.

And our signature spirit.

As far as I know, you, if you're going to come to this and you're from out of town, you need to plan in advance.

Pretty good, right?

These rooms fill up fast.

They do.

I mentioned 60,000 people.

Oh, the rooms, the campgrounds.

But it's all good.

Like I said, Bardstown is you know, Bardstown is the bourbon capital of the world.

And they are also well versed in Kentucky hospitality.

So all of our residents really roll out the red carpet and welcome those guests in.

So, Jill, why is Bardstown, the Bourbon capital of the world?

Have you met my good friend Don?

She can give you all those details.

Maybe we should go find Don.

I think we should find out.

Let's find on.

Well, I'm Don Crystal.

I'm the director of tourism for Visit Bardstown and Nelson County.

And so my job is to tell the whole world about how wonderful Bardstown is and how you need to come see us.

When we were settled, they our settlers brought with them the tradition of distilling corn grew abundantly, so they distilled corn.

It was much easier to transport corn in liquid form than in visual form.

And so they brought that art of distilling with them.

And we've just got great that great limestone shelf.

We have great water, we have great seasons.

We're just like the perfect place, you know, in Kentucky and in Bardstown for for making bourbon.

And so they just kind of stuck.

Here We have, you know, nine distilleries within 20 miles, some of them, you know, big national, you know, Jim Beam, Heaven, Hill Maker's Mark.

But then we also have new distilleries coming in with like Throw and Bardstown Bourbon Company and Barton, of course, they're very well established.

But and then some smaller distilleries as well.

So it's just a you know, it's just a great place to make bourbon.

So we're we're steeped in history and bourbon come see us in the most beautiful small town America and bourbon capital of the world.

And we are here at this fantastic Kentucky Bourbon festival 26.

And I understand you, sir, have been to the first one.

Tell me a little bit about what makes this such a big deal.

It's a big deal because we are celebrating one of America's great industries.

It goes all the way back to the earliest days of the republic.

26 years now for this event.

How how is it how have you seen it evolved?

I mean, what's why why is it so special?

I'll tell you, when you're dealing something with has a history and heritage and tradition.

And that's what the industry is all about, how to produce iconic products that take time.

It's really I have to tell you, it's Kentucky's art form.

If you really want to get down to the basics of it.

I sure hope we get out to Heaven Hill and check out those spots on one of our shows coming up, because I know you guys have some great things going on over there.

You're welcome anytime.

Let's go check out this jazz music.

What do you say?

Cheers and then.

You don't look like you made it in last night.

Just spend the night.

One of those bourbon barrel.

No, but I almost spent the night here.

How bout you?

How was your paddling expedition?

Oh, it was great.

It was an absolutely beautiful day to be on the river.

You know, I set out to accomplish a few things, and I did, and ended up at the bourbon, cigars and jazz.

And then.

Oh, yeah.

Did you make it to all 52?

No, I made it to six, But they were good.

That's great.

Well, that leaves us plenty of opportunities for other.

Shows, right?

Exactly.

That's what I planned it that way, honestly.

Well, maybe you ought to start the morning off with a bourbon drink.

I think they've got a great Bloody Mary made out of Kentucky bourbon on the menu.

You know, I think I'm going to go with the hangover skillet.

And it looks to be a breakfast favorite here at Mammy's.

Oh.

Seems like a safe choice.

You know, it's been a fun time here in Bardstown.

I need a nap the next time we'll.

See you.

Downstream.