Program made possible by the Lawrenceburg Anderson County Tourism Commission.

Celebrating Our Spirits.

The Georgetown Scott County Tourism Commission.

Georgetown, Kentucky.

Pure small town charm and West.

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.

Whose 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 pale, and we are two Kentuckians who are proud of our state.

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

Well, hello there, Miss Carrie.

Kyle.

How are you doing?

I don't know.

You've got me on a really tall bridge over some water somewhere in Kentucky.

You tell me what's going on.

Well, Kyle, below us is the Kentucky River, and we're 240 feet above it on the young high ridge.

That's pretty high.

And we normally down in by the water or on the water and your boat or something.

Why don't we you know where we are?

But this is a pretty special bridge.

Kyle This bridge was built by the Southern Railroad and 1889, and it opened bourbon to the rest of the world.

Well, that is pretty special.

You know what?

And it's nice that you mentioned bourbon, because I need to go find some bourbon.

And I believe that here in Lawrenceburg there's quite a bit.

So I'm going to change before it starts to rain and go do that.

No, no, no, Kyle.

There's something else that makes this bridge really special.

And I'm going to introduce you to a friend who's going to explain it to you.

You've got time for it.

Hey, Dad.

Hey, what's.

Up, my friend?

Kyle.

Hey, Kyle and Doug.

I'm good.

Doug.

I'm pretty good, buddy.

That's what your shirt says.

So well done.

Tell me a little bit about how you came to bungee jump off this bridge.

Our history goes pretty far back.

Early nineties, we were.

Basically bootleggers of bungee jumping.

So one of our partners that was.

From here located the bridge.

Was able to find the owner.

And oddly enough, the owner was willing to sell it and we were willing.

To buy it.

So you bought this bridge.

You all own this bridge?

Yep.

We bought this whole section of rail line and nobody could buy a bridge.

That's fantastic.

Yeah.

You ready to get hooked up?

I got it.

Yeah, I'm all right.

I got it.

I got it.

I can't, but I appreciate that.

I got a challenge from your friends in Lawrenceburg.

I said, I wonder what this could be.

Cheryl, it looks like a wet envelope to me.

I got a soggy in the rain.

This rain?

Right.

What's a piece of paper?

Even better.

All right.

It says thanks to this medicine, we survived prohibition even though we weren't sick.

Find a piece of this history to cure what ails you.

Where people bungee jumping before Prohibition.

During prohibition.

They probably should have been serious.

I don't know, Kyle.

I guess we'll have to figure it out later today.

Whatever the reason.

For our jump.

Or what.

We're jumping, Kyle.

Yeah, We got gear that'll.

Fit you perfectly off this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, It's got you.

Come on.

Wow.

That's insane.

That was insane.

Hey, how you doing?

Hi.

Hi.

I'm Terry.

Hi, Gary.

I'm breadth.

I'm the master distiller for over.

Well, that's cool.

Would you like to take a paddle with me?

Oh, absolutely.

Climb aboard.

Let out a line of some pretty good.

Yeah.

I have a strong stroke on the other side.

Other side.

Here we go.

We got around here.

Oh, Brant, this is a beautiful river.

It is, isn't it?

How does the water.

What do you use the water for?

Pretty much everything in the distillery.

So are we using our fermentation to order that we use for our steam?

That we use in the distillation?

We use it for cooling water pretty much up this river we can make for roads and bourbon.

Is the Salt River the reason that we're roses is right where it is?

Yeah, and there have been distilleries on the site for the 1800s because the is used to always be located at the mills where they would mill the grains.

So as you know, mills are always located right there on rivers and water sources.

So it's very convenient they can mill the grains and you also have the water source for the actual production of the bourbon.

And we're just finishing up a a doubling of our capacity.

And so you talk about water.

When we decided that we had to expand, we knew that the easiest thing to do would be to go off site and build something, you know, a greenfield project somewhere else.

But because of the water, because of the location, we knew that if we moved offsite, we we'd risk the quality.

We might not get the same quality of roses off the steel that we expect.

That's what some agree.

And it goes into bourbon, if you think about it, of course, every piece is important.

The rye, the corn, the barley, the grains, the yeast.

But the majority of what goes in the bourbon is all water.

Is there something special about the water in the Salt River that makes it good for bourbon?

Oh, yeah.

The water in this river is perfect.

It has, of course, like all rivers in Kentucky, a lot of limestone.

And of course, you get runoff water.

But the majority of this water is coming from Springs, which means it's run through the ground.

If you know about Kentucky, you know, we saw a layer of limestone and limestone is very good for the production of bourbon in a part, the calcium carbonate that is good for the yeast.

So a nice, nice hard water with the the influence.

The limestone helps create Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey.

Right.

I think Kyle is supposed to meet you at the distillery.

You want to paddle on up and give him a tour of four roses?

Oh, sure.

Okay, that sounds great.

I'll set up that way.

Sounds great.

And this is a pretty fantastic spot you guys set up out here.

Where we at?

What's called Lover's Leap.

There's a winery, Lawrenceburg Construction.

There's a story behind that name.

I assume this place was named from the original owner.

It's a cliff that's overlooking the Kentucky River about a.

Quarter mile away.

So, I mean, it's and it's.

The same story.

The Indian girl takes a leap after finding out her.

Lover passed away.

So wanted to join them.

But hey, we're not talking about this.

This is a place of celebration and wine.

Right?

We've got we've got some some tiny grapes here starting to form What's growing here and how much of it's growing?

It's a pretty expansive vineyard.

You guys, we're one of the largest.

Producers in Kentucky.

We have a lot of different varietals out here, which makes us pretty unique.

This one is an American plant called Norton.

We've probably got more of that planted than most of the other vineyards in Kentucky, too.

You have to pay attention to it.

We the pruning portion of the job is is critical.

So you've got to get finished with it in time.

You don't.

Want to leave too many buds or on the on the vines to give them cause again, you'll have to go back through and you have to prune.

Back with overgrowth.

So you want to be protected.

Just in case you get those late for us.

But we it's a guess.

And a lot of times Mother Nature throws your curveball at the end and know we've had those years where we've had to overcome that stuff.

So you want to go inside and check out how these things all once they're grown to full capacity, what happens?

So yeah, this is where the work is and you get the placement on that and it's worth taking.

Brian Number two, right, right to Brian's on here.

That's a lot of Brian's.

But you're the Brian that's in charge of making the vino, right?

Correct.

I lead the winemaking team.

We work together as a team.

So right now we're standing in a place where I assume some of that process is happening.

We've got our little baby grapes out there now that have grown into big adults, jumped in a big wooden barrel with your team, stopped them all in the juice, and now you poured them into these giant fancy containers.

Tell me how this process works.

Well, we don't stomp.

We use a bladder press nice and clean.

So for for whites, we press right away and bring the juice into here and let it called cold soak for a little while, and then we'll start fermentation reds.

We'll just crush, put in a fermenter and pinch the yeast and start the fermentation there.

The other things that are done in here are cold stabilization.

Like this tank here is cold stabilizing the wine.

We're dropping.

Tartaric acid.

Right out of.

The out of the wine to a certain temperature so that a customer can refrigerate that wine and.

It not drop crystals in the bottle.

What are the challenges that you see that you have to deal with as far as the juice and processing and creating it at that point.

Protecting the juice from oxygen.

So we're we're actively trying to keep the juice from degrading in quality due to oxygen exposure.

Now, you want a wine to breathe, though, right?

Yeah.

Most wines benefit from breathing.

But if it breathes too much, if it's open for too long, that's where you get the starts to degrade.

Yeah, that'll be great.

So when you open a bottle of wine, it's important to drink it all really quickly.

That said, maybe we should go open a bottle of wine.

Sounds good to me.

It's good to take it out.

Okay.

Fantastic.

This is the place to be.

This would be the tasting room.

I assume a lover's leap.

How are you, sir?

I'm good.

How are you?

Welcome.

So, you know, I've been to a couple of wineries in my life and done some tastings, and they always have, like, a certain process, a certain order in the way that they let you taste their wines.

Tell me about what yours is here at Lovers Leap and why is there a specific process for how you taste wines and spas as the different varieties?

Well, the way we do it here, we definitely want to start with before you go reds.

You want to start high on the lists before you go down the list.

That is done because of the way the wine sets up in your mouth.

Or the suite.

Level of it.

So we want you to easy and or ease out.

It will start with your dry, okay.

And we'll work you into your suite.

Once we have you suite, we will keep you there and then we'll and then we'll work you back out into your tasting walls.

We'll take you on your journey how you want to go.

But if you want to step outside your box, we'll be more and welcome to.

Send you outside of it.

And do you make fun of people?

And they do.

That now because we make all kinds of wine and there's all kinds of drinkers.

So we if you depending on where you are on the tasting ladder, we will make sure that there's a.

Wrong for you.

To do well.

EASTON Thanks for meeting me today.

Hey, no problem.

I'm glad to be here.

So awesome.

What are we taking out today?

So today we have some immersion kayaks.

These are pretty affordable.

This is actually a sit on kayak.

So you're sitting actually like a little more on top of the boat than a traditional you know, you got to get down in a kayak.

So yeah, these are very easy to paddle.

They turn really well and it doesn't take a whole lot to get movement, especially if the wind blows.

Great.

Well, we got our lifejackets on.

You got us all set.

The only thing I need is my fishing license.

You got what you need?

Yep.

You're ready to go now?

I got some bait, so we're doing awesome.

Well, let's go do some fishing.

Easton, tell me a little bit about the boats we're on today.

The idea behind this is young people that maybe aren't as excited to go learn how to fish on the bank.

We can get them on a boat and get them out.

That's an experience in and of itself.

Great.

Well, what do you fish for here on Beaver Lake?

Tell me what we're going to be fishing for today.

So we've got two setups.

One, we're going to try to catch some bass on.

If that doesn't work, we'll bring out some nightcrawlers and try to catch some.

Believe you.

Sounds good.

You want to go ahead and cast a line?

Yeah.

Let's do it.

Awesome.

Now tell me what you're throwing there.

So I'm throwing one of the oldest tricks in the book.

It's just a seven inch power worm.

When you move it through the water, the tail kind of creates a little motion, and usually you can catch quite a few orders and get them by name.

And this is your second bait of the day.

Yep.

That's, that's the bluegill go to.

So hopefully the bass are going to cooperate.

We can just a few would you?

All right.

I'm going to put a little old Nightcrawler on here.

So with it, precision for a bluegill are paying fish.

You have to keep in mind that their mouth is extremely small.

So if you put too much bait on the hook, the fish is going to be able to come up, basically do everything but the hook.

Okay, so this is wrong.

Well, how do I put a worm on a hook.

That gives you a little less for them to pick up?

And we didn't leave too much hanging off.

So if you just look at once, you leave the whole worm hanging off, they can come up and everything and just leave you with a little piece.

Right.

Awesome.

So where is the best place to cast for for some bluegill?

Anywhere around structure I think is actually one swimming right here.

You can see a rock.

You can see a rock into the water up on the banks Right now they're up feeding, um, anywhere around some trees over here, upright docks, pretty show what you want to find were up there.

So I've got a rod and a reel in my hand here with a bomber and a sinker.

Yes.

And a night crawler.

And a night crawler.

Okay.

How would you teach me to cast if I'd never done this before?

So with that reel you're going to put together, grab the line with your finger.

Just like that might be easier.

Turn your hand a little bit towards me.

Okay.

If you put your middle finger on top of that reel.

So it's like this.

Like this.

Okay.

Now put the real where the real connects the rod.

Okay, put that right in the middle of your fingers.

Okay, we go.

Now you can grab the line with your first finger.

Grab it, hold it and flip your bow.

Okay.

Go behind your head.

Make sure nobody's around you.

Watch out for trees.

But as you come forward about the time you get past your ears, between the ears and your eyes, you don't want to go a lot.

And then when it hits the water, you'll flip it back over.

It's got really.

Awesome.

What's the typical size of a of a bluegill that I might catch?

But you can get it.

They can get up to 1213 inches.

But the typical about the size of your hand.

Well, I think this is a great way to spend a day that's beautiful.

And it's you know, even if the fish are biting, you know, you're getting exercise, you're soaking up the sun during the day.

I said, try that.

Hey, Kyle, go slow down here for you.

Sample this.

How about I take you down to the lab and show you how we handcraft our different bourbons?

You know?

Hey, we need more of this.

So let's go see how show you heat and you know all that.

But you know, I love this way.

Science, by the way, how did you get into this serious business of making bourbon?

There's art.

There's science.

But I got in from the science aspect.

My background is in chemistry.

So I grew up in Kentucky, so I've always known about bourbon.

So it's been part of our culture, our heritage here, right?

So but I never really dreamt I could get a job in the industry.

Came on here and I took a tour of a distillery and I thought, you know, I bet they could use a chemist.

So that very weekend when I got home, I got online.

I found this job on the job I'm doing now, but a job coming in as the quality manager.

And I applied a few months or just about a month later, I was up here working.

Wow.

So there you go, folks.

Come take a tour and next thing you know, you can be the master distiller and bourbon distillery in Kentucky.

Good to know.

Good to know.

There's a pretty big history here with four roses.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, it's been around for a while.

Where did it come from?

How did it start?

Yeah, the brand actually began back in the 1880s.

Down in Georgia.

In Georgia?

Georgia?

Yeah.

Our founder, Paul Jones Jr.

He began the company down in Atlanta.

And in the 1880s, he moved up to Louisville, Kentucky, and the brand was trademarked in 1888.

In Louisville, Kentucky.

The brand has been in existence since then nonstop, even through prohibition.

The brand existed from additional purposes only.

Hmm.

Interesting.

All right.

So but yeah, we were here up to and through prohibition.

And then after prohibition, the brand became one of the top selling, if not the top selling bourbon in the US.

What we do here is we produce ten different bourbon recipes.

Now, I don't mean ten different bourbon labels.

We have our four bourbon, our small batch, our single barrel.

But if you taste each one of those products, each one is distinctly different from the next because of the way we do things, we have to mash bills or grain recipes that we use.

So we start out with two bases, two different recipes, and then we have five different use strains that we use to ferment those mash ups.

Each one of these yeast strains creates different flavors through fermentation.

But in this lab right here, this is a sensory lab.

This is where we have a lot of fun here.

This is where we look at barrels, batches, evaluate the quality of everything we have in our warehouses to make sure that we pull those samples and make our our various products.

There consistent.

They smell and taste where they're supposed to.

Each one of those samples is a different barrel, is a different barrels.

Is that each one of these is a different barrel?

Yeah.

When done, each one of those will represent about 150 750 milliliters bottles.

Mean this is a lot.

I mean, I assume you have to drink this every day.

Contrary to what a lot of people believe, it's not a lot of tasting When you're looking at many samples like this, it's a lot better, safer and easier to smell.

There are nine of us on the sensory panel and that particular yeah, that particular board is just to approve the daily dose as it comes off.

The still members of the panel have to come and smell approve it.

If it doesn't get approved, doesn't go into the barrel for getting a finished product, we can maybe check out our got a placement.

Go follow me this way.

So how do I get my name on that tasting board thing there.

That's Oh, I'm sorry.

Where there is no room on the tasting panel.

Really?

So this is where the ten recipes I was just telling you about this, where it all comes together.

As I said, we use the recipes to create different products.

This product uses up to all ten of the recipes.

This is for always the same for recipes.

And this our single barrel is one recipe.

And by using those different recipes, we can create fundamentally different bourbons.

And that's what we can taste up here.

Ten for one.

Exactly.

And we go 80, 90, 100 proof, and we go up in age as we go from this side to this.

Also, this at least five years old is at least six.

This is seven, eight, nine years old.

So we talked a little bit about your history and how this all came to be.

What's going on in the future.

I know there's some expansion happening.

Oh, yeah?

What are you guys doing moving forward for the growth has been the growth has been so out of control, so crazy for the last five, ten years, mostly here in the United States, that to react to that, we're having to expand.

So you probably see out there we're doubling our capacity.

So we're in the middle of a big construction project.

Yeah, double just for the U.S. market.

Brett, I appreciate everything.

Wait, wait, wait.

You know what?

Hold on, hold on, hold on.

You know, I got this riddle thing at the beginning of the show.

I got to figure out, okay, And it's something about medicine and a cure in history.

I don't know what that has to do with for Roses or even Lawrenceburg, for that matter.

But I don't know anything about some kind of special medicine from way back in the day or something.

I think I could help you out that you're very warm somewhere around here.

You're very close.

Well, you know what?

I'm gonna go check that out.

Good luck with Carrie.

I appreciate that.

It's been an hour.

Cheers.

It's a pleasure.

Roy Morones going to find it.

So whatever it is you're all right.

We are here in downtown Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, right on Main Street.

And it just so happens we've come across a classic car show.

To some that happens once a month.

Pretty cool.

I'm going to meet up with Carrie and find out how her day went.

But I think we're going to take a look at a few of these cars because this is some pretty rare stuff.

Let's check it out.

All right, Terry.

So here we are downtown Lawrenceburg.

What exactly is happening all around us tonight?

We've been having a cruise in down here for 18 years on Main Street in large firms.

The wheels of Time car club has been in existence for 25 years.

Fantastic.

And these cars you got here have been in existence a lot longer than that.

You got a little bit of something that's got a 1950.

Eight Chevy Impala home, a bird home.

And you got a brand new Corvette and pretty new Corvette right there.

We're downtown.

This is Americana at its best.

You know, this is small town.

We're in Kentucky, we're in Lawrenceburg.

And you got everybody in the community coming out to check this out and to visit these store.

Tell me about Lawrenceburg and why it is such a cool small town here.

Well, I was born and raised in Lawrenceburg when I was growing up.

We used to come down on Main Street here with my parents and sit on the afternoons and watch people go by in their cars.

And we're just repeating that as old as we got and stuff like that.

It's just bringing it back.

Back.

And why is that important for a community to get, you know, events like this and kind of just bring people out?

It's a beautiful night.

I mean, why is that a big deal here?

Well, if you notice, we've got a lot of stores that are still open.

We've got several restaurants that brings in a whole lot of money from the community.

If they're not eating or drinking or they're always mind games.

Yeah, I can tell.

Therefore, I buy a lot of gas.

You could not have a more perfect evening for a car show in a very cool downtown Lawrenceburg in Kentucky.

There has been a pleasure, man.

All right.

Thank you.

Hey, Kyle.

Well, hello there, Carrie.

How are you doing?

Good.

Did you have a good day?

You know, it was a pretty great day.

How about you?

Do you go out there and do a little paddling?

Well, after our sleep, I had to do a little bit of fishing.

Fishing?

Yeah.

I try to catch a beaver bass.

Beaver bass.

You bring me a beaver bass?

I did not.

Let's that now.

What about you?

You do any more sleeping?

I didn't do any more leaping, but I did.

Lovers leap it out there at the vineyard and learn about some really cool varieties that they're growing and maybe tried.

One or.

Two.

Yeah.

I took a lovely paddle on the Salt River with master distiller Brian Elliott.

I actually also hung out with Mr.

Brand.

Elliott Masters still had more roses and I did figure out the challenge.

Yeah, in fact, the medicine before Rose and Bourbon because they were allowed to produce bourbon during Prohibition.

And if you had a prescription, you could purchase it.

And I found the model with prescription on it right there.

All right, Kyle.

So, you know, I think that's it for this particular episode.

This is a few people that I found.

This is a great town.

This is a nice slice of Americana.

Check out Lordsburg, right?

I mean, it's a great small town.

And until next time.

We'll see you.

Downstream.