Programming made possible by Salomon and Com Thank you for your support.

Did you know Kentucky has more n miles of water than any other state in the U.S.

except Alaska?

Is Alaska still a state?

That in 90,000 miles of streams and dozens of rivers.

It's also quite famous for some liquids, those which flow from a That being beers, bourbons and w Many of the world's best known distilleries can be found in the Bluegrass State.

And interestingly enough, pretty darn close to many of our lakes, rivers and We're here to take you on an exp of the secrets and histories of our intricate waterways while visiting Kentucky's distilleries, breweries and wine I'm Carrie, and I'm Kyle, and we are two Ken who are pretty proud of our stat We want to share a sip of what the Commonwealth has to offer.

Ta-da!

Hey, Kyle, did you fall off the It's funny you should ask that I have not fallen off any shelve but by the looks of things, I wi my opportunity later this evenin I love this place.

The Elkhorn Tavern is so cozy.

You know, this building has been for more than 200 years.

This building?

This building rig And it's still in operation.

All of these beautiful spirits, winning spirits you see, have be distilled, bottled, all right here, 100 feet away.

Right here, right here.

This is just a wonderful place t in the distillery district on a Kyle.

I am so excited about this episo because we've never done anythin this time of year.

I don't think that's going to get you out of being on the w Kyle, You're going to do a littl of recreation on the water later We'll see.

Today is full of hist I'm going to take a little tour and see all of the wonderful thi there are to eat and drink down Maybe have some dough at Goodfel What are you going to do today, Besides working on your gravity?

After this.

Probably do more of this with an very well known distillery here at James E Then some more liquids in the fo cow, dairy at Crank and Boom, which is right n Some frozen ice cream treats, maybe a few boozy concoction.

And what all do we have in front here?

Kyle, this is some award winning spiri We have a Barrel House Select.

We have a Barrel House Select Cask Strength.

This is the Rock Castle Bourbon, which is one of the most rare bo in Kentucky right now.

And over here, we have a Kentucky inspired rum.

We mentioned spirits.

This is the spirit of Marley, Spirit of Christmas past, Spirit of Christmas presen and the Spirit of Christmas, like the spirit of Henry Clay an Pepper and the Schenley Corporat Yeah, those guys too, all the gh I think that after we do this, there is some really good food that is also available here.

There is.

You should warm your belly with Kentucky's best burgoo, made in- And Kyle, don't forget the corn mash muffins.

They're based on a recipe from w back in the 1930█s.

Do they actually have alcohol?

They do.

So if you eat too many of them, help you with your gravity a lit Bring us 20 of those muffins.

That'll be great.

That'll help wash this down.

And let's try this and eat some and then you'll make merry.

Awesome.

I want to try this.

I love visiting the Distillery d It's just a heartbeat away from Lexington.

It's a fantastic place to meet friends, family and coll for a locally crafted meal, great cocktails and plenty of entertainment.

Come on with me.

I'm really excited to visit one of my favorite plac to get a bite to eat and a cockt This space is incredibly beautif It didn't look like this though, Heck no, it didn't.

It was, there was no roof, no floors, no And we had the vision to bring i And we're super excited that we You put a lot of work into this You were able to save some of th like this beautiful feature right above us.

How important was it to you to p this distilling history in this Absolutely.

It was very important and we had big support from our and it was just very accommodati when we said, “Hey, let's keep a giant coal ho above the bar.” He's like, “Well, I was going to take that out because it's in the way of creating the roof line.” No, you've got to leave it.

You've got to leave as much as w We've got to leave all this stee and all the features of the boil that were here originally for the James Pepper.

So we have this beautiful old bu We have this new concept for you It makes me pretty thirsty.

Yeah.

Our team down here does great, excellent craft cock They start with ideas, your seasonal ingredients and craft amazing cocktails that are a great price point for Do you have a favorite cocktail you want to share?

So we are going to feature our B Hatchet today.

A Broken Hatchet?

Yeah.

So we're going to make the Broke with old pepper, James Pepper.

So the bourbon, it█s a bourbon, it' got some walnut bitters.

We do a house made creme brulee, sirup, very little vanilla notes And then we torch a cherry with proof whiskey wash, if you will.

And then we light it on fire.

I am in.

We're talking creme brulee and f Sounds like fun.

I'm thirsty for Let's do it.

Look at this!

These look amazing Broken Hatchet.

Cinnamon, Yeah, very aromatic.

Cheers!

Wow.

I can see why that is very Yeah, well, all this drinking is making me h We got a pizza place.

You want to go throw some dough and have a little fun?

That sounds like a blast.

Let's go.

All right, let's go.

So you're going to show me how to make a p Let's do it.

All right, I'm ready.

It's quite simple.

It all starts with the dough, ri And here we try to mimic or repl New York style pizza to the spec all the way.

So you got to start with the wat The water?

Yeah.

Filtration of the water is very So we try to get soft water at all of our locations.

We use a special water filter in order to get the correct wate So you're taking that limestone out of the water here?

Yes, we're reducing that.

I mean, it makes great bourbon, but it doesn't make the best New style pizza, put your hands in t and just push it all the way dow Worked that dough, yeah, push down.

You want to keep it in a circle?

Now, here's where the magic happ I'm ready.

Have you tossed pizza All right, let's do it.

All right, so you pick it up and going to work it from hand to ha Okay?

So, like, let's move the dough back and fo Okay?

Can you do it back and forth?

I think I can.

Yeah.

There you go.

Great, back of your hand You're going to grab it like thi Throw in a circle.

Can you do it I think so.

Close.

One more try, you can do it.

Don't rip it.

All right, now we got to get our So we go out and we check our to harvest every year.

This is fine Italian style tomat All right.

Let's go put our sauc Make sure you spread the cheese.

Yeah, Spread it around.

So what you're going to do is you're going to launch this into the oven.

Are y to do it?

I█m ready.

So we█ve got to get it, we█ve got to get it loose.

So you want to get it loose on t Okay.

No sticking here?

Yeah, no sticking.

All right.

Way into the oven.

I think you can do it.

Let your keep it low.

There you go.

Shake, shake, shak Bada bing.

Yeah, yeah.

Bake about 7 minutes and we're ready to go.

Well, thank you for bringing me into this beautiful space for te how to make a pizza.

I think I'm going to have to pra a little more.

And for the delicious cocktails and the company, you did great.

Thank you.

Right.

So, Katherine, thanks so much for taking some t to give us a tour of this amazin and its history.

So how long has bourbon been mad So back in the 1800s with James Distillery, this sat on 40 acres So we had 40 acres worth of dist multiple rick houses.

And we were one of the most highly produced whiskeys in We sent out to Ulysses S. Grant during the Civil War, he sold his barrels to Henry Cla which is a famous Kentucky senat So we were very well distributed even back then.

After James█ dea unfortunately, prohibition did h So even though the distillery had to stop producing whiskey, we were able to sell our whiskey as medicine.

But you know, it is good medicine.

It is great medicine.

Excellent, excellent medicine.

So after Prohibition was repeale we did burn down.

Well, that happens.

But we were rebuilt the 1934, and that's the building we're standing in today, is from the 1934 rebuild.

But there was a gap there, right So we were abandoned in 1967 by the Schenley Corporation because the whiskey bubble had b But we were picked back up in 20 So something in front of us.

This is pretty neat.

Like, is this from the 1930s as So this still is not from the 19 but it is based on the original design.

I've got to get one of those for my living room and it's working This is making the stuff.

It is.

It is distilling it.

There it is.

That was that it right there?

So that is our low line and then it will go through our and then create high wine.

And that is what's going to go i our barrels to be aged as whiske And my laundry is in this one ri just so you know.

So let's head into our museum and I think I can rustle up an Old Fashioned for you.

Old Fashions in the museum.

Sign me up.

Let's go.

So Katherine, we're kind of in a really unique here at the distillery, So we're in our history museum, and this is where all of our tou start at the James Pepper Distil What's the story with Colonel Pe and how he kind of got into this James took over the family busin from his father.

So our original distillery is actually on Line Creek in Ver where our master distiller Dr.

James Crow was also involved, Ja and took over the family busines So luckily for James, he had a godparent and Colonel E Taylor, which really helped Jame along the way until he was an adult and capable of running his own family busine But unfortunately, James lost the distillery on Glen Creek and which eventually became Woodford and that's when he bought the property here in Lexington i which was the old Henry Clay Dis before James renamed it the James Pepper Distillery.

Wow I mean, you just laid down some major names there.

The whole area here has a pretty history.

And Lexington as far as distilli And then 2017, things went back and that's when we rolled out our first bar that we created on our still.

And we've been creating whiskey and giving tours ever since.

What do we have?

So now we are really pushing our bourbon.

This is going to be our five and a half year bourbon.

So this is going to have some of barrels in it.

It is a blend of all five of our different bourbon mash builds.

But what is unique about the bot is that this is a recreation of that was actually produced in th and we have that original bottle in our museum with us.

So Amir had that bottle recreated in kin in the original design just a li with more modern tweaks to it.

But one unique feature that we h at the distillery that I highly trying is The Old-Fashioned Cock If you have a chance and this goes back in our histor James had this drink commission for himself at the Pendennis Club in Louisvi and he then brought the recipe u to the Waldorf-Astoria in New Yo Which one was one of his favorite hangouts So the Waldorf Astoria published a bar book.

They credited James with the invention of the Old Fa So we make a Pre-Prohibition sty Old-Fashioned that uses a lemon instead of an orange or cherry, which arrived after Prohibition.

Interesting.

So what James Pepper was the originator of the Old Fa That's what the legend goes.

It was a lot like, we all had a lot of legends about this cock That█s the one big claim.

That's Now, this is the Old Fashioned r Legit.

The old one, 1897.

That's fantastic.

Thank you, Katherine.

This has been a lot of fun.

Thanks so much for the tour.

The history, the cocktail.

I think folks really need to com and check this out.

I mean, what a neat place and what a great story.

Thank you.

We love having you here.

Andy.

Thanks for meeting me to tell me about all the history about this wonderful creek we have right here.

So we're at the Town Branch here in Lexington, which is a br It's called the Town Branch.

It's a branch of the Elkhorn Cre the Elkhorn Creek is 99 miles lo which is literally as long as it without being called a river.

It has to be 100 miles to be a r it has all these tributaries off of it.

And one of them is the Town Brid and it is here in Lexington.

And it's why we're here in Lexin So Lexington is where it is because of this cree In 1775, the McConnell brothers who were exploring the land and a group that other people with the McConnell brothers, I give them credit, came down the Elkhorn and through the tributary to what is now considered the blue hole at McCo what is now in McConnell Springs And they named Lexington in June after the Revolutionary War battle that had just happened in at Lexington and Concord.

Now, the Town Branch has been here much longer with different names, and it had brought humans, indigenous people into this area since at least 9500 B.C.

But we see so little of it now.

So I'll tell you, when I came to 100 million years ago to be an undergraduate student, I, like a lot of people who come to Lexington today, “Where's the water?” Right?

I grew up near a river.

I know as a historian that rivers and water make commu and I was shocked that Where is I don't understand how this 300,000 person metropol That's because we covered it up.

This river is why we're here, and then we covered it up.

Yeah.

Why did we cover up Town Branch?

Well, it took a whi It was a 60 year project.

Once the city had started to build up in the very 18th and 19th centuries and into the 19th centuries, the Town Branch flooded all rivers d And it will eventually become a bit of an eyesore and was smel And by the 1880s, we as a commun had decided that we needed to control the flow of the Town so that we could better build and industrialize.

So we create a viaduct system and that's the start of covering and then by the 1940s it had bec a nuisance and cars were necessa And so we cover the almost the e of the Town Branch in downtown, and you don't see it except if you're in the Distillery District.

So Mandy, what is daylighting?

So daylighting is a term that we falling in love with here in Lex I mean, it means that we're brin visibility of Town Branch back to the state, and we're doing th downtown at Gatton Park, in the Town Bran where a section of the Town Bran is literally seeing the daylight for the first time since the 194 So this creek that we founded ou that we've covered up is is going to come out into the daylight again for us to see and enjoy and we put our toes in?

Yeah.

I mean we're not to see it we're definitely going to enj I personally will not be putting my toes in i because I love the story and I know all the things.

In the 19th century, it, as we t about, was the washing machine and the wastewater treatment and the water and all the things And so we know that it got gross.

The very technical term g It contributed to the 1833 chole epidemic here in Lexington, because cholera is a waterborne And by the the late 19th century when it's being industrialized, bourbon distilleries didn't use it to distill their p because it was too gross.

So they found their own.

Why is it so important that we be able to see that waterway and connect to it in the heart of downtown?

We know as historians that water and community come together, rig We can form bonds.

We know that we build places around the water and we as Lexantonians didn't know that for about half a century.

And the ways that we've covered And so bringing it to light, lets us get back to that history to be able to tell those stories If you want to know why Lexingto you want to know why it's here, You can go to this beautiful par or you can come down to the Distillery District and even see two versions of the same fruit and see how the community can grow around that water.

Maybe look at it, think about it, but don't drink rely on Kentucky water for that.

Thank you Mandy, for sharing the wonderful, fascinating history o Branch with me.

Thank you for ha You know Tao, when I was a small child, I was not allowed ice cream.

But I've heard these wonderful things, these stories of this am frozen treat.

Tell me about ice cream.

Kyle, ice cream, as you can see with the sign dow solves everything.

It means you need more ice cream your life.

Absolutely.

I need a lot of it.

And that█s why we're here.

A lot of it.

Well, we love ice cream, obvious We have been making ice cream he in Lexington for about 12 years And it started in the back of ou Thai restaurant, Thai Orchid Cafe, which I started with my parents.

And we were just looking for a f dessert option for our Thai rest started making some coconut ice like they make in Thailand.

I was trying to replicate the Th I nailed it and started making ice cream in this little two port Cuisinar and started selling ice cream as a dessert o So we're here in this neat space here in the Distillery district.

How did you go from the “two qua right here”, out here in this fu I mean, when we started making i in that Cuisinart and started fooling around with other fun fl and people kept asking about the and sometimes not even ordering any Thai food when they would come into the re So that was, you know, there was a sign to us that, may there's a thing with this ice cr Then we had this opportunity to see this building that we're in here on Manchester in the Distillery District, when this whole area was very bl and still nothing.

Right?

Right.

There were no lights.

There's gravel in the parking lo The buildings were in really rou We thought, you know, there is t that this could become something really cool.

I think what's really unique about this area is it doesn't ha ultimate developer that said, “I to make all these spaces the sam I'm going to curate who goes in these spaces.” And all of us are local business owners and local building owners So I think there's a certain ves interest to the people who are running these businesses to keep it local.

So the dairy, the liquid part of but also you all have a lot of o liquids.

You're doing some other things h even nondairy, right?

Yeah, we, a few years ago, we started because we had enough People were asking for a nondair vegan line.

So we developed this vegan line creams that are based with cocon So we and, so that kind of goes back to our Which coconut ice cream, I'm Thai, a lot of things I make use coconut.

So having a coconut base for a v is it feels very aligned with wh I didn't even know you could milk the coconut.

So that's squeezing real hard.

And we've got some other drinks?

We do, yeah.

So this space here, we originally called “The Crank Ice Cream Lounge” because we wanted to create kind of a desert-y lounge where people could come after di And it wasn't just a place where in and grab your ice cream and l We want you to come and stay, make memories.

And we created this menu that has boozy ice cream cocktai And right now, during our winter we do boozy hot chocolates.

So imagine like a s'mores and bo cream and ice cream and chocolate sauc and whipped cream or very white with blackberry ice cream and a boozy floats.

And we go downstairs and see wha see what█s frozen?

Yeah.

We might want to see the boozy, fun things up close.

We, we definitely might want to.

Let's go check it out.

All right, So we have three very delicious looking items here.

Yes.

Tell me what.

So we got a little bit of a them because we're in the Distillery So we got to have all the bourbo So this is our root beer bourbon So it's got bourbon cream and bourbon and honey ice and of course, our classic IBC r all mixed in one.

So it's like a root beer float on steroids, right?

Amped up Kentucky style.

Yes.

It█s amped up.

It█s amped up in the best way.

And then this is our famous bour ball sundae that you've got to t And this was featured on Cooking “Best Thing Ever Ate”.

Holy cow.

That's strong.

Chef Jason Smith came and said this was one of his most favorit So it is, yeah, hang on to that.

It's on a waffle bowl.

So we have our homemade waffle b that have a little bit of cinnamon in them That's why it smells so nice in And then bourbon honey ice cream chocolate crunchy bomb sauce, candied peca It's just like eating a bourbon But in all my ice cream sundae f it really is.

It is just like it's like the frozen bourbon bal the best parts of bourbon ball, but in sundae form.

Oh my gosh.

And you're right, in you can smell these things, cooking these, these, these- So we got one more thing.

Look at this.

If you grab a spoon from there, you kind of dig in.

Look at this.

This is like, this is hot chocol So it's one of our boozy, famous, boozy hot chocolates.

And it is our Kentucky s'mores.

So it is got our super fudge, hot chocolate mix that we make with bourbon, marshmallows.

Marshmallows.

that are torched, that has our b So, again, you take a regular ho chocolate and we amp it up a lit And Kentucky-fy it to create this really yummy conc People need to come to Kentucky just for this.

This Kentucky Fried hot chocolate is just righ It's so good.

So much fun, Tao.

Thank you so m for a little background, some s on all this wonderful frozen liq Thank you.

And this is the ultimate celebra Cheers.

Cheers.

Cheers.

Cheers.

So good.

Wow!

How much fun was that?

It was a lot.

You have some move I don't know about that, but I did not fall down.

So that's, that's a plus.

And this elf did not fall off the shelf.

Yeah.

So.

Shucks.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wonderful way to wrap up a fanta day, Kyle.

So much fun.

Distillery District Lexington.

Whether it's summer or winter, I mean, it's just great fun out I enjoyed everything I did.

History, bourbon, ice cream, and that's just a little bit.

Got your belly full.

Got your he I am filled with the spirit, the Christmas spirit in the form of lots of brown liquid.

I learned so much history, all about Town Branch.

Did you know we're standing on t Branch right now?

Looks like ice to me.

But, if you say so.

Wonderful way to close out a yea and ring in a new one.

You know, again, until next year We'll see you downstream.