Finishing Up the Horses and Bourbon Mini-Vacation with Horses

The horse-drawn tram leaves the station on tour twice daily.

The final stop on the 2019 Horses and Bourbon Mini-Vacation(TM) was the Kentucky Horse Park, a theme park (the theme being "horses") and working horse farm just south of Georgetown, Kentucky.

Winter is over at Kentucky Horse Park, which meant summer hours. Not summer temperatures. Winter temperatures. Summer hours.

This is the horse statue that greets you outside the entrance. Once you pass through the gates, off to your right:

Secretariat.

They still love Red in Central Kentucky. Here he is from another angle:

 And off to the left, the other candidate for Greatest Thoroughbred Ever:

Man O'War.

This is a recently added statue:

It is in honor of "Sergeant Reckless," who served honorably in the Korean War.

She's a mare. So I guess that would make her a WAC.

Here are some carriages, just waiting for some horse power:

Ready for some live horses? Be a Bono, a quarterhorse.

Better view:

This is another of the working horses here at the Kentucky Horse Park:

This is a small show of different horse breeds. I arrived at the show after it ended.

I found only because I wanted to take the 2:45 horse tram ride because ... well, do you need a reason to ride in a tram being pulled by Clydesdales who have not sold their souls to a massive conglomerate that brews flavorless beer?

After the brief ride around the park, it was time to meet the off-duty police horses.

From the tram ride, I learned the location of the celebrity paddocks. There are three famous celebrity horses in residence at the Kentucky Horse Park:  Go For Gin, winner of the 1994 Kentucky Derby; Point Given, the newest celebrity-resident and winner of the 2001 Preakness and Belmont (he lost the Kentucky Derby that year to Monarchos, a horse who ran the fastest Kentucky Derby ever of any horse not names Secretariat, and then promptly did nothing more); and the famous Funny Cide, the New York-bred gelding who won the first two jewels in the 2003 Triple Crown.

And, here, at a distance, is the famous Funny Cide:

Seeing these famous horses really is like a celebrity sighting for me. Only better! I don't know their politics. They don't tweet! They don't conspicuously consume with the Kardashians. The only "sex scandal" any of them have had was when War Emblem (who we met at Old Friends) ended up not liking sex. Scan-de-licious!

I'm of a certain age, so the celebrity horses I like seeing are from the 1990's and early 2000's.

I arrived too late for the Hall of Champions Show. And they are renovating the Hall of Champions barn that houses the Big-Name Celebrities.  So I wasn't sure I was going to get any closer to Funny Cide than that.

Or any closer to the 1994 Kentucky Derby winner Go for Gin than this.

But they brought out a retired champion pacer for the few of us standing around to meet.

This is "Staying Together," which was his racing name. He is 30 and blind.

Apparently, the other horses are very protective of Staying Together. Go for Gin came over to make sure everything is cool.

Later, the treat bucket is brought out and Funny Cide comes over closer.

Apparently Funny Cide has a bit of an aggressive temperament. Not too much, apparently, but enough that there is double fencing and, unlike the gentle Staying Together, there is no direct feeding of this horses from us tourists.

Go for Gin's feeding bucket is brought over close to us so Go for Gin will come over closer to us.

Go for Gin is 28 and looks great. They call him "George Clooney" because he has kept is darkly smoldering good looks into his old age. The tour guide compared his temperament to a playful dog, while Funny Cide was more like an aloof cat.

Go for Gin won the 1994 Kentucky Derby on a muddy track.  Apparently, unlike every other horse that wants to be inside during inclement weather, Go for Gin will come out and frolic like a puppy in rain or snow. Funny Cide, with the cat personality, lost the Belmont on a horribly muddy track.

Point Given is in the paddock behind Funny Cide's. Even from the distance you could tell he was huge. We did not get any closer to him.

Some former residents of the Kentucky Derby Horse Park are buried on the grounds. Alysheba:

Cigar. Funny Cide inherited his paddock after Cigar's passing:

Closing time was getting closer and I want to see the Museum of the Horse. But to get there I walk past two giant chairs.

Why the giant chairs? Apparently they were used in some horse competition several years and, well, what else are you going to do with giant chairs other than just put them out there on display.

Above is a terra cotta horse from India that looks like a piñata. Below is a terra cotta horse from India that looks like a terra cotta horse.

Like these horses, I am racing through the horses throughout history exhibit.

The museum is undergoing renovations, which is why some displays are closed off and others are under wraps. This wrapped horse sculpture suspended from the ceiling would be one of the absolute most interesting exhibits if it were hanging in a modern art museum. Instead, it's a horse wrapped in protective plastic in a horse museum.

More carriages that could use a horse to pull them:

The last one is a "lady's carriage." And, finally, to conclude the afternoon at Kentucky Horse Park on the first day of summer hours, the Secretariat display:

And that concludes the 2019 Horses and Bourbon Mini-Vacation(TM). Next up in five weeks will be a much-needed maxi-vacation.

Horses Horses Bourbon Horses

I'm at a bourbon distillery. I can't remember which one. I had HOW MANY glasses in the tasting room?

The tourism agenda I've been following on my 2019 Horses and Bourbon Mini-Vacation(TM) in Central Kentucky could best be described as follows:  Horses. Horses. Bourbon. Horses. One bourbon distillery on one vacation seems like it would be sufficient. So for the bourbon portion of my vacation programming I have selected the Wild Turkey distillery in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky.

It is right along the banks of the Kentucky River, which flows into the Ohio, which flows into the Mississippi, which flows out into the world. The water of the Kentucky River also has a high limestone content, which improves the "sweetness" of the water.

The Wild Turkey distillery was started by an Irish gentleman who had experience making whiskey back in Ireland.

Although the Wild Turkey distillery is a large scale operation, the tour on a Monday would not be the rush hour traffic that I saw on Saturday at the smaller-scale Woodford Reserve distillery in nearby Versailles (pronounced, of course, ver-SALES because this is America).

Wild Turkey is made with a combination of corn, rye and malted barley. Our tour guide told us that Wild Turkey bourbon has a higher rye content relative to other bourbons and that Wild Turkey rye has a higher corn content than other rye whiskeys.  This is the proportion:

Rye is likely the same proportions, with the corn and rye components switched.

Since 2009, Wild Turkey has been owned by Italy's Campari group. They just need to add a vermouth bottler, since bourbon and Campari, along with sweet vermouth, are the ingredients to make the premier cocktail among cocktails: the boulevardier.

And here's what I learned. Whiskey is basically distilled beer.

They make a slurry of cereal grains and water, then add yeast to let it ferment. Basically, become beer.

The beer is then distilled.

And it becomes whiskey. This is the quality control room, to make sure that the bourbons and ryes are on track to where they are supposed to be, taste-wise.

And this is where it all becomes bourbon: aged in oak barrels, with the insides charred to a lizard-like texture.

They are packed away to age. Part of what makes Kentucky perfect bourbon making country is that the temperature extremes maximize the interaction of the alcohol with the charred barrels. You don't want only cold or only heat. You want the temperatures oscillating wildly.

And from there we are whisked off to the tasting room. "Whisked" off. For some "whiskey." I amuse myself.

With a lovely view of the Kentucky River valley.

We are presented five bourbons to sample. The first, moving left to right, is the standard best-selling 101. This is the drink you think of, when you think of Wild Turkey.

Second, is the Single Barrel Russell's Reserve, which actually has a bit of "creaminess" because of a tiny fat content. It coats the tongue. The third is Rare Breed. The fourth is ... well, I don't remember what the fourth one was ... maybe a rye of some sort. And the fifth was Wild Turkey's "Honey Sting," a honey liqueur with a hint of ghost pepper. And only a hint. It brings a little heat to cut the sweetness of the honey, but it's not overpowering. Our tour guide says the "Honey Sting" is the best chicken marinade you could ever use.

And the winner was the one I bought a bottle of in the gift shop since I've not seen it for sale at my local Lee's Discount Liquor:  The Russell's Reserve Single Barrel bourbon whiskey.