In Praise Of Spoonbread

Kentucky is more than just bourbon and although it shares its whiskeys with the world, some treats it keeps to itself; like Kentucky country ham, the hot brown, benedictine, and spoonbread.

A variation on cornbread, spoonbread lies somewhere between quick bread and pudding. It bears slight resemblance to Britain’s famous Yorkshire pudding.

The Boone Tavern, in Berea, Kentucky, has been famous for its spoonbread for more than 60 years. They cook it in cast iron skillets and serve it directly from the skillet at table side. Saveur Magazine describes it as “a creamy-centered corn bread pudding that rises like a soufflé.” Their recipe is rich with eggs, milk and butter. Authentically Southern it contains no wheat flour, just finely ground white cornmeal.

One would be right to be skeptical of a just-add-water spoonbread mix, such as the one sold by Weisenberger Mill, Kentucky’s oldest commercial mill, located in Midway. Although no threat to the Boone Tavern’s kitchen, it’s a tasty break from regular cornbread, simple and quick to make, and available on-line.

Midway, by the way, is a good place to include on your Kentucky itinerary. It’s midway between Frankfort and Lexington, surrounded by horse farms, and the nicely kept downtown straddles a railroad track. Because Kentuckians really don’t care for cities, a town like Midway gives you a better feel for modern Kentucky than do any of its larger towns. It is a comfortable community with several nice bars and restaurants.

Drinking In Kentucky Can Be Tricky

Unlike Jack Daniel's, no major Kentucky distillery is located in a dry county, but Kentucky has a similarly ambivalent attitude toward the product that puts billions of dollars into its economy, but which many Kentuckians believe to be immoral.

Consequently, only 32 of Kentucky's 120 counties are wet. On the other hand, only 39 are bone dry. The rest, 49 counties, are somewhere in between. They permit some limited sort of alcohol sales but are less than fully wet. Kentucky's 'local option' laws give them a lot of choices.
 
We break it all down for you, and tell you how to find a drink in Mercer County, in the new issue of The Bourbon Country Reader, which dropped last week. Hint: although the Shakers didn't drink, Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill has a liquor license under a qualified historic site exception.

If you're into bourbon, you really should subscribe to The Bourbon Country Reader. It is produced and delivered the old-fashioned way; ink on paper, in an envelope, delivered personally to your home or office by a uniformed representative of the United States government. It contains 100 percent original content that you won't find anyplace else.

Subscriptions to The Bourbon Country Reader are $20/year for U.S. addresses, $24.50 for Canada, and $28.50 for everybody else. It is published six times a year. Well, maybe not (we missed April and August), but your subscription always includes six issues.

Click here to subscribe with PayPal or any major credit card. Click here for more information. Click here for a free sample issue (in PDF format). Click here to open or download the free PDF document, "The Bourbon Country Reader Issue Contents in Chronological Order." (It's like an index.)

Woodford Inn Named First Official Bed And Breakfast Sponsor Of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail Tour

One thing that's changed since Adam Johnson joined the Kentucky Distillers' Association staff, with responsibility for managing the Kentucky Bourbon Trail program, has been the sale of sponsorships.

The 10-bedroom Woodford Inn in Versailles is the latest sponsor. Sponsorships are available to select transportation companies, restaurants and bars, hotels and inns, tourism attractions, and convention and visitors’ bureaus. All must have a link to the Bourbon industry or the responsible consumption of spirits.

KDA President Eric Gregory thanked The Woodford Inn for its support and said the sponsorship program is a result of the skyrocketing global popularity of Kentucky Bourbon and the iconic tour.

"Kentucky is the only place in the world where visitors can enjoy the one, true authentic Bourbon experience," he said. "We have two centuries of rich tradition, craftsmanship, and proud heritage that can’t be duplicated anywhere else."

Kentucky Bourbon Trail distilleries have logged more than 2 million visits in the last five years, with 450,000 in 2011 alone. The visitors traveled from all 50 states and more than 50 countries.

“The Woodford Inn is a great stopover with Bourbon-themed rooms and genuine Kentucky cuisine at Addie’s Restaurant and Bar,” said Johnson. “We’re excited to welcome them as a sponsor of our world-class, unique and signature attraction.”

The historic inn is nestled among the lush horse farms of Woodford County and is minutes from several distilleries, including Woodford Reserve, Wild Turkey, Town Branch, and Four Roses. Special Kentucky Bourbon Trail getaway packages are available. They include official t-shirts, rocks glasses, samples from each distillery and plenty of information to help guide your trip, said Meredith Downey, The Woodford Inn’s marketing manager.

“We have dozens of premium Bourbon brands available at our full-service restaurant and bar, and our rooms are equipped with Tempur-Pedic beds and Jacuzzi tubs,” Downey said. “You can’t ask for a better place to eat, sleep and drink on your Bluegrass trip.”

The history of the inn is as deep as the area surrounding it. The property dates back to 1876 and the current building was constructed by the Cleveland Orphanage Institution in 1926. It’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Cleveland House. The family-run inn is located at 140 Park Street in downtown Versailles.

For reservations or more information about groups, reunions or wedding accommodations, call toll-free (888) 806-2788 or e-mail innkeeper@thewoodfordinn.com.

After Almost 80 Years, The Pogues Are Distilling Again.

I am going, I am going
Any which way the wind may be blowing
I am going, I am going
Where streams of whiskey are flowing

"Streams of Whiskey," The Pogues (1984)

Sorry, wrong Pogues.

The whiskey-making Pogues are a family from Mason County, Kentucky, whose whiskey roots go back to the establishment of the Commonwealth. They were major producers until Prohibition. Afterwards, the distillery and name came back, but without the family.

Decades passed until in 2004, the family reentered the whiskey business with Old Pogue Master's Select Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. The Pogues had become whiskey sellers again but not quite whiskey makers, as their whiskey was acquired from a distiller and marketed by the family. No matter. It was very good whiskey and prospered.

Earlier this year, the Pogues became distillers again by opening a micro-distillery at the old family home in Maysville. Earlier this month, they joined the Kentucky Distillers' Association.

There is more to tell about how the Pogues reclaimed they whiskey heritage and you can read all about it in the new issue of The Bourbon Country Reader, which dropped last week. You really should subscribe. The September, 2012 issue of The Bourbon Country Reader is Volume 14, Number 5. In it, we also explain how complicated it can be to buy a drink or bottle of bourbon in the state where it's made, and we welcome I. W. Bernheim to the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame.

The Bourbon Country Reader is produced and delivered the old-fashioned way; ink on paper, in an envelope, delivered personally to your home or office by a uniformed representative of the United States government. Subscriptions to The Bourbon Country Reader are $20/year for U.S. addresses, $24.50 for Canada, and $28.50 for everybody else. It is published six times a year. Well, maybe not (we missed April and August), but your subscription always includes six issues.

Click here to subscribe with PayPal or any major credit card. Click here for more information. Click here for a free sample issue (in PDF format). Click here to open or download the free PDF document, "The Bourbon Country Reader Issue Contents in Chronological Order." (It's like an index.)

This Is Not A Whiskey Warehouse.

You would think the folks at the Courier-Journal, Louisville's daily newspaper, would know something about bourbon making. Apparently not, because they keep running this picture with the caption, "Whiskey warehouse owned by Diageo Americas Supply, Inc. Air district went after a whiskey maker for causing a fungus to grow on Louisville homes. Sept. 11th, 2012/ Kylene White/ The Courier-Journal."

Sorry, Kylene, but that is not a whiskey warehouse.

This is what the whiskey warehouses at Diageo Americas Supply Inc. (aka, the historic Stitzel-Weller Distillery) actually look like. Note the similarity.

There isn't any.

I've told them about this, but the first picture ran again yesterday.

If this sort of thing makes you wonder about how reliable other things the paper prints are, well, there you have it.

The Courier-Journal is playing the whiskey fungus story as poor little home owners against uncaring corporate titans, and bashing the mayor for being pro-bourbon, which should be a pretty safe policy in Louisville, Kentucky. In big ways and small, the CJ is also showing its ignorance about a signature Kentucky industry and one of the few bright spots in Kentucky's current economy.

The C-J has been owned by the Gannett Company since 1986. It was locally-owned before that. The difference shows.

What they don't seem to get is that the whiskey fungus (Baudoinia compniacensis) has been hanging around those warehouses for close to 80 years, ever since they were built. It has been on and around other whiskey warehouses in Kentucky for about 150 years. That's about when bourbon started to be aged on a large scale. That doesn't mean there is nothing to talk about. Both sides deserve the right to make their respective cases in the appropriate forum.

Which is not the clueless Courier-Journal.

Sazerac Buys 300 Thousand Square Foot Warehouse In Bardstown.

In 2009, Sazerac Company bought Bardstown's Barton 1792 Distillery. Sazerac, which also owns Buffalo Trace in Frankfort, didn't need the additional distilling capacity, and immediately cut Barton's distilling schedule. This led many fans of the distillery's products to worry that Sazerac might not be fully committed to its Bardstown operation.

This may assuage some of those fears.

In a joint statement with the Nelson County Economic Development Agency, Sazerac has announced its purchase of the Warehouse Support Center Building on Withrow Court in the Bardstown Industrial Park. The 300,000 square foot facility, with a capacity of approximately one million cases of spirits, will become the company’s new distribution center for Bardstown. The company is also purchasing eight adjacent acres for trailer staging.

To the Withrow Court facility they are adding cold storage, offices, and IT capabilities. The current finished goods warehouse on the distillery grounds will become part of the expanded bottling operation there. The Barton 1792 Distillery recently increased its processing capacity with additional bottling tanks and bulk storage. It opened a visitors center last year and now offers daily tours.

The Barton 1792 Distillery makes 1792 Ridgement Reserve Bourbon, Very Old Barton Bourbon, and many other whiskey and non-whiskey products.

Kentucky Bourbon Festival 2012, Let The Bitching Commence.

The 2012 edition of the Kentucky Bourbon Festival (KBF) in Bardstown, Kentucky, concluded yesterday. Every year I go, have a great time, and bitch about it afterwards.

Let the bitching commence.

First, I should explain that I go to the KBF primarily to see friends. I go to very few official events, nothing you need a ticket for, and definitely nothing you need to rent shoes for. (Saturday night's 'gala' is fancy dress.)

My biggest complaint this year is that Festival officials were bragging about how all of the ticketed events sold out. Many sold out weeks in advance. They call that success. I call it failure. It is undeniable proof that many people who would have attended those events were disappointed and discouraged, perhaps to the point that they just stayed home. It's stark proof that the KBF is realizing nothing close to its true potential.

The folks in Bardstown who call the shots won't let the festival grow, nor will they let it go. The big distilleries and other industry suppliers, who pay for the party, are frustrated by all the official timidity. Bourbon is booming. The iron is hot but the KBF isn't striking.

In that, the group most neglected by KBF organizers is the group they should care about most, out-of-town bourbon enthusiasts. Many complain that it seems like an insiders' party, and they are correct.

Second, and this complaint is also of long standing, there isn't enough bourbon content in the festival as a whole, especially the non-ticketed events. The only place on festival grounds where you can even drink bourbon is an abomination known as the Spirit Garden. It's hard to find and get to, you need to buy a pin just to get in, and there is nothing else to do there except drink. It's actually one of the town's baseball diamonds, fenced in like a prisoner-of-war camp. A tiny bit of shade is provided by a handful of sad umbrellas. It's depressing.

This year, Angel's Envy rented the top floor of Spalding Hall, a very nice and comfortable room with a bar, and turned it into a pop-up lounge. A convenient and comfortable place to drink bourbon at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival? What a concept? And it only took 21 years for someone to come up with it.

The KBF also does almost nothing with bourbon's rich history and heritage, except what the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History does all year. The distillery-sponsored booths are nothing but t-shirt shops. A local entrepreneur does well with a haunted places tour, but nobody does a Bardstown Bourbon History Tour. Dixie Hibbs reportedly did a history presentation at Wickland, but few people knew about it and you needed a car to get there.

For an event organized around whiskey, you need a car to get to a lot of the venues. Friday morning's breakfast at Four Roses was 43 miles from Bardstown. Four Roses does a great job with it, and it includes a distillery tour, but objectively that makes no sense. It's also not clear in the festival materials that attending involves about two hours of driving.

Because the official festival is so lacking, a variety of unofficial events have developed. Regular attendees typically know about and take advantage of some of them but no one knows about or has access to all of them. There is no effort made to coordinate the official and unofficial events, making it virtually impossible for a first-timer to effectively plan a great Bourbon Festival Experience.

While Bardstown is not blessed with a bunch of great bars, the ones that are there should have a bigger role. Every single one of them should be hosting something great every day, but they aren't.

Simply put, nobody cares about these glaring flaws because the Kentucky Bourbon Festival is not about the celebration of all things bourbon. It is just a big party Bardstown throws for itself with other people's money.