July 14, 1998 -- The Bluegrass Parkway East: Kentucky
The Boulevard Distilling
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We
drove only a short distance, less than ten miles, south through the rain
to get to the Boulevard Distillery sitting on a hill overlooking the
Kentucky River just east of Lawrenceburg. This is the home of
Austin-Nichols' Wild Turkey, one of America’s best bourbons. 101 proof
Wild Turkey No.8 shares the "extra" grade shelf with Maker's Mark 
in most
limited-range bars and their other products, Wild Turkey 12-year-old, Rare
Breed, and Kentucky Spirit in this country, are all
well-respected as examples of America’s best premier-grade bourbons.
We arrived in the parking lot just as the tour group was walking out of the reception center. The tour guide called out for us to join up with her and the ten or so other guests. The tour was a good one, but it suffered a bit from both the rain and the fact that the entire Wild Turkey production line is basically shut down in July and August. As I mentioned earlier, summer is not the best time to tour any whiskey distillery because they all cut back or cease making new product during the hot months. Not only are visitors unable to view the most interesting processes, but the plants usually devote this period to annual maintenance. Thus, much of the equipment is partially disassembled and larger pieces are off limits while being overhauled. As our tour guide led us into one of the warehouses she had to steer us around several paint buckets and a woman painting the wall.
The tour at Austin-Nichols has a different feel to it than in the other places we’ve visited so far. Instead of visiting a tourist attraction, I felt as if our group were visiting a friend who wanted to show us where she worked. We didn’t just look, from a distance, at people working on the bottling line (there were none), we were taken right into the bottling area where we could actually touch the equipment and get a close look. The Finished Product warehouse, where hundreds of pallets stacked with Wild Turkey cases await shipment, was one place that is not shut down in the summer and as we wound our way through our guide took care to keep us from being run over by forklifts. Linda commented that this is a part of the whiskey-making process that no other distillery has included on its tour.
The tour ended outside the shipping warehouse, after we filed
out through the plant supervisor’s office. I think this tour deserves
a second look in a more active season. Much of what our guide would have
liked to show us was not available, and the weather caused her to have to
shout over the sound of the rain as we all huddled under a porch roof. It
was obvious that she would rather have been talking normally to us as we
sauntered along outside from building to building. We’ll put Austin-Nichols
down on our list for another tour, maybe this fall or next spring.
The gift shop, which is in a quaint little house across the street, is also the reception center. Here "mint julep" punch is served and a video is shown which was produced by the company that makes the charred white oak barrels used by Wild Turkey. The video is really well done and shows barrel-making in an exciting and vivid way. I think we'll include a trip to a cooperage as a later installment in this series.
From Lawrenceburg we drove straight home, about four hours (most of it in the rain). We stopped at the Cork ‘n’ Bottle to check out their selection (phooey) and had lunch at Willy’s Sports Bar in Covington. Then we went to Party Source, home of the world's best bourbon selection (and prices, too) only to discover that they’ve moved. We will try out their other store later this week.
The cats were happy to see us return. Despite daily visits by our friend
and mutual cat-sitter, Linda Cross, according to Krukker no one has fed them
for several years.
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Story and original photography copyright © 1998 by John F. Lipman. All rights reserved. |
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