Our First Kentucky Visitor - Part 2

In Part 1 of this blog series, my Mom, Gwen, became our first overnight visitor to the new house!  She and I met for lunch in Knoxville, then Chris and I took her all over greater Madison County to show off our new area.

The three of us enjoying Father's Day brunch at Honeywood

When we were planning Mom's visit, she mentioned she didn't have anything in particular she wanted to do, other than just hang out with us and see our new house and town.  However, when we asked how about a distillery tour, she quickly answered, well heck yeah!  With that confirmation secured, I booked a tour for the three of us at Castle and Key, a spot on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, at 1:30pm on Father's Day.  Since we'd be going all the way to Frankfort, we figured we might as well make a day of it, so we also grabbed brunch reservations at Honeywood, a local spot on the southwestern side of Lexington.

Honeywood is one of Chef Ouita Michel's restaurants, and although this is the only one we've tried, if our experience here is anything to go by, we can't wait to visit her other options.  Our meal was incredible - we started with the Four O' Clock Snack Platter, complete with pimento beer cheese, homemade biscuits, pickles, and the like, and then we enjoyed the blackened catfish sandwich (me), the shrimp and grits (Chris), and the beet salad (Mom).  Everything was absolutely delicious, and we even took home some leftover goodies as well!

Rocking out...front of Honeywood!

Mom and her Aperol Spritz

The aforementioned snack platter

Fully stuffed with amazing food, we hopped back in the car to start the 45 minute drive to Castle and Key.  Like many distilleries in the area, Castle and Key has a neat history.  The facility was started by E.H. Taylor, Jr., and unlike the distilleries owned by his peers, Taylor decided to go a bit nuts with the architecture and landscaping on site.  Instead of just creating a red brick distillery building, he built a limestone castle (fashioned after one in Scotland), a Roman-style springhouse, and a sunken garden.  Taylor also paid the local railroad to extend its tracks from the capitol building in Frankfort an additional 12 miles to his location, so he could regularly entertain the who's who in Kentucky society and politics, all in the name of getting them to buy his spirits.  Prohibition forced the original distillery to close, and for the next 90 years, the land and buildings changed hands multiple times; in 2012, the current owners found it, restored it, and started making bourbon in it again, reopening as Castle and Key.

(We learned on other distillery tours that Taylor used to own Buffalo Trace Distillery, but was bought out by a partner, leading him to start what eventually became Castle and Key.  He also gave financial assistance to James E. Pepper, founder of the Lexington distillery that bears his name, as he was James's honorary uncle.  The Kentucky distillery family tree doesn't seem to branch very far...)

The limestone castle, on the right, still houses the mash tuns and boil kettles.

The sign above the door reads, "The Old Taylor Distilling Company"

Happy mash

The railroad tracks leading to Frankfort

We arrived a bit early for our tour, so we grabbed some cocktails in the Taylor Station Bar (which was the original, on site railroad station) and then perused the gift shop.

A shot of several beverage options made on site at Castle and Key -

they do everything from bourbon to rye to vodka and gin

Cheers!

Inside the gift shop - look at that ceiling!

Although things have been restored and repaired, all buildings on site are original from the late 1800s

Eventually, our tour began, and our intrepid guide Tyler did an excellent job showing us around, telling us about the history of the property and the process of making bourbon.  It was darn hot outside - in the mid 90s with around 70-80% humidity - so we were careful to stay in the shade and take it easy.  Unfortunately, an older gentleman on our tour eventually became overcome, and our tour took a quick break while the staff on site took care of him.  Thankfully, he was fine, and we even saw him in the gift shop later.  After wandering around outside and through a working production facility (read: it was really freaking hot and humid), we were extremely pleased to sit down in an air conditioned room for our included tasting.

That's the bourbon on the left, the rye in the middle, and a gin and tonic on the right

Happy to be inside!

Flowers near the Sunken Garden - it was so pretty

Like all good tours, this one ended in the gift shop, and we couldn't help taking home some libations to enjoy later (we first visited Castle and Key this past January, and the cocktail at the Station Bar at the time was hands down the best Hot Toddy I've ever had - I picked up a bottle of their mix, which I'm going to try to reverse engineer for my own use...once summer's over).  With our shopping concluded, it was back into the car, which I pointed homeward.  We spent the rest of the afternoon recuperating on the couch with the girls, enjoying BLTs and salad for dinner (all ingredients from local vendors at the farmer's market), and watching more FSU baseball.

While Chris worked on Monday, I took the day off; Mom planned to head out after lunch, so we had some time in the morning to get out into the acreage a bit and see some of the rest of our land.  

One of Chris' projects on Saturday was weed eating this path into the next lot for us.

The grass has gotten pretty tall over the summer

We have so many wildflowers back here!

Looking south, away from the house, and toward our other five acres

After the short tour, Mom went back inside to finish packing, while I mowed the front lawn (the growing grass around here waits for no man).

Flying down the hill to greet Grandma

Mow, mow, mow - all I do is mow.

At least it's a good calorie burn.

With the car packed up and ready to go, we had time for one more mother-daughter lunch, at Richmond's finest dining establishment:

Awwww yisssss

(Yes, I very much know there's way better BBQ out there)

After we filled up on fast casual pork sandwiches, it was time for Mom to head back to Tennessee to her next stop.  We had a great time having her here!

"Come back soon, Grandma!!!!"

Later!

Amy