Sometime during Casabourblanca, a signature event of the second Kentucky Bourbon Affair last year, my wife — who was celebrating her 50 birthday — sidled up to legendary distiller Jimmy Russell to introduce herself and to tell him thanks for being a part of the best party ever.
Russell smiled, told her he’s been making Bourbon 13 years longer than she has been alive and pointed toward a special bar, tucked away in a corner of the old hangar at Bowman Field in Louisville.
“Old” bourbons, he told her, rare and mostly unavailable. Try some of those, he said.
It’s tough to imagine the Kentucky Distillers Association — distillers comprising the Kentucky Bourbon Trail — can duplicate the once-in-a-lifetime experience offered in 2015.
“We’re always trying to one-up ourselves a little bit,” Adam Johnson, director of the Bourbon Trail, told me.
“If you’re having a cocktail on the roof of the Brown-Forman campus the first year … or if you’re tasting from the first barrel of Woodford or you’re shooting skeet with two master distillers at Wild Turkey … the list goes on and on,” Johnson says. “This is not stuff that happens all the time.”
The 2016 Kentucky Bourbon Affair is June 14-19 — a “six-day Bourbon fantasy camp featuring exclusive behind-the-scenes tours and tastings at the world’s most iconic distilleries,” says a KDA news release.
America has developed an insatiable taste for Bourbon, and organizers sold all 50 of the Affair’s Golden Tickets — sort of an all-access pass — in 15 minutes. Still, about half the tickets for events throughout the week were available, as of Friday, Feb. 5. Tickets to individual events range from $35 to $275, and 1,500 to 2,000 visitors are expected.
The annual Affair gives people the chance to rub elbows with distillers, aficionados and the people behind the brands.
The Affair culminates with “Whisky Live,” featuring a whiskey-themed dinner and a international sampling of Bourbon, Scotch and whiskey.
“Having that in Louisville for the first time will be really cool,” Johnson says. “Having all those international whiskies on Kentucky’s home turf, I think, will be fun. It’s a good complement to have something large that a lot of people can go to but still have a lot of these smaller events that people will like as well.
“I think if people look at the schedule and see what we have to offer, whether it’s Heaven Hill’s build-a-barrel, where you’re going to help craft your ideal Bourbon … or visiting historic Stitzel-Weller … or tasting one of these really old T.W. Samuels whiskies” in the home of Maker’s Mark COO Rob Samuels … .
The Samuels’ event has sort of a top-secret element, unless, of course, you have a ticket. Then you get a ride.
“Anytime you can’t put an address on an event is always kind of fun,” Johnson says. “
The Bourbon Women Association will host “Anatomy Academy: Women, Men and Bourbon,” offering tastings and research debunking “the notion that women prefer lighter, sweeter and lower proof Bourbon,” according the event’s description.
“What people think (as) more high-rye Bourbons, or rye whiskies even, women seem to really like those almost more than the men do sometimes, and they just haven’t had them before,” Johnson says.
“So it’s always fun at these tastings to see what people like, or what they can get exposed to, which is really what the Bourbon Affair is about.”
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