Stephen Beaumont's Brewpub Cookbook
	A Taste For Beer
	Great Canadian Beer Guide
	A World of Beer

The 5th Annual Kentucky Bourbon Festival

From September 18-21, I visited Bardstown, Kentucky, home of the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, as a guest of the good folk at Jim Beam. Here, then, is an abridged, observation by observation breakdown of my days in American whiskey country.

Sept. 18, 7:34 p.m. -- As I descend the escalator in the Louisville airport, I spy a petite, blond-haired lass clad in a Jim Beam t-shirt and holding a matching sign. She is Amy Hastert from the Milwaukee-based public relations firm, Laughlin/Constable, and she is delighted to see me because it means that she can now stop fending off advances from thirsty travellers who think she is giving out free bourbon samples.

Sept. 19, 11:17 a.m. -- On a tour of the Jim Beam distillery, I note how much margin for error there is in distilling compared to brewing. Samples of the raw liquor are poured, tasted and dumped back into the production flow, safe in the assurance that no bacteria can survive in 140 proof spirits. A tasting held later that day proves the validity of that assumption.

Sept. 19, 2:48 p.m. -- I am surprised by the modest size of the Bourbon Festival. The grounds play home to a main stage for performances, several craft and food booths, tents sponsored by the distilleries in which they sell everything from barbecue sauces to golf tees to polo shirts and a beverage court where beer and bourbon is sold, but there is little else. Oddly, there is no bourbon tasting area.

Sept. 19, 5:05 p.m. -- At a tasting and barbecue at the home of Booker Noe, the master distiller emeritus of Jim Beam, I am treated to samples of Beam's small batch line of bourbons: Basil Hayden's, Knob Creek, Baker's and Booker's. (Please see this month's Kitchen Table Tasting for details.) Later, I get misty as Booker uses three bottles of his eponymous bourbon to flambé the pork chops.

Sept. 20, 1:12 p.m. -- Another Bardstown surprise, this time in the form of a café called the Beall's Row Coffee & Ale House, which I am told is owned and operated by a family who arrived in town but two years earlier as refugees from Bosnia. In addition to good, low-cost fare, they also offer six taps including Franziskaner Weiss, Guinness and Warsteiner, plus an impressive selection of bottled brews such as la Fin du Monde, Duvel, Orval, Rogue Amber and Pike Pale Ale, all at dirt cheap prices. It is located on North 3rd Street, just off the Court Square.

Sept. 20, 6:43 p.m. -- At the Festival's black tie gala, an informal tasting of high-end bourbons precedes a sit-down dinner for more than nine hundred. I am impressed by the spiciness and depth of flavour of the Four Roses Single Barrel Reserve, soon to be available to consumers in the United States, and the refined subtlety of the Elijah Craig 18-year-old. Also worthy of note were Old Charter Proprietor's Reserve, a silky, slightly spicy and palate-coating bourbon from United Distillers' Bernheim Distillery, and Woodford Reserve, a relatively simple but superbly balanced bourbon from Labrot & Graham.

Sept. 20, 12:50 p.m. -- Repair to the historic Talbott Tavern for last call with the Laughlin/Constable crew and a couple of other strong-livered writers. After three days at the Festival, no one drinks bourbon.

World of Beer Update

So don't get left behind. Register here to receive the Stephen Beaumont's World of Beer Update each and every month. It's free!

Sign up for Stephen Beaumont's World of Beer Update.

Stephen Beaumont reserves all rights that pertain to the text of his articles, in any form that it appears.