It is Sunday, November 10th. We decided to do a day trip to Lexington, KY yesterday and do some bourbon country tours. We got up yesterday morning, made coffee and did our normal Saturday routine. I checked into the Hyatt via the app. Around 8:30, my husband saw online that they would have EH Taylor for sale in the Buffalo trace gift shop so we decided to go there. We got ready, packed the rest of the stuff and drove to buffalo trace getting there around 10:15. There was only 1.4 snaked lines formed outside the visitor check in area. You have to check in first, show your ID, and get a wrist band. We then went in the gift shop and got our bottles.
We then drove about 35 minutes to Lexington and checked into the hotel. We were staying at Hyatt Regency lexington next to Rupp center which I booked on Hyatt points which I transferred to Hyatt from my chase credit card rewards. I am a big fan of the Chase sapphire reserve and/or the Chase sapphire Preffered which both allow you to transfer points. Hyatt is one of our “go to” hotel brands for a good value on transfer points. Visit the on the website address below if interested in learning more. Limited-time offer – $300 Chase Travel℠ credit + 60,000 bonus points with Chase Sapphire Preferred. https://www.referyourchasecard.com/19P/Y874G8DFFE
Our first tour was a 12:00 in Downtown Lexington at Fresh Bourbon distillery. I had found the event on Air bnb experiences, but ended up. booking the experience directly on the website. We took a lyft to the location from the hyatt knowing that we were planning do do several bourbon experiences and not wanting to park and drive. We started the experience with a tasting and one of the best sensory tastings I have done. They had both bottles you could smell and then try to find in then bourbon and then small food pairings of flavor profiles you could taste. It was a great experience. We then got to try their single barrel bourbon.
Next was the cocktail making class portion and we made old fashions. The twist is that we used a Demerara sugar cube to make our simple syrup. We also got to pick 2 types of bitters from about 6 choices. I have typically only used traditional bitters for an old fasioned so this was a fun part of the experience. I chose Black Walnut, and Ripe Cherry Medicinal Cinnamon. The cocktail was very good. Overall, I really enjoyed the experience and appreciated what the brand was trying to accomplish.
Next we wanted to have lunch so we walked across the street to Carson’s Food and Drink on Main street. We sat at the bar which had great ambiance. They were already starting to decorate for Christmas. They were offering both the brunch menu and the lunch menu. Greg and I ordered off of the lunch menu and split the beer cheese and pork belly burger and each had a beer. The burger was very good! Our next tour at 2:30 at James Pepper so we took lyft over to the distillery district.
The tour at James Pepper was more traditional with a walking tour of the history of the distillery and the production area. At the end we had some tastings. Our last and final tour was at Lexington Brewing and Distillers at 4pm. This place is both a brewery and a distillery ” Town Branch”. We got 4 tokens each at the start of the tour which we could used for any tastings along the tour. We started out with a tour of the brewery. At then end of the first portion, we ended up at the CRAFT beer bar where Greg and I used 3 of our 8 combined tokens. I tried the pumpkin barrel beer which was probably my favorite.
Next we walked across the street and toured the distillery and ended with the rest of our tastings in a bar at then end of the distillery tour.
We were tired at this point and made our way back to the hotel. The hotel was crowded because of a UK basketball game and it being right by RUPP arena. We decided to just order doordash for dinner and watch a few of our recorded shows on streamed on the TV. It was a relaxing night. We ordered 2 buy one get one free pepperoni rolls from Stoners pizza joint which is fairly close by.
This was our first stay with official Hyatt globalist status so we got free breakfast and free valet parking the next morning. I ordered the Eggs Benedict with Holandaise sauce. Greg got an egg sandwich. All and all it was a fun November day trip in KY!
