September is National Bourbon Month; Follow the Urban Bourbon Trail in Louisville
by Pamela O’Meara
Louisville, Ky, gives visitors like me a chance to visit some of the best bourbon bars in the world to taste the drink in various forms — straight, with champagne, in a mint julep. My tour included a mint julep (bourbon with minty simple syrup and mint sprig over ice) at the Brown Hotel, which in 1926 became the home of the Hot Brown sandwich which is composed of bread, fried green tomatoes, turkey, cheese, bacon and morney sauce. Hundreds of hungry flappers enjoyed them after dancing half the night away, and I had a sample.
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| At the nearby Seelbach Hotel, which F. Scott Fitzgerald mentions in “The Great Gatsby,” I had a glass of the hotel’s classic bourbon with champagne. The story goes that Fitzgerald wrote part of Gatsby on napkins there, and characters Tom and Daisy were married in the ballroom. Listed on the National Historic Register, the hotel is also famous for a secret back room where Al Capone would regularly meet with associates during Prohibition. |
Bucks Restaurant and Bar, set among Victorian mansions, was filled with vases of white flowers and glittering candles against a dark green background. We sampled 12-year-old bourbon and a meringue dessert while listening to a young woman play a piano.
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| These bars and restaurants are among the 27 listed on the Urban Bourbon Trail, which includes bars that stock 50 to 150 different brands of bourbon. Collect a stamp from six bars and you’ll earn the rank of official Bourbon Country Citizen and be awarded a special Urban Bourbon Trailblazer T-shirt. Trail passports (but not the drinks) are free at any participating establishment and at the visitor’s center. |
Photos by Pamela O’Meara
For more information go to http://www.bourboncountry.com/things-to-do/urban-bourbon-trail/index.aspx.
