Another distillery and a museum.

Today, we visited the Lux Row Distillery.  The business has had several names over the years and has just recently opened at the current location so all the buildings are new even though some of the barrels were filled years earlier.  It was a rainy day but cleared up.

The tour was very informative and our tour guide was great! 

The tour was different from the others in that we were able to see barrels being filled and sealed.  I turned just in time but just barely.  It takes longer than you might think to fill a barrel.

Time for us to see the rick house.  They have a different setup to allow a better view of the number of barrels.

The "Angels Share" is the amount that evaporates over the years of aging.  We could see some leaking from some of the barrels. The barrels are 53 gallons each but depending on aging less than 50 gallons of bourbon will be extracted.  The smell in a rick house is AMAZING!

Some businesses and even individuals will purchase an entire barrel for themselves.  They are given samples each year until they are happy with the results.

Time for our tasting.

On our way back to the RV, we stopped downtown to walk around.  We ended up at the Bourbon Museum.   The building is old.  It was used as a boys school before the civil war and then as a hospital during the war.

The museum was donated by the Oscar Getz family and included his rare bourbon collection.   Items as old as 200 years are in the museum.   An entire floor is dedicated to the history of Bourbon and Liquor in general.

This includes a still used by George Washington.  I love small town museums.  The still is not separated by a glass wall or any other restrictions.  Yes, I touched the still.

The whiskey and bourbon bottle collection was extensive.  Many of the bottles were very old.

I found out something.  It seems that the term we use as Booze is actually from a persons name. I am actually surprised I did not know already.

They have a display on Prohibition.

A few items from speakeasys and bootleggers.

I was not aware of the significance of this display until I read the info card.

There was a large collection to honor the current producers.

As we were about to leave, the curator warned us that it looked like it was about to rain.  She was right and before we got to our first cover at a closed bakery, we were soaked.  When it let up, we decided to head home to dry off.