Bourbon Experts -

Kentucky is famous for it's bourbon so decided to take a tour of one of their factories and ended up doing 3 tours of Wild Turkey, 4 Roses and Buffalo Trace.  Oh my, we were really bourbon'd out but learned quite a bit.  All 3 tours were different and so picked up a little bit more from each tour.  One this is certain; it is a BIG industry although most of the manufacturers have very few employees.  Buffalo Trace still does a lot by manpower so they had the most employees but so much is automated and most of the work is sitting and letting the stuff age in barrels.  There are warehouses filled with the stuff!  Oh my goodness, at 500+ barrels a day and the stuff has to age 4 to 10 years or more you do the math... it's wild but then there are farmers that grow all that corn (has to 51% or more corn to qualify as bourbon, rye and barley - the barley comes from MT and the rye mostly from Canada - then the truckers who haul all this stuff and the barrel makers - now let's see to be true bourbon the barrels HAVE to be made with "white" oak only and can only be used once!  That 's right folks.. guess which lobbyist got that one thru - only trouble is trees don't grow as fast as barrels can be made so that could change some day.  No worry about the barrels being thrown away though. They are sent to Scotland for their whisky and various wineries for their product.  And, all the mash from the product gets dried and supplied to the farmers for their cattle free!  We are not bourbon fans so the tasting did not attract us but it was interesting and another interesting fact is that some counties in Kentucky are still dry - can't sell the stuff but they can make it! 

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