Woodford Reserve

You get the feel for what Woodford Reserve is going to be as you drive past the fence-lined rolling pastures leading to the visitor center. It’s no surprise that this is the whiskey with a Kentucky Derby bottle.

The visitor center is small and classy. There was a fire going in the fireplace even though it was eighty degrees outside. I signed in to my tour and browsed a bit while I waited. The gift shop has the usual items with some unique pricey options on top. There’s even a 375ml bottle of specially blended rye (?) on the shelf that you can only buy there.

The tour starts out by walking to a bus that takes you down the short hill to the actual distillery. No other buildings looked like these. The stonework was unique from the distilleries that I saw and visually impressive. I snapped a few quick shots while we were herded into the fermentation room. There was a short presentation on the different aspects that go into the whiskey-making process along with some words on what makes Woodford Reserve unique. Then we climbed upstairs for a look at the fermentation tanks from above. Again, these were like nothing I saw on other visits with their wooden side-paneling. Afterwards we walked a short way to see the pot stills. This may be the dork in me coming out, but I thought this was one of the coolest sights on the whole trip. I believe they claim to be the only distillery in the US (?) using a pot still (as opposed to column still) for their first distillation (as others use pot stills for the second time through). Either way, they were the only ones I saw and definitely had me thinking ahead to a Scotland/Ireland distillery tour someday. I got a picture with them before heading down to see where the barrels are filled.

Next, we spent some time in a rick house. The toasting and charring process was described while I found a barrel that had been filled on my birthday this year. After that we walked through the bottling area before heading back to the bus to drive up to our tasting at the gift center.

The tasting included their flagship, Distiller’s Select, plus Double Oak and a bourbon chocolate ball. As I said in the basic description, I was disappointed considering what I paid for compared to what I got at other distilleries. I do like Woodford Reserve so I enjoyed the most important part of the tasting, but I would have loved to try their Rye too.

Overall, I’m glad that I stopped at Woodford Reserve but I don’t think I’d go back again. I enjoyed what I saw but for the cost I didn’t get as much time to walk around the distillery as I would have liked and the tasting was the only one I went to, paid or free, to only feature two drinks.