But, while root beer is a tasty treat, it doesn’t take much of it to make me start thinking of summer and root beer floats. 

It’s Minnesota. Even with the 50 degree weather we’ve been having, it’s too cold for me to eat ice cream right now (aw shucks). But that just means that I’ll have to turn to something even tastier to make my (all grown-up) root beer float. And I happen to have the perfect product on hand: Buffalo Trace Bourbon Cream. Picture Bailey’s, but sweeter and with more vanilla/carmel flavor. 

I bought mine at the distillery, but I heard rumors of it being available in Frankfort, KY outside of the distillery too. I’ve also found it at: The Party Source as well. 

All Grown Up Root Beer Float

Get 1 pint glass.
Pour in 2 oz Buffalo Trace Bourbon Cream
Gently top with root beer
Enjoy.

I pick up a sweet, butterscotch smell on the nose. The taste is soft and sweet fading to a spicy burn as it moves back on the tongue. It is slightly syrupy in the mouth. The finish is nice and spicy, I timed it out at almost a minute before it faded into a nice sweetness.

I like this one a lot. It’s the better of the two wheated bourbons I’ve had and the cheaper. So I think I’ll get it again. Nice job, Buffalo Trace!

This is better with an above average splash of water than it is with just the few ice cubes I normally put in a drink as the high proof almost feels like it burns your mouth. Odd since I’ve had higher proof ones that doesn’t act this way.

Overall, I will finish the bottle. As of now, it was an interesting experiment, but I probably won’t buy again I can find a lot more that I like better for the same price. Of course, that opinion might change after a few more drinks. I’ll update if it does.

But. I suffer from allergies. Make for the whole nosing thing being kinda crap since I can never really smell. Oh, I can get a few things. Smells like bourbon, smells like carmel, smells like alcohol. etc. But honestly everyone gets something different any way. So here goes. Let’s review some bourbons.

It’s hot here today. Feels like 104 degrees outside. And bourbon isn’t normally a hot day drink for me. But I think I found a way: Raspberry Bourbon Lemonade. I’m just about sure that raspberries, lemon bourbon and mint will do the trick.

2 Cups Raspberries
5-6 sprigs of mint
2.5 cups of water
.5 cups brown sugar
1 Cup lemon juice (fresh is better)
1 cup bourbon whiskey
club soda 

Wash the berries and mint. Muddle together in the bottom of a pitcher.

Dissolve brown sugar in water (a microwave or sauce pan on heat helps) pour into mixture

Add lemon juice and bourbon. Stir.

To serve: add some ice to a glass, pour about half full with lemonade, top with club soda. If you’re feeling fancy, float a mint leaf on there too. Store the remainder in the refrigerator.

This is an adaptation of another recipe I found here: http://eatlovedrink.com/2011/07/29/blackberry-and-bourbon-lemonade/. I had raspberries on hand and thought the addition of mint and some soda would work well. It did.

Clean, top and quarter strawberries (smaller if you have really big berries). Mix ingredients together in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. After the strawberries have softened a bit, mash them with a potato masher. Drop heat and let simmer for 5 minutes or until the mixture has thickened. Remove from heat and let cool. If you don’t like chucks of strawberries in your topping, run through a blender. 

Well, Bud Light is the best selling beer in the American market. But is it really all that patriotic to drink a beer owned by a Belgian/Brazillian company? Of course it isn’t. And how about number two? Well, same company as it is Budweiser. How about three? There we get to travel to the UK and drink SABMiller’s Miller Lite. (Though it is marketed though MillerCoors a joint venture with Molson-Coors.) 

So what is a proud, patriotic American to do when his favorite beverages are all under foreign ownership? Well, in typical fashion, I have two answers for you. I’m all about choice after all. 

One you could turn to one of you local craft brewers. Hard working people making tasty beers just for you. Here in Minnesota, I’d probably have a Summit or a Schell’s. You probably know your locals better than I do. Though if you don’t, go down to your local beer emporium and search them out. You’ll be happy you did.

The other option I have for you is my new favorite drink: Bourbon. This is the America’s Native Spirit (so proclaimed by Act of Congress in 1964) and was developed right here in the USA. Beer is a worldwide phenomena. Vodka is European, Tequila is Mexican, Sake is Japanese. Scotch and Irish Whisky are, well, Scotch and Irish.

But back to bourbon. Or as I like to call it, Liquid Patriotism. To even be called bourbon it has to be produced in the US (amongst other rules). My current favorites are Knob Creek, Wild Turkey Rare Breed and Woodford Reserve. But might I suggest that we support the small businesses? Kings County Distillery in Brooklyn makes a bourbon. So does Kentucky’s MB Roland. Going back to New York, I hear good things about Tuthilltown’s Hudson Baby Bourbon. That goes for Ohio’s Woodstone Creek as well. And I even hear rumors of a bourbon being produced in my home state of Wisconsin by Milwaukee’s Great Lakes Distillery. Though I find no evidence of that on their website. 

So there you go: there are a lot of choices out there. Enjoy your celebrations today in moderation and safety. I’d hate for you to lose a hand with those firecrackers. I mean, what would you drink with?

Taking a break from the bourbon tonight. I’ve had a big meal tonight at an italian restaurant in my area. Ate a bit too much, as I’ve been known to do with italian food, and an hour later I’m still stuffed. So, to what do I turn for relief? Why the yummy italian digestif: limoncello, of course. And since I’m a DIY sort of guy, I had some that I’d made earlier in my freezer. Here’s how I did it.

Most Limoncello recipes state you have to wait something like a a week or more before you can enjoy your drink. This is as untrue as it would be sad if it were true. You need to read up on the low temperature steeped (LTS) infusion process. I link to it in this post.

Arok’s Limoncello

2-3 lemons, washed (organic is even better)
150 mL Everclear 190 (If using 151 proof EC use 190 mL)
210 mL water (If using EC 151, reduce water to 170 mL)
.5 – .75 cup sugar (depends on how sweet you like it)

Using a vegetable peeler, peal the outer skin from a couple lemons. Make sure you trim off the pith (the white part) as this will just make this bitter.

Put the lemon peals in a pint size mason jar. Use as many as will be covered by the Everclear added in the next step.

Pour Everclear into mason jar, seal tightly and shake. If there are a lot of lemon peals sticking out, open and remove them, reseal and shake. (And yes, there should be a lot of airspace in there)

Use the LTS infusion method to create a lemon infusion. (Bring a tall stock pot of water to 170 degrees and turn the stove down to the simmer setting. Use a thermometer to ensure that the water stays around 160 degrees. Place the mason jar in the water. It should float. If it stays on the bottom, it will get too much heat and will not turn out. Keep it in the water for about 1.5-2 hours.)

Mix water and sugar in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil, let simmer for 5 minutes. After your lemon infused Everclear is out of the water bath, mix it with this simple syrup.

Let it cool and store it in the freezer until ready to drink. Your Limoncello should now be at about 80-85 proof depending on how much water boiled off while making the simple syrup.

2 oz ginger simple syrup
1 oz Woodford Reserve bourbon
2 scoops vanilla ice cream 
6 oz bottle of club soda

Place ice cream in tall glass 
Mix ginger syrup with Woodford Reserve. Pour over ice cream.
Top with club soda. 

It’s Saturday morning. We’ve had storms all night. At one point the thunder is so loud that I jump straight out of bed and land on the floor looking to make sure the ceiling is still above me. Reports of flooding are rampant. I’ve got one distillery to go and after a bit of packing I’m ready to go.

As we head out of Bardstown for the last time on this trip we notice that the thunder was only the most audible of the storm’s effects. Branches are down everywhere and there are a traces that running water was everywhere too in the not too distant past.

We get to Frankfort a little early. There is a definite need for some coffee. Can you believe that the only coffee place in Bardstown was closed still at 8am? So we stop for coffee and plan what we are going to try to do when we get to Buffalo Trace. 

We get there just as they are opening and we get on the first tour of the morning. We had reservations for the Hard Hat tour a little later, but are assured of making it back in time. So we decide to give it a try. 

The first thing I notice while waiting for the Trace Tour to start is that we are in a beautiful old building. The second, as I chat with the tour guide, is that I think I am going to like this tour. Our tour guide is JW (editors note: I’m pretty sure…it has been a month now). This guy is awesome! So much raw excitement.

We start out with a little history. Then we head over to another building for a movie. This movie is as good as the rest. That is to say very informative and nicely done. After the movie JW takes questions and then we are asked to gather in the back of the room. 

Once we are in the back of the room, JW gives an old cabinet a pull and it pops out from the wall. It’s actually a doorway to get into one of the aging warehouses. It’s a small thing, but is impressively cool none the less. 

Unlike some of the other tours we’ve been on, we don’t go into the rick house very far. We get to see some barrels and even an experimental barrel or two. But it’s all good. The smell is the main reason I like going into them anyway.

After the rick house we travel to a small building where JW explains just how much liquid is lost due to evaporation over time. This is the coolest visual aid we’ve seen on this. the rest of the tours we’d been on just sort of tell us there is evaporation. All of a sudden I understand why an 18 year old bourbon is so much more expensive than a 12 year old one. Pretty cool.

The one thing we didn’t see was the bottling. Once again. Make sure you don’t plan your trip for a holiday weekend. Or really a weekend in general if you want to see that. Just saying.

Then it is back for the tasting. We get to taste the Buffalo Trace and the Eagle Rare single barrel. Both are very good. There is something about seeing how something is made that kind of changes your opinion of it. I didn’t care for the Buffalo Trace before I went, but really like it at 11 am this rainy Saturday morning, so who knows. But the star of the show is the Bourbon Creme. Toss that guy in a little root beer and you have a knock your socks off adult root beer float. Holy Cow. That’s what I ended up buying as my souvenir.

After the tasting I chat with JW a little more. He’s a great guide and I hope that the rest are as good as him. After that it is time for the Hard Hat tour. 

We gather next to the tasting area for this one. It is my wife and I, an older couple and their daughter and son-in-law. Coincidentally, they are from the Twin Cities too, just not recently. Small world. We all keep an eye to the sky because there is more weather threatening.

To start this tour we get a tiny bit of history, not a lot since this is much more of a factory tour. We see some of the grounds. Very pretty. Then it is over to the industrial portions. The first stop on the way in is where the grains are unloaded. They are unloaded through a grate in the ground. 

Once inside we walk past the mash cookers and up some stairs. Once up there we get to see them from the top. They really look like giant pressure cookers. And wow, are the lids attached with some heavy duty closures! We also see the yeast cooker.

Then it is across a skyway to the fermenting building. It seems like each place we go to builds them bigger than the last. These fermenting tanks hold 92,000 gallons! Buffalo Trace also has a very cool CO2 removal system that we haven’t see anywhere else. At least I thought it was cool. (Oh and the “No Swimming” sign next to them is pretty much priceless.)

After that we see a small still for making experimental bourbons and some smaller fermenting tanks. Nothing in these.

Finally there are the stills. These suckers are multiple stories high. I forget how many, but we were way up there. These are column stills. I like the little touches here. Even the taps to pull a sample have a small buffalo on them. Love that.  

Then we are done. We stop a little bit to look at the flooding. The river in their back yard has not crested yet and is already high. Amazing.  

Then tasting. I already had one of these so I tell them that so they didn’t get in trouble for serving me twice. While he was serving the others I ask about the root beer. Dr. Mcgillicuddy’s. Not available most places. But available online, in that distillery and in certain places in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Yep. It’s made near me. It’s owned by the same company as Buffalo Trace. Some of the best I’ve had. Seriously. I also buy some of root beer. It’s gone before I leave the parking lot. Sad.

I loved Buffalo Trace distillery. I wish I had seen it in operation and on a sunny day. It was pretty, but I could only imagine the improvement a some sun would make. I will go back. I may try to get on both tours again. I think this tour was the best one. If I had to choose just one tour, it would be this one. And it isn’t even on the Bourbon Trail officially.