Carolinas, Georgia & South Trips (Lonely Planet, 1st Edition) - Alex Leviton [159]
Jim Beam
Learn a few bourbon-making secrets from the Beam clan at America’s largest bourbon distillery. 502-543-9877; www.jimbean.com; 149 Happy Hollow Rd, Clermont; admission free; 9am-4:30pm Mon-Sat, 1pm-4pm Sun
Keene’s Depot
This former country store is one-stop shopping for bourbon-infused foodstuffs. 502-348-3594; 8 Old Bloomfield Pike, Bardstown; 8am-7pm Mon-Sat, to 1pm Sun
Maker’s Mark
Now a national historic landmark, this distillery has been going strong since the early 1800s. 502-865-2099; www.makersmark.com; 3350 Burks Spring Rd, near Loretto; admission free; 10:30am-3:30pm Mon-Sat, from 1:30pm Sun
Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History
Exhibits of vintage distillery vats and old whiskey ads tell the bourbon story. 502-348-2999; www.whiskeymuseum.com; 114 N 5th St; donations encouraged; 10am-4pm Mon-Sat, from noon Sun
Wild Turkey
This no-frills distillery offers simple tours of its facility overlooking the Kentucky River. 502-839-4544; www.wildturkeybourbon.com; US Hwy 62 East, Lawrenceburg; admission free; 9am-2:30pm Mon-Sat
EAT
Chapeze House
The “Host and Hostess of Kentucky” will arrange a private bourbon tasting and dinner in their immaculately restored Bardstown mansion. 502-349-0127; www.chapezehouse.com; 107 E Stephen Foster Ave, Bardstown; per guest $250, 4 guests maximum; by arrangement
Old Talbott Tavern
Daniel Boone and Abe Lincoln passed through this old limestone tavern, now a restaurant, inn and bar. 502-348-3494; www.talbotts.com; 107 W Stephen Foster Ave, Bardstown; mains $8-20; 11am-8pm Sun-Thu, to 10pm Fri & Sat, bar to 1am Thu-Sun
SLEEP
Jailer’s Inn
Sleep in a former cell in the Old Nelson County Jail, now outfitted with floral wallpaper and antique furniture. 502-308-5551; www.jailersinn.com; 111 W Stephen Foster Ave, Bardstown; r $90-145
Storybook Inn
This white antebellum mansion features a huge garden and lavish Southern breakfasts. 859-879-9993; www.storybook-inn.com; 277 Rose Hill Ave, Versailles; r $199-269
USEFUL WEBSITES
www.bardstowntourism.com
www.kentuckybourbontrail.com
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LINK YOUR TRIP www.lonelyplanet.com/trip-planner
TRIP
63 Kentucky Bluegrass & Horse Country
65 My Old Kentucky Home opposite
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Return to beginning of chapter
TRIP 65
My Old Kentucky Home
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WHY GO Bourbon. Racehorses. Baseball bats. Bluegrass. Fried chicken. What do these things have in common? There’s a museum in Kentucky dedicated to each one. Travel through the emerald hills and limestone hollows and find yourself lost in the state’s fascinatingly eccentric past.
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TIME
3 - 4 days
DISTANCE
450 miles
BEST TIME TO GO
Apr - Sep
START
Owensboro, KY
END
Corbin, KY
ALSO GOOD FOR
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Every road trip needs a soundtrack, and what’s more appropriate than a rollicking bluegrass fiddle tune when driving through the Bluegrass State? So start your trip in Owensboro, on a bend in the Ohio River across the water from Indiana. This town of 55,000 or so is home to the worthy International Bluegrass Music Museum. Bluegrass was born in Appalachia (though not necessarily in Kentucky, as some may claim) in the 1940s, mingling the mournful ballads of homesick Scotish-Irish immigrants with thigh-slapping ragtime tempos and African rhythms. The modest museum has several historical exhibits, including a Hall of Honor profiling the great pickers n’ grinners. There’s a special tribute to bluegrass pioneer and Kentucky native Bill Monroe, whose band, the Blue Grass Boys, gave the genre its name.
Swing east towards rural Hodgenville, birthplace of America’s much-mythologized 16th president, Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was born in a one-room log cabin here in 1809, on a farm named Sinking Springs. Honest Abe probably had his first sips of water from the cave spring that gives the property its