Walk the Urban Bourbon Trail in Louisville, Kentucky

Chaz Rough: Welcome everyone to this edition of lookin@Louisville, my name is Chaz. Stacey Yates: And I am Stacey Yates. Chaz Rough: Now we are here at Proof on Main street and we are going to be talking about Bourbon and the history of Bourbon and the Urban Bourbon Trail philosophy. Stacey Yates: Sure. And Louisville is the gateway to Bourbon country forcing out it's Americas only native spirit. 90% of the world's Bourbon is produced here in State Kentucky. We have these great distilleries out of state and probably two of the Kentucky Bourbon trail. A lot of people don't realize that Louisville was really critical and the role of the Bourbon industry about 300 years ago and still it's producing a lot of bourbon here, in Louisville and we have a wonderful vacation experience awaiting on the Urban Bourbon trail. Chaz Rough: You look little bit short today. Stacey Yates: Oh yeah. Might be because you are standing on a box. Chaz Rough: On a box well yeah. Stacey Yates: It's already gotten into to the box. Let’s get started. Chaz Rough: Thanks for blowing me alright. We have a very special guest to tell us about Bourbon. Stacey Yates: We do. Woodford drinks that we are having right now. Chris Morris, he is the master distiller for Woodford Reserve and questions for our Main Street why don’t you tell us a little about what Main Street means to you in Louisville? Chris Morris: Stacey it means so much because Main Street is where it all started here in Louisville. Just a mile down the road on very far west main was the first commercial distillery all of Kentucky. It was the new Hope distillery, we were talking between 1815 and 1817 when the distillery was founded. Unfortunate for the new Hope they didn’t make it. Stacey Yates: They didn't have much hope. Chris Morris: They didn't have much hope. But down this wonderful road eventually over 89 distillery companies have their headquarters. Now they weren't distillers, the distilleries were out in the country side along the Bourbon trail. Stacey Yates: At the trail. Chris Morris: Exactly and those distilleries would have shipped full barrels of bourbon to Main Street and here in the headquarters buildings they would have put barrels together batched or mingle barrels together bottle them and either sent case of a Bourbon or full barrels of Bourbon right down to world, the steamboats that land river and off the mark they went. Stacey Yates: So Louisville really played a critical role in the formation of -- Chris Morris: It sure did and as a result of all these headquarters and all these activity Main Street is also called Whisky Row and if you said I am going to Whisky Row you knew where you were going. As you walk up down the Main Street you will meet one of the Victorian restaurants beside many are the identified by the whiskey company that used to be in. So even though the business has moved out the history is still here. Stacey Yates: Wonderful thanks for being with us. Chris Morris: Thank you. Chaz Rough: Well cheers and thank you for your knowledge. Chris Morris: Thank you. Chaz Rough: Here we are at the Seelbach Hilton in downtown Louisville on Fourth Street and we are at the old Seelbach bar. Now the hotel and bar has a lot of history for moodies to gangsters and we have Mark Butcher here who is a the director of Food and Beverage. Stacey Yates: He is not a gangster. Chaz Rough: He dresses like horn but he is not. So Mark tell us little about the history about the hotel and the bar. Mark Butcher: The hotel was built in 1906 by the SeelBach brothers and you are right it's rich with history we have got F. Scott Fitzgerald he used to hang out here at Mahogany, drink a few cocktails. Stacey Yates: He is the writer of The Great Gatsby. Mark Rough: Writer of the The Great Gatsby and his inspiration was one of the Cincinnati gangsters that used to come down and play cards in our hotel. Actually I have one of our favorite drinks. The Seelbach cocktail. So if I can toast with that. Stacey Yates: Now tell us what’s in this. It's one of my favorites too. M