Four Roses Distillery Tour
Day 1: Stop 2
After our Stitzel Weller tour and tasting, we moved on to Four Roses Distillery. The grounds are lovely, I really liked the Spanish Mission Style buildings. The distillery is quite vast over rolling hills which gave it an old world feel.
We arrived early for our tour and had about 30 minutes to burn. The store was rather small and took up about 10 minutes, max. Luckily Four Roses has a bar, Bar 1888, and a covered patio where we were able to sit and truly enjoy the view of the grounds. The bar menu is strictly alcohol, with neat pours and seasonal cocktails selected to showcase different Four Roses Bourbons. I went with a classic, an Old Fashioned; because hey, if I’m at a distillery with a professional bartender, I want to see what he’s working with. My sister ordered a maple Old Fashioned. Both were very good; though I like my Old Fashioneds better 😉. What was missing? Something to snack on. I would have loved something to nosh on while we had our cocktails. I’m not talking about a meal; but crudité, charcuterie, salted almonds, something…anything! We likely would have ordered another round if we had something to put in our stomachs.
The tour was lovely. It was more scripted than our first stop. And while our tour guide was ok, I was spoiled by the top-of-mind observations from the unscripted tour of Stitzel Weller. However, this tour was more informational for the bourbon enthusiast, going so far to speak to the yeast strains and where Four Roses harvest’s its corn. I was in bourbon nerd heaven. We walked a lot and while I loved looking at the hills; walking up and down got old quickly. Nevertheless, we entered a lot of the buildings and were able to see the mash up close and personal.
Once we finished the tour, it was off to a room inside the main building for a tasting. We had four bourbons to taste. Thankfully in addition to water to sip between tastings, they also provided oyster crackers. I was hungry and this was my second tasting within 3 hours. I needed those crackers. The tasting bourbons vary by day; but what we had could be found on most store shelves. I believe there is a tour and tasting that has special or reserve tastings. Our tasting was delicious and they gave us a Four Roses lowball glass as a souvenir.
Cheers,
~Kimberly Elise
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