Kentucky Bourbon Trail

The Bourbon Tasting shrine in Kentucky is the Kentucky Bourbon House located at the Chapeze Mansion, “Kentucky’s Home for Bourbon” in Bardstown, Kentucky. Chapeze Mansion, built in 1787, is a beautiful Federalist mansion and one of the great historic places for Bourbon Tasting in Kentucky.

 

Kentucky Colonel Michael and Margaret Sue Masters, the proprietors of the Kentucky Bourbon House, are famous Kentucky personalities well known for their ultra-premium Bourbon Tastings and exquisite dinners at the Kentucky Bourbon House located in the Chapeze Mansion, “Kentucky’s Home for Bourbon.”

 

A tour of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail is not complete until you have made a reservation to Drink Kentucky Bourbon with The Colonel and Dine upon a dinner prepared by Margaret Sue at the Kentucky Bourbon House located at the Chapeze Mansion, ”Kentucky’s Home for Bourbon.” Call for reservations 502-507-8338

                                               

 

The Kentucky Bourbon House is at its essence a tavern and dinner house.  My wife Margaret Sue and Colonel Rosemary are incomparable Southern cooks. Margaret Sue’s cookbook Kentucky Cooking and Entertaining at the Kentucky Bourbon House articulates the many great foods our kitchen cooks throughout the year.

 We cook each night primarily for guests touring the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. We grill a marinated two inch center cut loin pork chop. We simmer cook green beans for four hours with just a country ham hock salt and pepper, which is the Kentucky way. We have corn on the cob in season coated in butter and the herb rosemary. We often also have baked apples and a zucchini squash sauté with fresh yellow onion and butter. Our salad is of our own creation-mixed lettuce greens with a raspberry, garlic, Bermuda onion vinaigrette. The dessert is often bread pudding with Bourbon hard sauce or chocolate cake with my chocolate sauce.

Prior to the dinner each night we have our famous cocktail hour featuring  single barrel, small batch, rare and cask strength Kentucky Bourbons. We also stock gin, vodka, beer and a good selection of wines.

Margaret Sue and Kentucky Bourbon House are also renowned caterers. Over fifty weddings and receptions are hosted each year at the Kentucky Bourbon House along with bridesmaid luncheons, afternoon teas, rehearsal dinners and cocktail parties.

Contact: Kentucky Bourbon House
                www.kentuckybourbonhouse.com
                502-507-8338

Kentucky Bourbon University
Recently I held a Bourbon University at the Kentucky Bourbon House. Along with my trusty assistant Colonel Rosemary we took our class through the various taste profiles of Kentucky Bourbon, Rye whiskey, Tennessee whiskey and white dog. We sampled several of the prominent Single Barrel and Small Batch Bourbons. We took care to sample old, rare and cask strength Bourbon.  Along the way I told stories about the origin of the brands we sampled along with anecdotes about the Kentucky Bourbon barons and master distillers I have known.

We stopped for lunch at the midway point. Colonel Rosemary served a delicious repast that included Bourbon cheese made in our kitchen and crackers for the appetizer; and a country ham sandwich and a bowl of homemade Kentucky Burgoo for the lunch, Kentucky fare at its very best.

After lunch we resumed the Kentucky Bourbon University. We made the famous Kentucky Bourbon cocktails that included the Mint Julep, Old Fashioned, Manhattan, Bourbon Sour and a drink of Colonel Rosemary’s concoction the Chapeze-tini-Bourbon, ginger ale, orange juice, orange bitters and Maraschino cherry juice.

Our guests reported that the Kentucky Bourbon University was the best time they have had while touring the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.

Sunday Afternoon Lunch at the Kentucky Bourbon House

Sunday Afternoon Lunch
Sunday, the Kentucky Bourbon House hosted a wonderful afternoon party for a group of lovely ladies from Bardstown. Our kitchen prepared three-tiered trays of savory foods. We prepared cucumber, tomato sandwiches on bread rounds spread with Benedictine. We put fresh made chicken salad made sweet with cut red grapes in baked filo cups. We cut the crust off bread slices and spread the slices with Benedictine; we cut the sandwiches diagonally.  Beautiful plump red strawberries were rinsed. We baked baking powder biscuits and stuffed them with center cut country ham. Sweet cantaloupe was sliced thin. All of these delectable foods were attractively arranged on the three-tiered trays, each plate set for four guests as there are four guests at each table.

Our guests arrived at one o’ clock. Mimosa cocktail, made from a recipe of Margaret Sue’s mother, was served in fluted classes.

The Kentucky Bourbon House dining room tables were beautifully set. Our guests were seated. Tomato-basil soup made with tomato juice, heavy cream, diced tomatoes and seasoned with basil, celery seed, salt and pepper was served in heated warm bowls. After the soup was finished, the bowls were removed and the three-tier trays brought and set in the middle of the table. When our guests had finished with the savory foods the three-tier trays were removed and fresh made cherry cobbler crisp with ice cream was served.

A fine time was had at Sunday Afternoon Lunch.

Low Country Boil Hosted at the Kentucky Bourbon House

Low Country Boil

The Kentucky Bourbon House hosted a Low Country Boil last week. Our house captain Kentucky Colonel Rosemary Lewis born and raised in Beaufort, South Carolina cooked the feast for our fifty guests, all friends who came to the Kentucky Bourbon House to celebrate the birthday of my wife Margaret Sue. I am telling you certain the Low Country Boil was a huge hit.

Colonel Rosemary lightly cooked homemade sausage in garlic and butter until they were brown and crispy on the ends. She then washed the wild caught shell- on prawn sized shrimp in salt water. Colonel Rosemary took great care in shucking twenty five ears of corn; she then cut the ears of corn in half making them the perfect size for the boil.  She then quartered fifty red skin potatoes.

Instead of flavoring the boil with Old Bay seasoning she made her own seasoning learned from her dear mother who has cooked for extended family for sixty years with the ocean’s bounty brought to her by the menfolk who fished and net caught oysters, shrimp, scallops and mussels each day. Colonel Rosemary seasoned the boil with a blend of garlic powder, paprika, chili powder, salt and pepper. She tasted the blend several times, adding a little bit of this and that until it was perfect to her palette.

Colonel Rosemary brought a huge pot of water to a rapid boil and added her seasoning. She then added the potatoes, corn, sausage and shell-on shrimp to the pot in that order. She placed a lid on the pot telling me that the steamy froth rising from the boiling pot and pressing against the lid would cook the shrimp perfectly. Man O’ Man was she right.

After about ten minutes on the boil she removed the pot from the heat and drained the water.

We held the boil inside the Kentucky Bourbon House as the weather outside was cold and raining. That was just fine with Colonel Rosemary. She set the tables for five guests each. She then placed platters of the boil on each table.

Our bartender at Kentucky Bourbon House, Billi Jo was busy pouring drinks. Her sister, Sharonda, was busy seating our guests, making certain they had everything they needed to enjoy this incredible meal.
Colonel Michael Masters, Kentucky Bourbon Master

Contact: Colonel Michael Masters, Kentucky Bourbon Master
                 Kentucky Bourbon House
                 Bardstown, Kentucky
                 www.kentuckybourbonhouse