You Put the Lime in the Stone

Back in the bluegrass hills of Kentucky, I was caught taking notes on a bourbon tour. They accused me of being from the Maker's distillery.

The tour did, in fact, provide detailed instructions on how to make bourbon in the Woodford style (a corn/rye/barley mash, 3 unique copper stills for filtering) but I don’t think they have to worry about my competition in the bourbon market.*

What I did find worthy of sharing was the constant mention of limestone and its importance to the character of Kentucky, where it makes up 50% of surface rocks. All the things worth doing and seeing in KY are a direct result of limestone’s geological presence.

1. Horses

Limestone by definition contains at least 50% calcium carbonate, and this is given as a reason for the world-class equestrian breeding and horse population. The grass and water are like a multivitamin designed to raise quality horses for racing and competition. It also helps that these horse-breeders give their horses plastic surgery to make them more aerodynamic and correct the flaws in their leg bones. We learned this during an impromptu tour of one of the region’s top horse hospital, where the first sight that greeted us was an OR and an anesthetized horse.

Here’s our gracious host, Ryan, with a horse that has won his owners more than a million dollars:

2. Caves

Kentucky is home to the longest known cave in the world, Mammoth Cave National Park, a few hours south of Lexington. Caves are profligate in this region because the limestone dissolves relatively easily, with underground water deposits slowly, over thousands of years, washing the limestone layers out from under the topsoil and harder rocks. Like the Earth took a laxative and flushed out its system, leaving us these beautiful bowels to explore.

From one of the cave openings flowed an aptly named river, Styx. We took some pictures that Dante would be proud of:

3. Bourbon

Not only does the calcium make the Kentucky whiskey better for your bones than others (and that’s what I’ll be telling my doctor in 30 years), but limestone filters the underground water supplies out of much of its iron, which is good for the bourbon’s taste. It made the region the perfect source of America’s unique whiskey drink. Our guide, Sonny, a small, wiry retiree with an uncanny amount of hair for his age, claimed to go through a bottle a week. He looked ready for another 50 years of tours at the Woodford distillery.

Sonny poured a bit out of the 7-year-old barrels for us to taste—a thick, waxy bourbon with a kick to it (it had yet to go through its last few smoothing filters):

*I am, however, considering investing in the $100-something barrel that has been used to age the bourbon for 7 and a half years. They can only use bourbon barrels once, so they sell them (mostly to lesser-whiskey distillers) after. Beer brewers make bourbon cask ales; I have some ideas for bourbon-infused soups. Halvsies?