Roadtrip: Bourbon

Our roadtrip took us through the two best states for whiskey -- Tennessee and Kentucky. Jack Daniels of course is a Tennessee sour mash and bourbon derives its name from a county in Kentucky.

We had a very nice meal in Nashville at the Capitol Grille (no relation to chain) and did not make it to Whiskey Kitchen, a trendy new restaurant featuring lots of whiskeys. But the hotel concierge sent me to Midtown Wine and Spirits, a huge liquor store, to look for whiskeys I might have trouble finding elsewhere.

A very helpful staffer steered me to a bottle of Bejamin Prichard's Straight Tennessee Whiskey, which has only been on the market a few months. Prichard's distills a lot of rum and has produced a "double-barreled" 90-proof whiskey. But this is a premium product in a bottle like Woodford Reserve. Tennesse whiskey has the distinction of being filtered through maple, marking its flavor accordingly.

Otherwise, he said, the main Tennessee alternative to Jack Daniel's is Dickel, which apparently is fairly widely distributed, though new to me. He also recommended a Kentucky small-batch bourbon, Rowan's Creek, from Bardstown. Prichard's is very good, but the Rowan's Creek is excellent.

In the new cable series "Justified" with Timothy Olyphant, set in Lexington, Ky., everyone is always having a shot of neat whiskey. Easy to see why once you get there.

We didn't dally along the bourbon trail in Kentucky, but did go to dinner in Lexington, at deSha's, which was voted the best whiskey bar in the country in 2008. The bar menu listed at least three dozen small-batch bourbons, and a knowledgeable waiter helped me build a flight of bourbons to go with my steak dinner. We started with an Elmer T. Lee, a single-barrel bourbon produced at the Buffalo Trace distillery, which makes the Eagle Rare and Blanton brands, among others. A review in a spirits magazine praises the deep golden color of the 14-year-old whiskey and detects a toffee flavor. I thought it was great.

With the main course, I had a Noah's Mill bourbon, also from Bardstown. It had a nice whiskey flavor, in contrast to the final member of my little flight, which had a beautiful cognac flavor. That was a special Woodford Reserve. The waiter explained that the Woodford Reserve in the store is mixed with Old Forrester, but that deSha's had its own label of pure Woodford Reserve -- a Woodford Reserve reserve, so to speak. It was heavenly, and when I say it tasted like cognac, keep in mind that cognac, like bourbon, is aged in charred oak barrels. I floated out of the restaurant. It might be fun to go back to Kentucky and travel down the bourbon trail!