Kentucky has been something of a “maybe” state for me; I’ve never been someone with firm plans to visit all 50 states. I planned to visit here years ago and then things changed, keeping the state off my radar. The bit I thought I knew about the state, painted somewhat in an unflattering light, from others—including various news sources—served as enough information about the area to keep it low on my list of places to visit. Then my friends shared more about their experiences living or visiting the state. A plethora of nature photos showcasing the natural beauty of the area helped me to cast off my doubts about visiting. 

This trip is the longest family trip my small family has taken—ever. Traveling was off-limits for a while as we navigated career shifts and funneled our income and time towards the accrual of higher education.  Hawaii was our intended goal in 2020 for a weeklong vacation, then the pandemic hit. A few attempts here and there to reignite Hawaii plans were undone as COVID restrictions create barriers towards our goal. Maybe we’ll get there one day, but we were done holding off on a vacation longer than an extended weekend. 

Picking Louisville simply came down to wanting to visit a longtime friend, his wife, and their daughter. Flying into Louisville was more expensive than traveling through Nashville, so we bookmarked a sliver of travel time and accommodations there. There is so much to see in Louisville, a city much larger than our own; we sit around 280,000 people and here, it’s about 621,000. Part of traveling is always assessing what is worth checking out and being ok with saying no to other experiences others might really love (but you do not or might not like as much). 

Juggling activities with friends and our respective family time wasn’t hard to figure out. Our first day in Louisville, we visited our friends’ home, losing out on some time together due to inclement weather and an unexpected travel delay—originally listed as throwing us two hours behind schedule, but it ended up being roughly an hour. The casual gathering introduced us to a lot of our friends’ friends, a mix of adults and kids so no one felt left out as can happen back in Arizona where we are often the only persons that show up with a child in tow. Our daughter sandwiched herself nicely at the dinner table entertaining adults and their kids until her and the other girls her age became infatuated making glow stick handcuffs, linking themselves all together. Our late first night bonding over dinner, cake, and bourbon (for the adults) encouraged us to get up later here and go to bed later so we are roughly using the three hour time difference to get up around 5ish Arizona time and tucking ourselves into bed around our typical AZ bedtime of 8-9. 

Monday, we kept to our little trio, walking along the Louisville Riverwalk after a warming indulgent southern breakfast at 21C Museum hotel and drinks from Blackbeard Espresso and when the bracing cold got to us, took in a tour at the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience (not originally on our list of sites since we already planned two distillery tours). We were warmly greeted by Diane, who took photos of our daughter and I by their storefront display, and Rita, our tour guide. We were treated to a series of short mocumentaties and a brief visual display of the bourbon making process. Navigating our way past windows showcasing the distillery process, we also learned how barrels aged in the highest point of the rickhouse lose more product, dubbed the Angel’s share. (Something we learned from the Neatdocumentary I’m sure, but a fun reminder nonetheless.) Our tasting took place upstairs in an old-fashioned (no pun intended) bar. From our tasting, my favorite was the Square Six High Rye bourbon: think cornbread. (We don’t have this rye available back home, so we picked up a bottle.)

Tuesday, we balanced our day between personal family time and meeting up with our friends. Our morning started with an hourlong visit to Purrfect Day cafe so our daughter could play with adoptable kittens. (We weren’t interested in adopting any, just wanted her to enjoy time with animals. She loves all creatures, save for mosquitoes and maybe flies.) I wanted to hit up V-Grits (100% vegan, by the way) for their “Cosmic Bird  faultry” chicken sandwiches. Our lunch visit proved their fries and mac and cheese are amazing; their chicken sandwiches don’t compare—in the slightest—to the high-quality seitan based vegan hot chicken sandwiches from Monroe’s Hot Chicken in Phoenix, AZ, but I have faith the brand will continue to improve their offerings. (Maybe they were just having an off-day, too, because the patty was a bit dense, like it got smushed in the freezer.) If vegan is not your thing, Full Arepa KY—the stall right next to V-Grits, definitely has great options. My husband had the arepa pernil (pork) and loved it. I opted not to try it to avoid needing a lactase tablet, selectively saving my medication for indulgent meals and snacks I didn’t want to miss out on. 

Our Tuesday afternoon was spent with friends visiting Rabbit Hole distillery (their first time, too!) and Old Forester. Now is an important time to mention while the tours all tell the same important details of what separates bourbon from whiskey, each lends a different slant to the storytelling of distilling based on the distiller’s place in history. Similarly, it should not be undercut that they all offer different finished product products. There are more distilleries to explore, but we didn’t want to overbook ourselves this trip and I’m sure my liver likes a break here and there from alcohol consumption. This trip involved more bourbon than I typically enjoy in a week.

Rabbit Hole is the distillery I am most familiar with, I previously tried all four products on their website before the tour: Cavehill, Heigold, Dareringer, and Boxergrail, a rye whiskey, my favorite. They surprised by also throwing their bespoke gin—London dry gin finished in Kentucky rye barrels—on the tasting tour; it reminded me of a lemon cookie. Aside from the gin, I was equally surprised to learn the founder of Rabbit Hole, Kaveh Zamanian, came to the United States from Iran decades ago. If you don’t pay attention, you may miss out on the fine details associated with the American flag on the wall ahead of where you walk to enter the tasting room. The art piece, entitled Executive Order 13769, weaves together flags from the nations where immigrants were banned from certain predominantly Muslim countries entering the United States under Trump’s presidency with the American flag in a way that shows our personal histories are interwoven.   Ahead of the tour I was nosing around Rabbit Hole’s website and was drawn to the fact there was an art collection section. (The bulk of our distillery purchases came from here, including one souvenir t-shirt.)

Ending this trip’s series of distillery tours with Old Forester gave us a chance to learn more about the barrel making process of distilling and I loved seeing the rickhouse 12 barrels high. Our tour guide, Lucy, dressed as Smokey the Bear for our Halloween tour. If I recall correctly, the barrels read 2 digit year followed by a letter to represent the month and end with 2 digits to reference day of the month. She educated us that the letters utilized don’t coincide as expected; you cannot use “J” because January, June, and July would not be distinguished from each other much like March and May cannot be marked by “M.” A fan favorite was also seeing the inside of a whiskey barrel get charred. From this respective tour, I most enjoyed the Old Forester 1910, their product that undergoes two barrelings. I never realized that was a thing, and the bourbon is very easy to drink.  

I found myself easily falling in love with the area and that’s a lot to say on my first trip even though the weather was mostly in the 30’s-40’s, not the best way to encourage others to make a move. The tours are one thing—obviously, no one is going to go on a distillery tour every day. We’d need more things to sustain us in we were to live in the local area and I think the city has enough interesting venues and eateries to explore. Our stay at 21C Museum hotel gave us the chance to see some beautiful artwork; Art Eatables is a smallish place we popped into for our daughter to get bourbon chocolates and then she settled on rock candy instead. I found a few Kim Perry bourbon prints at Art Eatables I liked, but I will order them online instead of trying to keep them safe during the flight home. Wiltshire Pantry Bakery & Cafe makes exceptional kouign amann pastries, only $5 each. I’ve made these laminated pastries before; they are a lot of work to make and the ones we had in Louisville are somewhere between baseball and softball size. They are a great buy for the money. For lunch on Wednesday, we treated ourselves to Agave & Rye Wednesday after our long walk through Cherokee Park (lovely, by the way, and we saw a deer there). I had a glass of Sazerac rye, served neat, paired with the green goddess and Jedi epic tacos. I could have stopped at the green goddess taco, they are filling. The green goddess is filled with brussel sprouts and roasted corn while the Jedi has sweet chili crispy chicken and lo mein noodles. 

We said goodbye to Louisville on Thursday, but we didn’t leave Kentucky right away. We visited Kentucky Down Under. No way we wanted to pass up on petting and feeding kangaroos! As part of our admission price, we also took a tour of Mammoth Onyx cave, which opened to the public in 1922. There are a few tight spots to walk through and some slippy steps, but it didn’t feel claustrophobic as I was expecting for being in a cave. There are handrails in areas that also require more careful stepping. Our tour guide, Chris, was also easy to get along with; he had fun showing us the UV features on driver’s licenses, but the real winners in the group were the family from Denmark. Their passports had the most security features for the tour guide to check out. Our last meal in Kentucky was at Farmwald’s Restaurant & Dutch Bakery, located in Horse Cave, KY next to Kentucky Down Under. I had the ribeye sandwich ($8.99) while my husband ordered the roast beef manhattan ($8.99) and our daughter opted for the mac ‘n cheese ($3.49). We didn’t need dessert by any means by the strawberry cheesecake bar (maybe $5 something) was divided up into roughly 3 cellphone size portions.   

As easy as it is for me to ramble about fun, lighthearted things like drinking with friends and playing with animals, I want to touch on one last thing: Louisville is a lot more progressive than I imagined it would be ahead of the visit. Residents aren’t shy about hanging up their pride flags. We also saw Black Lives Matters yard signs and a prominent “SAY HER NAME” mural walking in downtown Louisville. In an area I pegged might be a deeply far right Republican territory, the area felt more like what I imagined Portland, Oregon feels like. From its appearance, it also shares the feeling of Grand Junction, CO; part of San Francisco, CA; and Newport, RI. There are quaint shops, water views, and tree-lined streets that make some neighborhoods so inviting, it’s hard to want to do anything else other than take a long walk with a warm coffee in hand. Every stranger we passed was polite and friendly, some more friendly than what I encounter here in Arizona crossing busy and even less friendly traveled streets. I’ve seen far more ‘Merica type sentiment in Arizona showcased by gun-related and “Vote for Trump” window decals on in my local area compared to the types of vehicles I noticed in Kentucky. In fact, it seems there is more love for the University of Kentucky based on the license plate covers, window clings, and souvenir items I came across than there is for a presidential political candidate for the upcoming election in 2024. On the political front, there were a plethora of yard signs for current Kentucky governor Andy Beshear. I am eager to return to the area knowing what I know now.

During our trip, it was mentioned that bourbon leaves with you a Kentucky hug, that warm feeling that lingers after sipping it. I can say the feeling also encompasses most of my visit here. The cold certainly took some getting used to, especially after it was still in the 80’s in Phoenix, Arizona when we departed for our vacation. The area though is a different story. Political views of all kinds exist here. As a former moderate Republican and what I would describe as currently a very moderate Democrat, I didn’t feel out of place here. There is space to enjoy nature and places to unwind, with or without that Kentucky bourbon hug. I appreciate greenery and the shift in seasons more after living in the desert and being deprived of the beautiful changing of colors in the fall. I like that the area utilizes art to discuss racial injustice, what it means to be seen, and societal history alongside personal narratives shaped through work and personal struggles.

The warm reception we received during our trip, not only through reconnecting with friends but with locals in the area, is a key part to why we have discussed returning to the area. Arizona does not afford us the type of land we want to live on and with a rising cost of housing here, it was encouraging to see what a move to southern Indiana, placing us just north of Louisville might offer. Being so close to Kentucky, we’d be in a good spot to still visit the many more distilleries there are to tour and fall is only one season to enjoy the beautiful landscape of this state. With a return to warmer temperatures in the late spring or early summer, 2025 is our plan to visit again and see what the area holds for our future. For now through, I am in my research season. We didn’t make time to tour any part of Indiana. Our friends (and our waiter at Agave & Rye) provided good info that southern Indiana would have a little more to offer than Louisville and so, we’re taking a bit of a gamble to see if our family could call that area home to live out some homeownership dreams that are financially out-of-reach in Arizona and allow us to escape the unbearable triple digit summers we’ve grown accustomed to since arriving in 2012. This year, with its record setting amount of triple digit days, is an impetus for me to revisit my feelings about cold winters, and after living mostly cooped up during the pandemic years, I am ready to see what a move could afford our family as a new chapter in our lives and a different way to experience living in the United States.