Taylor Made | Maker's Mark | Feast BBQ

If you saw my post from yesterday, you know Eric and I headed to Louisville on Thursday to celebrate Eric's birthday over the weekend.  On Friday we traveled about an hour and a half outside of Louisville for a tour of Taylor Made Farm.

Taylor Made is a 1,100 acre Thoroughbred paradise located in Nicholasville, Kentucky.  Here you can see many champion horses in the one and a half hour tour.  Our guide, Laura, and her assistant, Karly, did an excellent job showing us around the property and explaining the life of a horse on the farm.

This family friendly tour is a combination of walking and driving through their rolling hill property.  It takes you up close and personal to the operation and horses themselves.

Recognize this name?  Good ole' California Chrome won the Kentucky Derby and Preakness in 2014 (along with many other wins).  He happened to be travelling to Chili for some studding so we didn't get to see him in person, just where he lived.

They even let you give the horses a treat or two, which really ended up being a special treat for us!

Side note:  My dress is from Old Navy.  They are really bringing it this year!  Click HERE to get one for yourself.  They are also making a midi and shirt from the same pattern.

After a quick lunch at Taylor Made, we hopped back in the car and drove to Maker's Mark for their distillery tour.  It was about an hour's drive, but the scenery along the winding back roads was stunning because of the fall foliage.

As an added bonus now through December 3, Maker's Mark has a Chihuly exhibit that warrants a visit even if you don't want to do the bourbon tour.  His pieces are spectacular and I probably took 374834738 pictures of them.  Here's a few ~

Speaking of art, there's also a couple mosaic pieces by Tracy Pennington in the welcome center that should not be overlooked.

The bourbon tour was very fascinating and our tour guide, Lee, really knew his stuff.  He walked us through the entire process, explaining each step.  At the end you got to do a tasting.  Bourbon's not my thing, but the tour was still cool.

When the tour and tasting were complete, you had an opportunity to hand dip your very own bottle of Maker's Mark.  What a fun way to commemorate Eric's 50th birthday!

More than anything, I enjoyed the scenery.  The whole place is so picturesque!  Truth be told, I kind of got in trouble for holding up the tour by taking pictures.  Sorry tour group.  But it was just so beautiful!

When my memory card was almost full and the place was closing, we decided it was time to head back to Louisville.  We had an eating establishment we were headed to and our bellies were telling us it was time to give it a try.  The location - Feast BBQ, 909 E. Market Street, Louisville, KY.

Feast is a casual place with communal tables and wood benches.  The menu is displayed on the wall beside where you place your order then the food is brought to your table.  If you go, I HIGHLY recommend trying the Pork Cakes.  These fried babies sit on a pool of sorghum and are covered with green onions and creamy slaw.  We would drive back to Louisville just to eat these again - they were that good!

When we got back to The Brown, we celebrated Eric's last day in his 40's by sitting in the lobby, having a drink and listening to the piano.  It had been one fun day!