Urban Bourbon Trail

We recently went to Louisville, Kentucky, for the Urban Bourbon Half Marathon. But, of course, we had to sample the other delights the town had to offer. The first one, of course, was the Urban Bourbon Trail. 

The Urban Bourbon Trail is a list of Louisville bars and restaurants. First you download their app, then after you visit at least 6 of them, make a purchase and "check in", then you receive a prize: an "Urban Bourbon Trailblazer" shirt. I had looked at the list and made a plan. 

First we stopped at Book & Bourbon -- a bar IN THE AIRPORT. As they say, "First Stop. Last Stop. Both."

We had an old fashioned -- because it's the official cocktail of Louisville. Now, it was just a drink in an airport bar, but it was pretty tasty. 

We grabbed a taxi into town, got settled into our hotel, then went to our next stop; Troll Pub Under the Bridge. 

Seriously, look how cute this troll is: 

Let's be honest here -- I don't really remember what I had. I fear it may have just been a Jim Beam and Diet Coke because I wanted to make sure and have bourbon...

Then we went around the corner to Merle's Whiskey Kitchen for dinner. We had some very good vegetarian tacos and, of course, cocktails: 

This time I had a ginger-lemonade-bourbon drink: 

If you're counting (and who isn't?) we had 3 of our 6 stops done on the first day. 

On day 2 we went to Churchill Downs. They have an excellent museum there and we went on a brief track visit. They've also done a good job at creating photo ops... because we live in an Instagram world...

They also have a cafe and bar that's on the Urban Bourbon Trail -- so we stopped in for a mint julep. (What else could we possibly have had?!?!)

We went from there to pick up our race packets, and then decided to get "stamp" number 5 at the Down One: a bar that's "down one" flight of stairs, of course. I had the seasonal Chai Old Fashioned, which was delicious. 

With a lot of the afternoon to spare and little to do we stopped in at the Louisville Slugger Factory, and then... because we were walking past it... stopped in at the Bristol Bar & Grille Downtown because they had a sign outside advertising "Old Fashioned Friday" with the signature cocktail for just $5. How could we resist? 

When we "checked in" we immediately got a text saying we had completed the trail and that we could go to the visitor center to redeem our prize. They gave us a pair of good-looking shirts and a pair of very nice hats ("these were left over from last month's promotion"). Even better, of course, was they took a picture of us with the Colonel. Hooray for Louisville!