World Championship Bourbon Barrel Relays

By: © Nelson Taylor 2008

Festival Location: Bardstown, KY, USA

Festival State: Kentucky Festivals

Festival Type(s): Drink Festivals, Bizarre Festivals, Bizarre Sports Events

An estimated ninety-five percent of the world's bourbon is made in Kentucky, which gives the term brown water new meaning. In other words, whiskey flows like water here, so it's not uncommon for half the state to be glassy eyed and stumbling at any point during the day or night no matter what time of year it is. This is especially true every September during the Kentucky Bourbon Festival in Bardstown, which is the home to 32 operating bourbon distilleries with records dating back to 1776, making Bardstown the undisputed Bourbon Capital of the World.

Since 1991, Bardstown has also been the sight of the World Championship Bourbon Barrel Relays. Bill Friel, the Master Distiller at Barton Brands, Ltd., and creator of the event says, "We took the liberty of calling it the World Championships because it's done nowhere else in the world." It's early morning and Friel sounds as if he had bourbon instead on milk in his Wheaties. Some fifty men and women from local distilleries -- Jim Beam, Wild Turkey, Heaven Hill and Maker's Mark, to name a few -- compete by rolling 500-pound barrels through a rectangular 40-foot by 28-foot course called a rick, which is the common term for the rack in which bourbon barrels are placed in the warehouse. "This part in the production process is still run by man power," Friel says. "There's no way a machine can get the set right." You see, each barrel has a bung hole in its belly, which must be in the upright position to avoid leaking. Because the barrel relay venue only holds an audience of 250, make sure to arrive early.

Other events throughout the weekend include free tours of local distilleries, a night of bourbon tasting ($100 per person), a free lecture on the science of bourbon, and a bourbon cooking class ($40). Bardstown is also the home of the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History.