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Meeting the Buddha of Bourbon at Wild Turkey Distillery

We toured 5 distilleries during our time in Kentucky Bourbon Country. We really enjoyed our visit to Bardstown Bourbon Company, the tasting at Heaven Hill (where we purchased coveted Old Fitzgerald 14-year-old bottles to bring home) and doing the hard hat tour at the 1930s industrial complex still in use at Buffalo Trace. Yet, it was hard to top our visit to Wild Turkey in the serene bluegrass country outside Lawrenceburg. One look at those rickhouses blackened on the outside from evaporation and you can sense the history. In fact, a distillery has been operating at this same site since 1869. We had a wonderful guide, Edwina, who showed us the whole process of making bourbon, from seeing the mash bills and fermentation tanks to walking inside one of those old rickhouses and eyeing all those barrels stacked to the ceiling. Wild Turkey currently has 7 to 8 million barrels aging, forming the largest distillery on one site in Kentucky. Outside, the rolling hills led to a bridge over the Kentucky River and the countryside was aflame in late fall foliage. 

Then we were back at the newly revamped Visitors Center tasting the wares and meeting the Buddha of Bourbon, 84-year-old Master Distiller Jimmy Russell, who’s been working at Wild Turkey the past 64 years. "When I started here, bourbon was a southern gentlemen’s drink. Now just as many women are buying a bottle as men," says Jimmy. He also notes that Wild Turkey is the top selling bourbon in Japan and Australia, helping to create the current surge in popularity. We talked for another 15 minutes before getting Jimmy to sign a bottle of Russell’s Reserve 10 year. Definitely a highlight of our trip. If you want to try and catch Jimmy, head to the Visitors Center on Sunday afternoons after he and his wife go to church. He just might be sitting at that table at the entrance. 
 

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Walk the Overland Track, Tasmania

Talk to any Aussie and they’ll tell you that Tasmania is the Australia of yore, an island the size of Ireland that boasts a diverse landscape of creamy sands, endless tracts of lush forest, dramatic sea cliffs battered by Antarctic gales, craggy peaks, and alpine lakes.  One of the best ways to appreciate this wilderness is on the legendary Overland Track, a 40-mile trek that links 5,069-foot Cradle Mountain with the waters of Lake St. Clair.  Now is the time to book for the popular December to April season since the number of backpackers is limited. You can either to choose to tackle the four to six day hike on your own or on a guided trek with naturalists from Cradle Mountain Huts. Spend the nights on a mattress at one of the five cradle huts, then wake up to the call of the native Karrowong bird and get ready to trample over leaves, smelling the sweet scent of sassafras, as you take in the varied landscape of mountain streams, glacial rock, and dark forests.

 
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Africa Week—Extending Your Trip to Cape Town at Grootbos Private Nature Reserve

Lisa just returned from the We Are Africa conference at Sundance in Utah, where she met close to 100 suppliers and property General Managers from across the African continent. This week, I’d like to discuss the 5 contacts that got her the most excited. While the wine country of Stellenbosch/Franschhoek and Cape of Good Hope appear in all of our itineraries to South Africa, we rarely place clients in Hermanus, which is best known for its whale watching. That will change now that we know about Grootbos, a Nat Geo lodge and private game reserve located about 2 hours southeast of Cape Town, just off Cape Nature Walker Bay. Spend 3 days at this eco-resort to go on nature walks and see more than 100 endangered plant species and rare birds, whale watch and dolphin boat rides on the ocean waters, horseback ride through 2500 hectares of forest, even sign up for scenic flights and great white shark cage dives. Then head back to the lodge for gourmet meals, washed down with all that excellent South African wine that never leaves the country. Lekka, mon!  

 
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Travel Outside the Box, Fifth Stop, Azerbaijan

All it took was one stunning building designed by the late great Zaha Hadid and suddenly the world was looking at their maps and searching for Baku. The Heydar Aliyev Centre is a real eye-opener, featuring Hadid’s signature sensuous curves and undulations. When it made its debut in 2014, it quickly received accolades like the Museum Design of the Year award by London’s Design Museum. Yet, it’s only one of the many futuristic structures currently being built in this oil-rich country on the Caspian Sea as the Azerbaijani government continues to spend an estimated $6 billion a year on architectural projects. Baku has an authentic medieval core surrounded by an old city. Old Baku is elegant, with turreted stone buildings. New Baku and its latest skyscrapers surround the old city, eradicating the hideous concrete apartment blocks that were gifts from Russia until the country’s independence in 1991. Stay at the beaux arts-style building that is now home to the Four Seasons Baku. Then take a short stroll over to the waterfront and the 15th-century Palace of the Shirvanshahs. 
 
Outside of Baku, the landscape gets greener and more wooded. Wild horses gallop free in valleys and gorges ringed by anonymous peaks as you pass open-air roadside bread ovens, tea plantations, and sheep herders. The ancient mountain city of Gabala caters to Bakuvians who come for the alpine air and views. Only a 2-hour drive from Baku is Quba, home to Krasnaya Sloboda, a Jewish community of 3,500 whose forefathers came from Iran and Iraq a few thousand years ago, and who live today in perfect harmony with the large Islamic population. 
 
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Art Lovers Will Savor The Alfond Inn, Winter Park

It’s not everyday that I turn around to peer at a piece of art hanging from the walls of a hotel. Usually it’s some commercial print of ocean and seabirds. But last week, while spending the night at the Alfond Inn in Winter Park, Florida, I found myself walking aimlessly through the hallways just to check out the art. When I found an ethereal print by Neeta Madahar, repped by one of my favorite galleries in Boston, Howard Yezerski (now Miller Yezerski), I had to dig a little deeper to see what’s up. I found out that the Alfond Inn, a 112-room boutique hotel debuted last August, thanks to a $12.5 million grant from the Harold Alfond Foundation. Profits from the inn will go directly to Winter Park’s Rollins College for a scholarship fund. Harold Alfond founded Dexter Shoe Company, and his son Ted and wife Barbara are both Rollins alumni. Barbara serves on the board of trustees at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the couple is recognized by ArtNews as two of the 200 most important art collectors in America. With the assistance of independent Boston-based curator Abigail Ross Goodman (who once ran the Judy Rotenberg gallery in Boston), the couple amassed a 100-piece contemporary art collection solely for The Alfond Inn. Not too shabby. 

 
I wish I could have spent more time in Winter Park, a great walking town of boutique shops and restaurants, just outside of Orlando. The Alfond Inn also houses a rooftop pool and a great Southern restaurant, Hamilton’s Kitchen, where I dined al fresco on chicken and grits that evening. I’d happily stay there again, just to walk the hallways. 
 
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A Serene Two-Day Stop in Granada

After an hour flight from Barcelona, we arrived in the peaceful mountainside city of Granada. We dropped our bags off at Hotel Palacio de Santa Paula, a Marriott Autograph Collection property. Nondescript from the outside, once we entered our superior room with a towering wooden ribbed ceiling and peered out onto the courtyard of this former 16th-century convent, you realize its charm. Breakfast was served in a spacious sunny room, and we also took advantage of the hamam, the resort’s steam room. The hotel is located in a great location for seeing Granada. We strolled the Romantic Road, Carrera del Darro, a narrow cobblestone street alongside the river, lined with tapas bars, boutique shops, and acoustic guitarists. Then we climbed the hillside past the blooming wisteria into the upscale neighborhood of Albaicín, where we had cervezas at El Huerto de Juan Ranas overlooking the buildings of the Alhambra and the snowcapped peaks in the distance. Such a magical spot that we returned to this outdoor patio the next day to watch the sunset. 

 
The following morning we took a 3-hour tour of the Alhambra with Antonio, a guide that works with one of our preferred tour operators in Spain, Madrid and Beyond. Not only did Antonio grow up playing at the Alhambra when there were few visitors, he has led more 1200 private tours of this magnificent Moorish palace the past 15 years. He knew every nook and cranny of the buildings, including graffiti from a 16th-century Friar found behind a column, to translating every Arabic saying. And, wow, is there a lot of Islamic calligraphy on the walls along with the famous symmetric tiles, the Moorish arches, and fascinating ceilings that looks like bird’s nests from a distance. Add gardens in early spring bloom with irises, pools of water reflecting the arches and you have a dazzling aesthetic well worth the effort to get here. We soaked up all the history, then soaked up the octopus and fried calamari with fresh bread at Los Diamantes at the bottom of the hill. Perfect! 
 
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Oil Spill Hits the Great Barrier Reef

As if the Great Barrier Reef didn’t have enough problems! Dr. Charlie Veron, the former chief scientist of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, recently warned that the Great Barrier Reef will be “in tatters” by 2030, the result of global warming and rising sea temperatures. In fact, the Zoological Society of London feels the future of coral reefs is so bleak, they recently announced a plan to freeze samples in liquid nitrogen. Now comes news that a Chinese oil tanker slammed into the reef at top speed on April 3rd. The tanker has already leaked about two tons of oil, resulting in a three kilometer slick that could take years to clean up. Marine conservationists are particularly worried about turtles since it’s hatching season. What a way to be born into the world. Australian authorities have charged the captain for veering out of the shipping lane and running into the reef, but the damage is already done.
 

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