If the Thursday night crowd in the Oak & Ember Restaurant and its adjoining cocktail bar at the Trail Hotel is any indication, Bardstown has scored another hit in the hospitality game.
Open only since May, the new hotel rises like a phoenix from the ashes of a one-time Holiday Inn which had been a Bardstown institution, according to Dan Sirrine, the Trail Hotel’s general manager. “It was the place to go for everything from kids’ pool parties to couples’ first dates, and pretty much every social event in Bardstown for more than 30 years,” he says, adding that it sat empty for about five years before being put up for sale.
It was two high school buddies, Will Hardy and Nathan “Ejo” Edmonds to the rescue. Hardy and Edmonds thought the property – which had given Bardstown residents so many happy memories – deserved a better fate than possibly being demolished. They enlisted a third partner, Brook Smith, and set about turning the building, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, into what Sirrine calls, ‘the Bourbon Trail’s equivalent of a Napa Valley experience.”
The Trail Hotel is the world’s first bourbon-centric hotel, celebrating Kentucky’s native spirit in a variety of imaginative ways. For starters, among its 95 guest rooms are eight creative bourbon-themed suites, with names like Prohibition, Mash Bill, Single Barrel and Distillers’ Den. When it comes to hotel amenities, forget the fluffy robes and scented soaps which have become a staple in most hotels. As far as the Trail Hotel staff is concerned, they are so yesterday.
Instead, the hotel offers an informal bourbon tasting in the lobby, which is complementary for hotel and restaurant guests. “We brought in bourbon blends from Bardstown Bourbon Company and Green River Distillery, the Owensboro distillery it recently purchased,” says Sirrine. “We selected two, a wheated bourbon and a rye, which have become our official Trail bourbon,” he says, joining the 285 other bourbons currently available.
Next month they plan to add more formal guided tastings set up in either the Bourbon Lounge, a sedate, clubby space off the main lobby, or the not-so-sedate speakeasy, The Bourbon Vault, specializing in rare, vintage and allocated bourbons. No password is required; it’s open to guests with a key that matches the picture on the wall.
But it doesn’t stop here. The outdoor swimming pool has an oversized hot tub, and if you need a bourbon cocktail while you’re lounging, there’s the Swim Club poolside bar. Bar service is also available in the golf simulator, Par & Pour, where between sips, guests can try their luck on a virtual championship golf course.
What the hotel doesn’t have is a spa – well, at least not in the usual sense with a menu of pampering packages. What it does have is a Rejuvenation Room which can aid in bringing even the most over-enthusiastic Bourbon Trailer back to life. Among the services provided are IV therapy with fluids to completely rehydrate the body (no, the fluids aren’t bourbon); an Oxygen Bar – again, no bourbon – just pure air to breathe (in some 40 different scents at that), and Cryotherapy, a cold therapy designed to relieve pain and inflammation naturally. According to Sirrine, it’s the ideal way for anyone who has had a hard day (Trail)blazing “to refresh and recover.”
By mid-August, they plan to launch two bourbon tours available to both guests and non-guests. “The first will be for up to 14 people in our van which will visit two distilleries as well as a lunch stop,” says Sirrine.The second, he adds, will be a custom-designed tour for individuals. “We will curate an experience to suit that individual’s interests and wishes,” he says.
When it comes to key staff, Sirrine has assembled a dream team. Food and beverage director Cole Liegel, a level three sommelier, who selects the perfect wine to go with a guest’s meal, comes to Bardstown and the Trail Hotel from Napa Valley’s prestigious restaurant, the three Michelin-star French Laundry.Executive chef Marvin Woods has penned three cookbooks and hosted the Emmy-nominated television show Home Plate. He also achieved notoriety for cooking the dinner for Barack and Michelle Obama’s first state dinner at the White House honoring the Prime Minister of India.
Sadly, for Woods and the Obamas, but happily for journalists and late night TV hosts worldwide, his menu was overshadowed by the antics of a Washington couple gatecrashing the soiree in order to get footage for the wife’s role as one of the stars of the reality show The Real Housewives of D.C.Not to worry. Nothing overshadows Woods’ Oak & Ember menu which he describes as healthy (“kind of”) southern fare.
For my dinner, I practically slurped the bottom of the bowl to lap up the gazpacho, made with heirloom yellow tomatoes and roasted red peppers and finished with a sherry vinegar. For my entrée, I chose the Butcher’s Steak Frites with herb butter, and for dessert, a mouth-watering strawberry shortcake.
Finally, you’ll quickly discover Norma Smith will become your new best friend. Smith is the hotel’s Bourbon Butler who specializes in making your bourbon dreams come true. She can arrange everything from private tours with master distillers to a four-hour VIP tour of Maker’s Mark Distillery’s farm to experience their Apiary, the country’s largest white oak research facility, and the mushroom quarry. “Right now, I’m working with someone who wants his group to helicopter onto Slugger Field in Louisville for a private tasting,” says Smith. It may sound like something out of a movie, but Smith isn’t worried. “With enough time and enough money, I can make anything happen.”
For more information on the Trail Hotel and other area attractions, go to VisitBardstown.com
