The blog is moving

After a good amount of time in the blogger world I thought it might be nice to have a place of my own. If you're into the blog, come check it out over at fieldwrench.com. Thanks for reading.

Pictures of Barrells

 After we finished up in Cincinati James and I only had a short drive to Louisville  for the race this coming weekend. Since the drive was so short we were able to add a little distance on and take a tour of the Woodford Reserve Distillery in Versailles, KY. This turned out to be a good use of a detour. (Note: if you're looking stories/pictures that involve bikes in any way, this post is not for you)

 Fermentation tanks that hold 7500 gallons of mash, yeast, etc. This is #1 of 7.

 Also a strange change from the breweries I have been to where all the fermentation vessels are sealed. These ones are open to the air and the tour. Hello future Bourbon.

 Then we got to the still room. There were three of them all made of copper.

 

 A closer shot of one of the stills.

 After the soon to be Bourbon goes through each still they check it in these windows.

 And then it goes into barrels.

 Which head off to age for a while.

 The barrels are rolled from the still house to the aging house by way of this metal railed barrel roller. It's all gravity fed so as soon as they go on they roll down the way to be aged.

 Aging house from the outside. Build in 18.... something.

 Inside. Very cool to see all of the same barrels with different dates on them.

 Since Woodford ages their Bourbon for 6-9 years the date range was pretty wide.

 More barrels!

 At the end of all of this learning, we got to taste the real thing. As a bonus we also got a "bourbon ball" truffle. 

Not too shabby for a day off.

While they were racing

 More cities and more bike races have happened. All in all the team is having a good year. Most of our riders have won a race or two.

Including, of course, Erica Zaveta who scored her first UCI win in St. Louis.
(phtocredit: Velonews)

 And wherever we go the compound remains more or less unchanged. That or I'm using an old picture.

 Sometimes the staff also joins in the fun. This is head mechanic James getting in on the action.

 My action has mostly consisted of taking photos of costumes. This was a couple of weeks before Halloween so maybe it was just a dry run.

 While we were in St. Louis we took in some of the tourist type activities. Mainly the Budweiser beer factory.

 Where you can still purchase your Bud Light Lime hoodies in time for Christmas.

 Here our tour guide explains that they use flavorless wood to help condition the beer. This explains quite a lot.

 Moreover the tour was cool for the architecture.

 Of which I took several pictures.

 I'm also happy to report I did not miss this photo opportunity.

 Enormous fermentation tanks. All of them are about two stories tall.

 According to this clock it is never Miller time.

 Apparently this fox was the mascot for  Bevo a malted milk drink that Budweiser produced a while ago. It was not very popular.

 So they stuck with Beer.

 The bottling line.

 We also got to check out the stables on the tour. We learned that aside from making beer Budweiser employees also vacuum horses.

After that we went over to the St. Louis Zoo. Both because we had extra time and because it is free.

 Can you imagine all of the years of school you have to go through to work at the zoo and then you find our you're actually just an underwater janitor? So much time to think about your student loans.

 This was either a very strange inflatable cat or a poorly functioning one. Still can't be sure.

 The highlight was for sure the sea lion exhibit. There is a tunnel under the water so you can check them out from all angles. They just move a little too fast for me to get a picture of a whole sea lion.

And finally a picture of an Ocelot. We didn't see one at the zoo, but they are very cool. I'll have to see the one at the Zoo in Seattle when I'm home next time.