Bourbon Trail and Shaker village in Kentucky
 

We stayed at the Bardstown Parkview Motel. I usually do not like motels, but this one was recommended as a little mom and pop that is very clean and reasonable in price and we were not disappointed on either count. No in-room coffee, but coffee, juice, cereal, and danish in one of the rooms starting at 6:30am.

Bardstown is a historic town that offers distillery's in Bardstown and within an hour of Bardstown. The eight that make up the Bourbon Trail are Buffalo Trace, Jim Beam, 1792 (Tom Moore), Makers Mark, Heaven Hill, Wild Turkey, Four Roses, and Woodford Reserve. We toured Markers Mark, Heaven Hill and 1792. It is so fun to go though a bourbon factory! To watch them make it, store it and bottle it, and in the end, taste it! Heaven Hill bottles many other products also, vodka, rum, etc.

While in Bardstown, we had drinks at Old Talbott Tavern which was built in 1779 and is known as the Oldest Western Stagecoach stop in America. They report that Abraham Lincoln and Jesse James are some of their customers. It is rumored to be haunted.

After leaving Bardstown, we traveled an hour to the Inn at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill. The Shakers were a community of religious people established at Pleasant Hill in 1805. They took in widows and orphans (which is the only way they grew as they were celebrate) and farmed the land, making their own brooms, rugs, furniture, etc. This village has been restored and the hotel is rooms on the top floors of the restored buildings, our room was on the second floor of one of their meeting rooms. There are men and women in the restored homes to show how all these items were made and then the items are sold in the craft store in the village. There are many animals in the village and you walk every where you want to go. One exception to that is the Paddle Wheel boat ride on the Kentucky river. You do drive down to the river for that.

"They took in widows and orphans (which is the only way they grew as they were celebrate)"

CD... did you mean "celibate" as in "not having sex?" :)

Is this an existing community? I've been to one in New England, the last member had died, and the village is a museum.

Thanks Dayenu. Yes, I did mean celibate, as in not having sex. If a married couple joined their community they would have to dissolve their marriage. She would stay with the sisters and he the brothers. In their church meetings, they would dance, thus, the name Shakers, but the men would sit on one side and the women on the other. Yes, there was also a community in New England. They had great communities and did well until after the Civil War, then industry took over and their crafts and lifestyle went by the wayside. I think the last Shaker at Shaker Village died in 1953. They wanted to be Christlike. That was the entire reason for the way they lived.

Actually, the Shakers reached their peak after the civil war. An excellent book on the Shakers and other communal sects is 'The Communistic Societies of the Unites States'. It was written in the 1870's and of course, 'communist' had a non-marxist meaning then.

There are still a small number of Shakers at Sabbathday Lake in Maine.

An excellent fiction book about the Kentucky Shaker Village that was located near Bowling Green is <i>The Believers</i> by Janice Holt Giles, a KY author.

cd, did you eat in the Trustees' dining room? I love their food.

Carolyn
Yes, we did and I had the best salad ever! It was mixed greens with grilled sliced apple slices and grilled onions topped with goat cheese and an apple cider dressing. So very good!

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