Lexington, KY
Chef Ouita Michel's country store north of Lexington, deep in Thoroughbred country; the drive over crosses some of the most beautiful horse farms anywhere, and that is the point. Order at the counter under the jockey jerseys: po-boys on locally made brioche, burgers of local beef cooked to your temp, soft-serve, and bourbon balls by the register, with Kentucky goods stacked on the shelves. Michel, the Woodford Reserve chef-in-residence whose restaurants helped put Lexington on the national food map, keeps the prices country-store honest. Open seven days, 11 to 8, with weekend breakfast from 9. It is a 25-minute drive across town from the field; make the drive part of the trip.
Kentucky Bluegrass country — the Kentucky Horse Park is visible on the north arrival, and Keeneland Race Course sits next to the airport on the south. On August 27, 2006, Comair Flight 5191 took off on the wrong runway (the closed 26 instead of 22); 49 of 50 aboard were killed. The accident reshaped FAA runway-incursion procedures and led to mandatory cockpit-voice procedures still in use today. Built 1946 as Lexington Municipal.
You'll fly almost directly over this one — Keeneland sits on Versailles Road right off the end of Blue Grass Airport, less than a mile out. Opened in 1936 as a rare non-profit racetrack, its hand-chiseled limestone grandstand is widely considered the most beautiful in American racing, and Keeneland Sales is the premier thoroughbred auction house on the planet. Immediately beside it is Calumet Farm — 762 acres of red-trimmed white barns, a sycamore-lined drive, and white-bordered paddocks, the most successful operation in Kentucky Derby history with ten winners. Together, off your wingtip on departure or arrival, they're the postcard of the Horse Capital of the World.
The world's only park dedicated to humanity's relationship with the horse. Over 50 breeds on living display, the International Museum of the Horse, the American Saddlebred Museum, the Hall of Champions where racing legends are retired and visitable. The surrounding Bluegrass country — the geological alkaline limestone soil that grows the famous bluegrass that strengthens horse bones — is the densest concentration of thoroughbred breeding farms anywhere. Famous farms (Calumet, Three Chimneys, Claiborne, Spendthrift) line the perimeter. From the air, the white plank fences and emerald paddocks make a quilt unlike any other agricultural landscape.
Bourbon — America's only native spirit by act of Congress (1964) — must by law be made in the United States, and 95% of it comes from Kentucky. Frankfort and the surrounding Bluegrass region host the densest concentration of bourbon distilleries in the world. Buffalo Trace (since 1773) is the oldest continuously operating distillery in America. Woodford Reserve (1812) sits in the rolling horse country in a National Historic Landmark stillhouse. Wild Turkey, Four Roses, and dozens more dot the landscape. From the air, the iconic white-painted warehouse complexes (where bourbon ages for 4-15+ years) are unmistakable — sometimes called "the most architecturally significant industrial structures in America."
Two miles east of the Bardstown field stands Federal Hill, the 1818 mansion better known as My Old Kentucky Home. Stephen Foster is said to have been inspired here to write the ballad that became Kentucky's state song — the one the crowd sings every year before the Derby. It became Kentucky's first state-owned park in 1923, and "The Stephen Foster Story" has played its outdoor amphitheater every summer since 1959. Bardstown around it bills itself the Bourbon Capital of the World, so the black rickhouses of Heaven Hill are right next door on the same downwind.