Forty years later, it still gives you chills. Watching video of Secretariat blazing down the home stretch in the 1973 Belmont Stakes, winning the third leg of the Triple Crown by 31 lengths, a crowd gathered at the Kentucky Derby Museum earlier this week cheered as if they were seeing it live.

The occasion was the unveiling of a limited-edition bottling of Four Roses commemorating the 40th anniversary of Secretariat’s Triple Crown run. Things didn’t go quite as planned. A special commemorative decanter didn’t measure up in quality and was scratched (buyers received full refunds), and Secretariat’s owner, Penny Chenery, 91, was unable to attend due to illness. But the bourbon and racing fans in attendance didn’t seem too upset. The food and drink were plentiful and tasty, and Chenery’s son, John Tweedy, was there to give his mother’s regards and to show a clip of an upcoming film about her, “A Horse-Powered Life.”

Master distiller Jim Rutledge then led the group in tasting the barrel-strength batch of Four Roses that Mrs. Chenery hand-selected in a visit to Kentucky in March, pointing out its chocolate-cherry flavor notes. Bottle No. 1 was given to the Derby Museum. Many of the 3,503 other bottles - all signed by jockey Ron Turcotte and adorned with a tag sporting Penny Chenery’s signature - were purchased at the event; the rest will be sold at outlets along the Triple Crown trail.

Meeting Penny, Jim said, was the highlight of his career: “I don’t see how anyone could spend more than five minutes with her and not fall in love.”

That’s also how racing fans felt about Secretariat, who set race records in every leg of the Triple Crown that still stand today. There hasn’t been a Triple Crown winner since 1978. Will this be the year we see another? The hunt starts tomorrow. 

So, judging a julep recipe contest is harder than I thought it would be. I know, I know: I can feel the eyerolls from here. Tough job, Bourbon Babe! But hey, you taste 10 different - VERY different, in some cases - juleps and try to pick a winner. Especially when you sense that some of the very best ones are toward the end, but then wonder if they truly are the best ones, or if they just seem like the best ones because the room is suffused with the heady scent of mint and you’ve sipped from six or seven julep glasses and you are feeling really happy. And you’re wondering how you are supposed to judge “originality” on a scale of 1 to 10. If an entry is really out there - so original that if it wasn’t labeled “julep,” you’d never, ever guess - is that a 10? Or a 1?

These were some of the challenges facing my fellow judges and I last night at the 10th annual Four Roses Rose Julep Recipe Contest. The juleps we sampled contained everything from maple syrup to melon, from pesto to pineapple. Some were presented in glass so that we could better appreciate their color (we judged on presentation, too, as well as aroma and, of course, taste). Others were served in traditional silver julep cups, including the one by St. Charles Exchange mixologist Colin Shearn, who said,  ”You should know what a julep is from across the room.” (That’s his entry in my hand, above.)

When the score sheets were tallied, the winner was Isaac Fox of Volare, with a watermelon-flavored julep. Second place went to Adam Breitenstein of the Silver Dollar, with an orange-kissed julep, and Jacqueline Zykan of Doc Crow’s took third with a tiki-inspired concoction featuring pineapple and ginger. I will share the recipes as soon as I receive them.

Thanks to Four Roses for inviting me to participate (and for the bottle of Single Barrel signed by master distiller Jim Rutledge). And cheers to my fellow judges: bartender extraordinaire Joy Perrine, bourbon journalist Fred Minnick and Forecastle Festival founder (try saying THAT after 10 juleps) JK McKnight.

Here is the winning julep from Volare’s Isaac Fox:

And the ingredients that went into it:

Our second-place finisher from the Silver Dollar:

… and Adam describing it to us:

Jacqueline preparing her julep:

… and the finished drink in its tropical glory:

“If you like bourbon, this will be fun,” Four Roses master distiller Jim Rutledge told Secretariat owner Penny Chenery as he escorted her into the brand’s bottling facility in Cox’s Creek, Ky., where she was to select two single-barrel bourbons to fill a special decanter and bottle commemorating the 40th anniversary of her horse’s incredible Triple Crown sweep.

“I love bourbon!” she replied. And soon, everyone in the room loved Penny, a warm, witty woman who still cracks wise at the age of 91.

“Is this the earliest in the day you’ve enjoyed a dram of whiskey?” my bourbon-writing colleague Fred Minnick asked her (the event started at 10 a.m.). “Don’t be personal,” she shot back immediately, to the delight of the media crowd.

Wearing a deep blue jacket and a blue-and-white checked scarf, the colors of Meadow Stable, Penny sampled barrel-strength Four Roses from 10 barrels - five each for the decanter and the bottle. She chose Barrel No. 5 both times. The bourbon will be cut to the brand’s usual 100 proof for bottling, said Jim, who signed the winning barrels along with Penny following the selection. The 500 decanters will be sold at the Kentucky Derby Museum on May 1; the 3,500 bottles will be sold along the Triple Crown trail this spring in Kentucky, Maryland and New York.

I asked Penny whether, as a female thoroughbred owner, she was conscious of being a trailblazer during Secretariat’s record-setting career. “No, I had a job to do,” she said. “As a woman, you have to realize that any time you step out of the ordinary, you’re going to get some criticism. But the way I looked at it was: They could have their prejudices. I had the horse.”

The Triple Crown run was a remarkable time in her life, she said, and the mystique of her horse has carried on through the generations. Secretariat wasn’t just an amazing athlete, she noted: “He turned out to be a ham. He loved attention, and so did I. My trainer and I made a deal. He didn’t like talking to the fans; he wanted to focus on the training. So he said, ‘I’ll do the horse; you do the people.’ And that’s what I’ve been doing for 40 years.”

She certainly charmed everyone at the event, including Jim, who said the partnership with the Secretariat team was the most exciting thing he could recall in his 47 years in the business.

Making her final choice, Penny said, “I will take any of them home.” “You can take ALL of them home,” Jim replied. “Barrels?” she asked. Jim: “We might be able to work something out.”

It has been 40 years since Secretariat swept the Triple Crown, becoming the first horse to win the Kentucky Derby in under 2 minutes (1:59 2/5, still the record), making a last-to-first finish in the Preakness and annihilating the rest of the field in the Belmont with a winning margin of more than 31 lengths.

To commemorate the 1973 Triple Crown, 500 ceramic decanters in the style of those that became collectibles in the 1970s are being created in the image of Secretariat, with jockey Ron Turcotte aboard. They will be filled with 750ml of Four Roses bourbon hand-selected by Secretariat owner Penny Chenery and master distiller Jim Rutledge during a visit to Four Roses’ Cox’s Creek facility next month and unveiled on May 1 at a special event at the Kentucky Derby Museum.

Each of the numbered decanters will be signed by Chenery and Turcotte, who will attend the event. Also available that night will be a special barrel selection of Four Roses in limited-edition “Secretariat bottles” featuring the blue-and-white checks of the Meadow Stable silks. Rutledge will lead a tasting of the Four Roses barrel selection.

The decanters are $320 each, and the May 1 event ($50/person) is the only opportunity to purchase them. The commemorative bottles of Four Roses are $124.99 each. For more information and to reserve your spot, click here.

As a Kentucky girl, I certainly relate to Ms. Chenery’s quote in the Four Roses news release about the decanters: “Fast horses and fine Bourbon are two of my favorite things.” And I am sort of absurdly excited about this decanter, maybe because I remember seeing similar ones when I was a kid and thinking they were cool.

The Triple Crown also carries huge interest here in Kentucky, where the journey begins. Secretariat was just the ninth winner of the Triple Crown, and there have been only two others since, although there have been several heartbreaking near-misses. Maybe we’ll find ourselves toasting the 12th winner this year, the 40th anniversary of Secretariat’s record-breaking run. (But not with the bourbon from this decanter. No way I’m opening that!)   

Four Roses Master Distiller Jim Rutledge has some of the best penmanship in the bourbon business. I drew this conclusion after watching him sign bottle after bottle at the Bourbon Women Association’s holiday shopping event at the Springhurst Liquor Barn on Thursday. Many of the bottles had the special “BW” label - they were bottled from a barrel hand-selected by members of the Bourbon Women board.

Besides discounts on just about everything in the store, attendees enjoyed appetizers created by a Sullivan University chef, who demonstrated how to make them; tastings of 15 food products available at Liquor Barn; and a delicious punch created by Jacquelyn Zykan, bar manager at Doc Crow’s and La Coop.

I always learn something at Bourbon Women events, and what I learned this time, from Zykan, is that the word “punch” comes from a word that meant “five,” because punch traditionally has five ingredients: water, sugar, spice, fruit and alcohol. This punch mixed Four Roses Yellow Label Bourbon with lemons and Chai tea (for the spice).

Finally, while browsing the store I came across this sign. It originally referenced some decorative martini glasses with figurines perched in them, but I thought it was hilariously apt for this particular event:

Four Roses Distillery had quite a set-up at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival Gala on Saturday night in Bardstown. Here, I’m enjoying a glass of Four Roses Single Barrel while standing next to a sculpture that captured the brand’s iconic blooms in ice. Four Roses employees who weren’t pouring were busy pinning roses on gentlemen’s lapels and applying temporary Four Roses tattoos on ladies’ arms and shoulders.

Master distiller Jim Rutledge was greeting fans and posing for photos. Like most master distillers, he spends a lot of his time outside the distillery, educating the public and representing the brand. But that’s OK with him - spreading the Four Roses gospel is one of his favorite parts of a job he worked a long time to secure.

“It takes years and years and years” to become a master distiller, he said. “This November will be 46 years in the business for me, and I was in the business 29 years before I became master distiller. So it’s a lifelong dream come true. All the distillers just have a love and a passion for what they do – for the industry, for all bourbon in general, and in particular their brand. That’s why you see so many old master distillers, because once we get it, we love it so much that, you know, let us die with our boots on, I guess. The young people may not like it, but it’s just an honor to be able to represent a particular brand as a master distiller.”  

Many thanks to Jim and to Four Roses for hosting me at the Gala!  

As promised, here are some photos from the Sept. 10 grand opening of the new Visitors Center at Four Roses Distillery in Lawrenceburg, Ky. Above, master distiller Jim Rutledge and Kentucky Department of Tourism Commissioner Michael Mangeot cut the ribbon - or in this case, the rose garland - while Four Roses brand ambassador Al Young lends a hand. The symbolic cut was followed by a shower of rose petals.

The new Visitors Center and gift shop includes antique bottles and other Four Roses memorabilia along with more space for tasting the distillery’s wares following tours. Four Roses expects to welcome 50,000 visitors by the end of this year, according to a news release.

(Photos: Top, courtesy Kentucky Bourbon Trail; others by Jerry Zegart courtesy Four Roses)

Four Roses 2012 Limited Edition Small Batch

Mingling of four recipes, aged 11 to 17 years

Barrel strength; this sample, 115 proof

Aroma: Vanilla, nutmeg, a creamy caramel

Taste: Very tingly on the front, with hot white pepper; settles right in the middle of the palate and stays there. Citrus, dark chocolate, mint and cedar, almost cedar oil. Mellows out with a long, velvety finish.  

Verdict: A fiery, complex bourbon. Considering one of the four recipes used in this small batch was aged for 17 years, I expected a rougher wood profile, but it’s very smooth. This is a much more sophisticated bourbon than last year’s limited edition small batch, which I tasted side by side with it; the 2012 has a stronger nose and a lot more going on across the palate. That being said, I think I’d still prefer the milder 2011 as a sipping whiskey. But the 2012 has much to recommend it, and it’s worth seeking out one of the 4,000 bottles that will be released next month.  

If there is anything more Southern than cruising down the river on a steamboat while wearing a big hat and sipping a bourbon, I don’t know what it is. That was the scene yesterday during the Kentucky Derby Festival’s Great Steamboat Race, won by the Belle of Louisville with Four Roses Master Distiller Jim Rutledge aboard for luck.

Rutledge presided over tastings of the Four Roses that was bottled from a barrel selected by a Derby Festival committee (the barrel was there, too). On a day that topped out in the low 90s, bourbon on the rocks went down mighty smooth.

That’s our competition, above: the American Queen, the largest steamboat ever constructed (it had to lower its stacks to pass under the bridges) and the Belle of Cincinnati. Below, the Belle of Louisville’s paddlewheel churns the water.

With the race well in hand, The Belle and the Bourbon Babe set their sights on the Louisville skyline.

Thanks again to Four Roses for the chance to enjoy this most genteel sporting event!

About a week ago, Four Roses held its ninth annual Rose Julep Recipe Contest, open to all local bartenders and mixologists. Above is the winning julep, created by Kyle Tabler of the Village Anchor, who broke the four-year winning streak of Varanese. Some commenters on Four Roses’ Facebook page noted that this sounds more like a recipe for a perfume or a potpourri than for a drink, but keep in mind, this is a contest for professionals who are going for the exotic. (Also keep in mind that last year’s winning recipe involved the boiling of boar bones for the simple syrup - honeysuckle sounds pretty great to me!)

I’ll be on the Belle of Louisville with Four Roses Master Distiller Jim Rutledge later this afternoon as we take on the Belle of Cincinnati and the American Queen in the Great Steamboat Race, part of the Kentucky Derby Festival. Watch for updates!