Woodford Reserve ("Tier 1") scoring category. The Woodford Reserve Distillery offers tours and is part of the American Whiskey Trail and the Kentucky Bourbon Trail promotional programs. In a contract arrangement with Churchill Downs, Woodford Reserve has been declared the "official bourbon of the Kentucky Derby" and is used in a $1,000 mint julep cocktail that is sold to patrons on Derby Day. (Although Woodford Reserve is the Derby's "official bourbon", its sister brand Old Forester serves mint juleps as the "official drink" and is featured in the more moderately priced juleps served at the event.) Woodford Reserve Woodford Reserve is a
Mint julep sweet drink, particularly one used as a vehicle for medicine. The word itself is derived from the Spanish "julepe", from Spanish Arabic, and this from the Persian word گلاب ("Golâb"), meaning rosewater. The mint julep was originally prescribed and appears in literature as early as 1784 "sickness at the stomach, with frequent retching, and, at times, a difficulty of swallowing. I then prescribed her an emetic, some opening powders, and a mint julep." An appearance of a mint julep in print came in a book by John Davis published in London in 1803, where it was described as "a dram