To celebrate Minth Julep Month – and the Kentucky Derby, where the Mint Julep is the official cocktail – the Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport has created a living wall with more than 700 fresh mint plants.
— FlyLouisville (SDF) (@FlyLouisville) April 1, 2019
This week the airport also hosted a party, with this great cake. The occasion: a celebration of the inaugural American Airlines flight from SDF to Los Angeles International Airport.
— FlyLouisville (SDF) (@FlyLouisville) April 3, 2019
Here’s are some of the other reasons we’re celebrating SDF airport this week:
They have a mascot named Skye. They just opened a new room for nursing mothers. And the post-security Distillery District Marketplace enables travelers to buy Kentucky-distilled spirits to take home.
Boxing legend and Louisville native Muhammad Ali now has an airport named in his honor.
On Wednesday, January 16, 2019, the Board of the Louisville Regional Airport Authority in Kentucky voted to change the name of the Louisville International Airport to Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport.
The airport’s three letter international identifier – SDF – will remain the same, in part because another airport, Alice International Airport, in Texas, already has the identifier “ALI.”
Muhammad Ali at Heathrow Airport (date unknown)
Citing research showing that Muhammad Ali has much greater name recognition than Louisville, Ky., Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said the airport renaming is just one piece of a much broader effort to share and celebrate Ali’s Louisville ties.
As the city of Ali’s birth and the place that throughout his life he proclaimed as “the greatest city in the world,” the Mayor said, “It is our obligation and opportunity to showcase the many stories and complexities that made up the man known as ‘The Greatest of All Time.’”
Muhammad Ali was born on January 17, 1942 and died on June 3, 2016. The Muhammad Ali Center, on Louisville’s Museum Row, explores his life.
*Hat tip to Isaac Alexander, for alerting me to this airport news.
Book & Bourbon Southern Kitchen, located in the pre-security of Lousiville International Airport, is now an official stop on Kentucky’s Urban Bourbon Trail.
The trail consists of more than 40 bars and restaurants that embrace the state’s Bourbon culture.
To get a spot on the trail a venue has to offer at least 50 different bourbons. A trail ‘member’ also has to celebrate and honor the role bourbon plays in the the city’s history and modern-day culture.
Louisville airport’s Book & Bourbon Southern Kitchen fits the bill because it offers more than 85 world-class bourbons (including several rare labels) and has a staff eager to teach guests about everything bourbon, including tasting notes and distilling history.
Traveling along the Urban Bourbon Trail isn’t just about drinking bourbon. It’s also about winning t-shirts. Participating restaurants and bars on the Urban Bourbon Trail hand out passports that guests can get stamped when they make a purchase at venues along the trail.
Anyone who collects six stamps can redeem their passport for a t-shirt. And you can get a stamp for any purchase – it doesn’t have to be a something made with bourbon.
And now that Book & Bourbon Southern Kitchen at Louisville International is officially on the Kentucky Urban Bourbon Trail, passengers can pick up their trail passsport as soon as they land at the airport and get started on collecting those stamps right away.
Before you head out on the road in search of Kentucky bourbons, keep in mind that in addition to the Urban Bourbon Trail of bourbon-centric bars and restaurants, Kentucky also has a ‘Urban Bourbon Experience‘ that includes bars, restaurants and borboun experiences and events.
There’s also the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, which highlights distilleries statewide that are part of the Kentucky Distiller’s Association.
That seems like a like of bourbon, but there are many places where those trails cross and intersect.
Courtesy New York Public Library, via Flickr Commons
Travelers passing through Chicago’s O’Hare Airport get to celebrate Cinco de Mayo a day early.
Today, Thursday, starting at 3:30 between the H and K concourses near Tortas Frontera, there will be a live mariachi band, a flair bartender giving margarita demos and tastings, giveaways and a musical dance performance. All courtesy HMSHost.
And from 2 to 4 p.m. on Friday at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG), the folks from Seven Oaks Farm will be bringing by their miniature-therapy horses decked out in Derby attire, because this weekend is the 143rd Kentucky Derby. Can’t wait to see what they’ll be wearing!
— FlyLouisville (SDF) (@FlyLouisville) May 3, 2017
And to celebrate the Kentucky Derby, on Thursday and Friday at Louisville International Airport arriving passengers will be welcomed by live music and greeters offering complimentary Woodford Reserve Bourbon Balls in the terminal’s airside rotunda.
A bugler’s “Call to the Post,” which usually signals the arrival of horses on the racetrack for their race, announces the arrival of bags at baggage claim carousel.
And, for those who may be leaving Louisville with souvenir bottles of bourbon and Derby glasses in their checked luggage, the airport ambassadors will have complimentary bubble-wrap packing stations set up near the airline ticket counters on Sunday, May 7, beginning at 4 a.m.
On Souvenir Sunday we like to take a look at some of the fun, inexpensive and locally-themed items you can pick up when you’re stuck at the airport.
This week’s treats come from Louisville International Airport(SDF), where we found Kentucky Bluegrass and all manner of candies made with a touch of bourbon.
Louisville is also the home of the factory that makes the Louisville slugger bats, and we found these cute little pink Louisville Slugger mitts for sale at the airport as well.
Do you poke around the shops when you’re stuck at the airport? If you find a souvenir that’s fun, offbeat and “of” the city or region you’re in, please snap a photo and send it to StuckatTheAirport.com.
If your souvenir is featured on Souvenir Sunday, we’ll send you a fun travel souvenir.
