BARDSTOWN, Ky. (WHAS11) -- After more than 50 years of flying, Terry Welshans feels right at home inside his cockpit.
"I started flying in 1963. I got my private pilot's certificate in 1968," Welshans said. "If I decide to turn right, left, climb or go down, I can do that. There's nobody there to tell me what to do."
Aside from being a pilot, Welshans was also an industrial instructor for more than 34 years before he and his wife retired to Bardstown in 2006. Now he's combining his passions of flying and teaching with the local flavor, taking bourbonism to the skies with Bourbon Air Tours.
According to Welshans, he finalized all the paperwork for his new tourism enterprise last week with his first official day in operation on Friday, though the cloudy weather made for a quiet day as he isn't allowed to fly with such a low cloud ceiling. But on a nice day with clear skies, Welshans will ferry clients up into the air in his cozy four-seater to give them a different perspective of Kentuckiana's bourbon industry.
"I'm concentrating not on the newer existing distilleries, more on the older pre-prohibition distilleries that have been rebuilt in some cases and in other cases they're gone," he said.
Welshans said while federal regulations prohibit him from giving clients booze during the flight, he will be giving them an educational lesson of the local bourbon history, which has evolved over the decades.
"They used to deal with flatboats here, and then they went to stagecoaches," Welshans said of the bourbon industry's transportation. "And then they went to a railroad and now they're dealing with 80,000-pound 18-wheelers."
But how did Welshans, who grew up in California, end up in Bardstown giving bourbon tours? Well it turns out bourbon is in his blood.
Welshans said through studying his genealogy, he discovered a sixth great aunt who lived in Bardstown in the late 18th century and early 19th century.
"Turns out her great-grandson is William Larue Weller, one of the big names in the bourbon business," he said. "I found out I'm the 10th cousin of a fellow named T.W. Samuels, who is, well, Maker's Mark."
Welshans said he hopes to work with others in the bourbon tourism industry to help bourbonism continue to reach new heights -- both literally and figuratively.
Anyone interested in participating in a Bourbon Air Tour can get more information or make a reservation on its website www.bourbonairtours.com.