Bardstown and Bourbon

Bardstown is a charming city well worth the visit. Established around the time of the revolution, it boasts America's oldest stagecoach stop. It is a relaxing and enchanting place to spend an afternoon strolling about, visiting shops, eateries and bars.  There is too much to share about Bardstown in just one post, so I have divided it into three. We learned a lot about bourbon, since Bardstown is the bourbon capital of the world. We had a wonderful dinner train ride. We enjoyed just walking around town, seeing the houses, visiting the shops.

As a new Kentucky resident, I must confess I don't like Bourbon. This might get me deported back to the USA, but I have to be honest. Yet, it is deeply ingrained in the culture, and for good reason, so I had to try a bourbon (followed by a lot of choking and gasping and a fake smile) in Bardstown. Bardstown is genuinely the epicenter of Bourbon. It was perfected here in the early 19th century by a Baptist preacher named Elijah Craig. (Trying hard not to be snarky about this. Being Orthodox, we don’t have rules against alcohol, but do not condone abuse). I like beer and wine, but distilled beverages, especially whiskeys (of which Bourbon is a subtype) and more especially bourbons taste like antifreeze to me. No, antifreeze mixed with stomach acid. But I do not judge anyone else for liking it; each to their own.

The Bourbon aficionados (i.e. snobs, i.e. antifreeze/stomach acid aficionados) will tell you that "true" bourbon can only be made in the region of Kentucky in and around Bardstown, due to the  natural limestone filtered water in the area. There are more bourbon distilleries here than anywhere in the world. A few big houses from this area that might be familiar to you, if you like bourbon, include Heaven Hill, Barton, Jim Beam, Willet, Ridgemont Reserve, Evan Williams, Makers Mark, and 4 roses.

While I don’t care much for bourbon, I do like all the things you can make with bourbon, especially with chocolate. Whiskeys in general are a nice flavor pallet contrast to chocolate. We spent some time in the Kentucky Bourbon Market place, and thoroughly enjoyed the shop and talking with the owner. We learned a lot about bourbon from her. The store has a boutique with a large selection of bourbon foods including bourbon balls, cakes, caramels and truffles, sauces, spices, and many other delicious gourmet food items. They also have a Bourbon tasting bar and a B&B upstairs. Visit them in person, or at this site: Kentucky Bourbon Marketplace

 

For the evening, we enjoyed a ride on the My Old Kentucky Dinner Train. Of course, like any good dinner train company, they have special events like murder mystery dinner rides and a bourbon sampling excursion. We went on the standard narrated dinner tour. Let me clarify … the tour was narrated, not the dinner. I don't like it when the waiter announces everything I am eating. (and now he is chewing his asparagus).  By the way, if you eat too much asparagus it can make you urine smell really bad. And if you eat too many beets, you will have red BM's. If you eat a large beet and asparagus salad, you might think you are dying.

The dinner train was fun and romantic. The narration was interesting. We passed through the heart of bourbon land, and went through the middle of a Jim Beam's distillery. The thing that impressed me the most was how massive and sprawling the facility was, and I realize I only saw a small fraction of it. Also fascinating was the white buildings where the bourbon is aged, and the black mold that grows on them. Apparently, it is better for the bourbon to leave the mold on the buildings (I suspect Old Jim just used this as an excuse to his wife about why he did not clean his buildings). Because of this effect (right, Jimmy. I don't wash my car because I am afraid the bumper will fall off. Really.) you will see countless huge white buildings, as big as industrial farm barns, that were white… with various stages of black mold coating on them. We also got to see "train wreckage" that was actually where the Harrison Ford escape scenes of "The Fugitive" were shot. 

As far as the train ride, it was beautiful and peaceful. The food and service was outstanding. 

Visit them in person or online: My Old Kentucky DinnerTrain 

While there is fun in and around Bardstown, just walking the streets, we saw house after house of cute colonial style homes. There were a lot of nice coffee shops and restaurants. We had lunch at an enchanting place owned by an eastern European family with thick Bosnian accents. The food and service there was outstanding. I am looking forward to eating there again. Visit them in person or online: Kresso's Restaruant.  

 

Downtown homes with colonial charm.

And one final little cool tidbit that you could almost walk right over is an old cobblestone path. It is all that remains of the original road into Bardstown from the east. It served as a military road, and a road for settlers and wagons. A turnpike was constructed below the cliffs in 1830, leaving this road abandoned. All that remains is about thirty yards of path.  

Bardstown, Hauntingly Charming

Bardstown is a charming town and well worth the visit. It offers interesting historical tidbits, great restaurants, a rich religious heritage, a delicious and entertaining dinner train, and it is the capitol of the Bourbon world. It is also a fun town for the paranormal aficionado (also a nice place to visit if you happen to be a ghost … so if you are a ghost reading this post, I can recommend popular places for poltergeists). In fact, it has so much to offer, I am going to write three separate posts on it. It's like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; just too much to put into one movie and do it justice. 

I'm not a big paranormal fan, but then neither am I a fan of normal. If you are interested in ghost hunting, Bardstown has a lot to offer. Most of the paranormal activity is centered in two buildings that are right next to each other; the Old Talbott Inn and the old jailhouse (now the Jailer’s Inn). I did not personally see any paranormal activity, but I saw some normal activity at the train depot, and it made me very nervous. 

The Old Talbott is the oldest stagecoach stop in America (or so they claim. I did not see any stagecoaches stop while I was there), and thus many famous and influential people have stopped there, if at least for refreshment if not for a bed. It was built in 1779. The list of historical figures that have visited or stayed at the Talbott is worth a visit to the Inn. Abraham Lincoln stayed there when he was five. His parents were in a land dispute, and losing the case propelled them on to Illinois. Stephen Collins Foster spent time there. He was the song writer who wrote My Old Kentucky Home, Oh Suzanna, Camptown Races, Beautiful Dreamer, and Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair. John Fitch, inventor of the steamboat, hung out there often. King Louis Phillippe of France stayed there during his exile, along with his two brothers and other nobles of his court. Legend has it that his entourage painted some of the murals on the wall. A century and a half later, Jesse James holed up there because his cousin was the sheriff next door and helped hide him out. One night, Jesse was drunk and thought the birds in King Phillippe's mural were attacking him, and he shot several holes in the wall that are still there. There is plexiglass over the holes, so I could not stick my fingers in them. I asked, and they would not let me.  

Wall with Jesse James' bullet holes: (Painting was burned off in a fire)

Old Talbott has excellent food, and service, and the longest list of Bourbons I have ever seen. I don’t like bourbon myself, but if you do, you should go here. They have close to 100 different bourbons on the menu. If you aren't seeing ghosts before the list, you will be seeing them by the time you get to the ones that start with “C". 

Next door to Talbott's is the old Jailhouse ,which has since been converted into a bed and breakfast. That's right, you spend the night in jail. Which might happen anyway, when you are done with Talbott's bourbon list. Some of the doors still have the bars on them. I was not allowed to bang a tin cup on them and yell for breakfast. Between that and sticking my fingers in the Jesse James holes next door, I am actually not sure I am welcome back in Bardstown.  A few rooms have been preserved with the metal cots, and the staff gives a tour every evening, telling stories. The breakfast was delicious, and I am sure much better than what the prisoners had 100 years ago. The jail opened in 1819, and was in use as a jail until 1987. There is a drunk tank, and a wall outside, in the back where executions took place. The hanging wall is now a pleasant floral garden where they serve breakfast in conducive weather.  And they are very quick with the service; they do not leave you hanging. The chef executes a great egg casserole. 

The inner most room of the Jailer's Inn was a women's cell. There are no windows here, and no quick exits. Most guests can't sleep through the night in this room, and most report creepy noises at night in this room. Many people report seeing Jesse James, a lady in white, orbs of light moving about, unexplained noises throughout the night in many of the rooms, objects being moved, furniture visibly jumping up and down without reason, shadows with nothing casting them, among many other strange experiences. I was also seen running around with a white sheet over my head, with eye holes cut out. Again, I don’t know why they asked me not to come back.  

The pre-revolution Inn and the old retired jailhouse are, of course, natural set ups for ghost stories. I highly recommend a visit to these two places, as well as other Bardstown Highlights that I will be posting about soon. 

This is the back wall, in the back yard, where inmates broke stone with hammers, and where the hangings were held off that wall. 

This is the wood ceiling of our bedroom for the night, and the former high security room. The extra beams in the ceiling were to make breaking out harder. It was a second floor room, and they would remove the ladder at night, so there was no way down from the second floor. There were no stairs; only a ladder that would be placed as needed.

This is a nice courtyard in the back, where you can be served breakfast, with the view of the hanging wall and quaint courtyard and well. 

A couple photos of our lovely room. All the rooms are different, and all are equally appealing. 

Please visit the websites... and moreover visit them in person!  The Talbott Inn and Jailer's Inn:


Talbott Inn


Jailer's Inn

Sweet Indiana: Schrimpff's Candy

It turns out one great reason to visit Kentucky is in Indiana. The journey of my life has brought me to many unexpected places; geographically as well as spiritually and emotionally. I never would have thought that one of my favorite places in the second Louisville sojourn of my life would be a candy shop across the river. I am not even particularly fond of candy. I would rather spend my empty calories that lead to obesity on alcohol. If lemon drops were beer drops, then I would be more fond of candy.

If you are going to be in the Louisville area, I recommend a visit to Schimpff’s candy store in Jeffersonville Indiana as one of the coolest places to visit. The tour and demonstration turned out to be a surprisingly interesting education in 19th century candy making. The family business opened up in 1871. The candy shop has been making candy on site since 1891, and has been in the same family all that time. 

Getting to the candy store is a short walk across a pedestrian bridge from bustling and overgrown downtown Louisville to the sleepy mid 20th century time warp that is Jeffersonville, Indiana. Once over the river, it is just a few more blocks to the candy shop.

Walking across the bridge is worth the trip in and of itself. And old abandoned train bridge has been redesigned into a pleasant and popular pedestrian bridge to connect two alternate realities; Louisville vs. Jeffersonville. I remember when i was in medical school in the 90s, seeing this old train bridge in the middle of the river, with its connections to dry land removed on both sides. I always wondered why it was there, or why nothing better was ever done with it…or if not, then remove it. It had been disconnected from the river shores for decades, a mysterious section of a bridge that nearly spanned the river. During twenty years that I was gone from Louisville, someone had the foresight to make use of this bridge, converting it into what is now a very nice and quite popular pedestrian-only bridge.  

Once you make it over the river and through the quaint village of Jeffersonville, the candy destination is well worth it. Generations of candy makers run the store, descendants of the founders. They are charismatic, kind and jovial, and put on a good show as well as an education. They demonstrated the 19th century methods of making hard candy, and then gave us samples. They used tools that had been in the family business for over 100 years, heating sugar to deadly temperatures, stirring, cooling, forming into shapes, and finally sharing with the audience of the moment, all while entertaining and informing.  The event was such a convivial experience that I thought about shouting out that I had one of the golden tickets, in hopes they would take me back to the REAL secret factory, the secret world of “real” candy making. But then I saw  my reflection; wearing a blue shirt and twenty pounds overweight, I realized that I was the fat one that would be sucked up into a vat of chocolate. I could think of worse ways to die, but I was not ready to check out yet. 

I learned that the name “Lemon Drop” comes from the final step; the cook drops a just-cooled large sheet of hard candy onto a hard surface, allowing it to shatter into pieces. This is much better than if it had been named after the modern process, which would have given us “Impersonal Robotic Industrial Nutriontless Lemon Pellets” which would have been had to sell.  

Schimpff’s candy store is well worth the trip. They have a little 50’s style lunch counter, and a compelling candy museum. While their demonstrations are of hard candies; particularly lemon drops and red hots, they hand make all kinds of candies. There is plenty of chocolate for you chocolophiles. 

Visit their website, or better yet, visit them in person:

http://www.schimpffs.com

  

Bonapoo (Bonaroo 2015 as I experienced it)

Bonnapoo (Bonaroo 2015)

When I saw Florence and the machine in concert with my family in 2012, we had second row seats in a nice air-conditioned Fox theater in Detroit. On the way to Bonnaroo in 2015, I started worrying that we would see her at the back of a big sweaty mosh pit full of stoned patrons in a farmers field in Tennessee. 

But it was unrealistic of me to expect it to be that much fun. Of course I jest.. the open air venue holds fond memories for me. 

On the upside, I saw a lot of great concerts, and discovered some great bands that I either did not know or were far better than I realized, such as Bleacher and Gary Clark, Jr. My fiancé, my niece, my sisters and their husbands all agreed; we were glad we did it, and most of us are unsure if we would do it again or not. 

Usually I abhor gas station bathrooms and strenuously avoid public restrooms in general. After four days of outhouses at Bonnaroo I stop at a gas station on the way home. The mildly dirty rest room with stains and toilet paper on floor and brown stains on the lid looked four-star to me after a week at Tennessee Woodstock. At Bonnaroo, the rows of outhouses were personal challenges to concert goers; how far above the lid can we mound the human excrement?  The toilet paper, on the rare occasions it existed, served as a sort of glue to hold the mound together. When we went to relieve ourselves, we would refer to it as needing to take a bonnapoo. I do understand; a town with a normal population of 10,00 that swells to 85,000 annually does not have the infrastructure to handle the surge for one week out of the year. None the less, the waste management was deplorable. Our favorite bank of outhouses (a phrase I never imagined I would ever say) went bad the first night. Cathy noticed the rivers and puddles outside of it … after a week of drought, and no running water nearby. I watched a parade of women in sandals walk through it, getting their free e.coli pedicures. On the upside, I am not aware of any food poisoning or e. coli epidemics associated with the event.

The staff were universally rude and 90% of the time they either did not know the answer to even the simplest questions or gave the wrong answers. More often, they gave the wrong answers, in an air of blowing us off. This of course, led to recurrent episodes of walking 45 minutes instead of 5, to get to the right stage, the right campground, or shop.  (Excepting the head shops in easy-up tents. Those were everywhere.) The deplorable service created a great sense of community within the patrons, as we had to rely on each other to find answers and solutions. The camaraderie of the attendees was fun and almost made up for the Bonnapoo staff. 

I walked so many miles I ended up with three layers of blisters on my feet. I could have used a skin graft. But there were “taxis;” college kids driving golf cars. However, some of the Taxi drivers … well … maybe they were likely making too many personal purchases at the head shops. There was one driver in particular I caught a ride with who was incredibly aggressive. We drove through throngs of people, like you see on movies in India. This particular driver kept yelling at the crowd to “get to the right,” while pointing to her right. The oncoming pedestrians obeyed, moving to their right. And this made her madder. I even said, eventually “ummm, you know they are moving to THEIR right, right?” Which also made her mad. About that time, she actually pinned one poor fellow who was trying to cooperate, between the cart and a food truck. 

On the other hand, it was memorable. There were countless people in outrageous costumes, many dozens of topless women with painted breasts (a few did not bother with the paint), people carrying hilarious flagstaffs as a beacon for their groups. Hula hoopers, belly dancers, and spontaneous outbreak of harmless goofiness all made the event fun, and numbed the mind from the negative aspects. 

Most importantly, there was tons of great music. I am glad I went, I probably will not return. And yet it was one of the fondest memories of my life, a truly unique experience for me. It is something that in retrospect we as a family talk and laugh about but never bemoan, having by now all but forgotten the Bonapoo aspect of the experience. So if you are young, have lots of energy, don’t mind human body odor and random excrement… go!  You will see a lot of amazing bands, and possibly make new friends, and at least bond further with the friends and family who accompany you.