“Civilization begins with distillation.” – William Faulkner
I get it. It’s been a minute since I bothered to check in. Life’s been going, has it been great? I dunno, are you my therapist? No, but I’ll give you some insights. It’s been busy but I am starting to recognize that I need to have a creative outlet or I go stir crazy. I’ve found different avenues but writing seems to be the easiest one to get completed. I’ve learned analog film, and bathroom plumbing, and passed a CPA section since I last checked in but I feel that I can always come back to writing easier than any of my other hobbies. So, I’ll pretend like I haven’t ignored this in several months if you pretend to be interested in this last trip from nearly a year ago. Deal?
Back in July of 2023 the boys made a trip. We decided to traverse to Nashville, Mammoth Cave National Park, and the Bourbon Trail of Kentucky. Reminiscing on this trip feels as if it was years ago even though it was not that long ago. We had the Bourbon trail on our radar for a long time but had yet to pull the trigger. As our lives get busier and busier with work, kids, and life we struggle to find time for trips like this. So I am thankful for these opportunities.
Tennessee
All good things should start with a hot chicken hole-in-wall establishment. We had a pseudo-hotel airbnb apartment in East Nashville. This was one of the best locations for our stay with plenty of walkability, just stay out of the streets. Just down our street was Bolton’s Spicy Chicken and Fish. We fought rainy and cloudy conditions to enjoy this chicken. My god, it was hot and delicious and did I mention HOT. Our friend Julien was the only one that backpedaled away from the hotter spice and I feel he missed out on the sweating that Ross and I experienced. But like an addiction, I just kept going back for more even though I was sweating through my shirt.
It was a fantastic start to the trip, Mike would join us later in the early morning the following day. We started the day enjoying Centennial Park and a visit to the Parthenon. The weather was perfect, not too hot or cold, no more rain.
We made a quick trip to Third Man Records where we met Jack White and he personally invited us to tour the entire facility… nah that woulda been fun though. We did experience some of the fun attractions available. To continue the music tours we visited the Johnny Cash museum and were herded like cattle throughout the exhibit but it was very informative and interesting. The problem was afterward, we pulled a Scooby Doo and we split up with one half going back for the rental car and the other half perusing the rest of Broadway and we would pick them up at Nissan Stadium. It was pouring rain and I was definitely going to win the wet t-shirt contest, soaked through to the bone but a good memory.
After a refresh at the apartment we then visited Up-Down Nashville a cool bar-cade, with skee ball being the game we all were interested in playing. However, so was everyone else in Nashville so we barely had a chance. However, we quickly found a better alternative, NBA Jam. Holy cow, we spent so much time on that game and things got heated. We took a walk to cool off and headed to The Pharmacy, one of my favorite Nashville burger establishments.
Now when I say we squeezed every ounce of juice out of this day we definitely did. After burgers and beers, we headed back downtown to Printer’s Alley. I had never visited this part of town but it was a nice escape from the commercialized Broadway. We squeezed into an intimate bar and enjoyed some crazy blues music. As the night grew later and later we ended with a nightcap at Lakeside Lounge, a cozy and dingy spot with a ton of character. The perfect spot for Mike to pass out and get us kicked out, what a day.
Mammoth Cave National Park
A quick stop for some donuts put us on the road to Kentucky. The second leg of our trip was for us to travel to Mammoth Cave National Park and stay at an Airbnb a few minutes away from the north ferry entrance. There was so much greenery on the way there I was impressed. Like, there’s green stuff in Texas but it felt like every square inch of land was covered in green grass, shrubs, trees, or ivy growing on the hills. We made a few stops for lottery tickets, lunch, and thrifting before stopping for a quick hike on one of the trails before making our way to the Airbnb.
I absolutely have to talk about the highlight of this adventure to Mammoth Cave. The hiking trails, canoeing the river, and learning the history of the caves were all fantastic. But the premier event was our six-hour excursion into cave diving. We woke up bright and early, packed our crushable lunches, and headed to the meetup point. They gave us knee pads, coveralls, helmeted with headlamps, and a crush bag and harness. This excursion had waist size limits…WAIST. SIZE. LIMITS. I am a person and people can be afraid of things and caves and tight places do bring about the heeby-jeebys in me. We were bussed to a secluded entrance, marched down 200 feet worth of steps, and after a short walk through the main boulevard of the cave stopped at a small gathering point and introduced ourselves to each other. We had two fantastic guides with so much experience to help us navigate the system we would be spelunking through. After introductions I thought there would be more walking to allow my anxiety to be reduced… soon after concluding our guide dived on all fours through a sliver of space in the cave wall and started crawling downwards. I will say that I did not have enough time to let the fear or anxiety run rampant through my body because I was staring at Julien’s ass for about 45 minutes into our spelunking. We were on our hands and knees for what seemed like an eternity until we made it to our first “Squeeze” a small shaft where you crawled into and then lifted yourself up to pull up over a slab of rock. The boys performed marvelously and I thought it was funny because as I crawled through the small enclosure I poked my head above the final slab and everyone in the group was staring at me from this domed room.
From there we were able to do more hiking through large sections of cave and shimmy through ledges and pathways. It was short-lived as we were back to crawling and made it to the tightest part of the trek. A small section where we were advised to enter with our arms above our head and use our feet to push ourselves through a small section. I gotta admit even thinking about it again it’s kind of nutty that I went through it pretty confidently. I think it helped that there were a dozen other people in front of us that managed which gave me confidence that I could. From there we visited ginormous drops hundreds of feet down, walked through ice-cold water up to our knees, found cave shrimp surviving in total darkness, and eventually made our way out of the cave to sunlight and great memories.
That’s great and all but can you get to the bourbon part, please?
Bourbon Trail
Funny story about that. So we took off from Mammoth Cave and headed north to Bardstown early because our first tasting was a Heaven Hill Distillery and Mike wanted to ensure that we didn’t miss a single second of our appointments. He is the bourbon collector in our group. We drove through the rolling green hills and started to spy the rick houses littered across the pastures. We made it to the distillery and Mike went inside to check us in while we stretched our legs. After a few minutes, Mike returned to inform us that we were not on the list today because he forgot he made the tasting for the following day. After a few good laughs, we headed to the Airbnb to unload.
Let’s just go ahead and knock out the distilleries in quick succession since this post is already too long.
Talk about a beautiful location. This place was nestled right in the hollar and had history of distilling bourbon for decades until it was dismantled and left to rot. A few good guys and some capital brought this place back to life and it’s with a visit or if you are looking for it a wedding venue. Funny enough I don’t remember the bourbon taking my breath away but it was their gin and tonic that I kept drinking while walking in the gardens after our tasting.
I would say the second most commercialized distillery we visited. Their museum is incredible and helps to bring a lot of context to the bourbon families of old. Rick houses everywhere made this place feel truly Kentuckian.
This place is like NASA but instead of putting rovers on Mars they are researching and developing unique mash blends with other families’ recipes to create unique products. One could argue they are equally important ventures. Our host for the tasting was incredibly knowledgeable and the higher-end bourbon that we were able to try here (MSRP around $125 a bottle) was delicious.
This was the most commercialized but the distillery is worth the visit. Imagine if Mickey Mouse was involved in bourbon and wanted the perfect destination for drinkers. The visitor center was massive, history was everywhere, manicured landscaping and pathways, and the tastings were fun and different. Of course, just like Disneyland, there were purchasable items everywhere. The lunch spot they have available is also delicious with plenty of high-quality cocktails.
This was a unique joint outside of the Bardstown area two hours away. Another abandoned building from ages past was being brought back to life. We were able to walk through their barrel rooms, view the entire process from top to bottom, and enjoy a very unique rye whiskey. Give the downtown river walk a prance as well.
So there you have it folks. Finally got this one down enough to start talking about my wife and I’s trip to Italy!
Cheers Y’all,
William
W Is For Will 
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