On The Road To Nashville

It was still dark when we woke up this morning but that was ok as we needed to make an early start. We had been told about a place in Great Smoky Mountain Park called Cade's Cove. It was in a valley where some of the earliest settlers in the region had started out. The cove is full of fields, forests, streams and wildlife. There's an 11 mile loop that you drive and it has numerous places to stop and observe. There are also around 80 old buildings to explore along with an interpretive centre. To get there, you need to drive about twenty miles on a really curvy, narrow road. We did it just as the sun was rising over the trees and mist. The scenery was impressive even before we got to our destination.

This is our first stop where we thought we'd be looking at some misty mountains but it turned out to be sunrise through some trees and mist.

Then we continued on and stopped at a small bridge. No sun this time.

The next few are scenes as we drove along. I'd slow or stop and Marilyn would take the shot through the windshield.

When we finally started on the Cade's Cove loop, we saw another car stopped and someone was out with a camera so we pulled over as well. Turned out to be a field of horses in the mist.

We stopped at a few old homestead buildings and churches along the way. I was a bit disconcerted at the Do Not Feed The Bears signs. 

As we walked away from one of the buildings through a field, we noticed spider webs that had gotten wet in the mist. There wasn't sun to light them up but the water still looked like little jewels on the strands of silk.

Finally, we ended up at a farm house area and saw a working grist mill. This was really interesting because there was an old gentleman in the mill grinding corn on an original mill. He took the time to explain the process and show us how the mill worked. We bought a bag of the corn meal that he had made and will make some cornbread with it when we get home. 

This is the mill. The pyramid is the corn hopper. 

Here's the bag of corn meal that we bought. Five pounds should make quite a bit of corn bread!

The road to Nashville was largely 70 mph freeway driving which can get a bit monotonous and we didn't have any snacks left. We really intended to save the bourbon cream truffles until we got home, but I needed an energy boost so we had no choice but to eat them. 

Getting into Nashville was easier than I expected. You never know where the construction will be or if rush hour starts early. Entering our hotel was a bit tricky because there was massive construction all around it and the sidewalk out front had been ripped up! Once we were settled we discovered that the hotel was not quite as close to downtown as was stated in the advertising. That will be part of my Trip Advisor review I think. In any case, we walked about 20 minutes to get to what is called the strip. It consists of a lot of bars, restaurants, souvenir shops and stores that sell western clothing and gear. We had no idea that Nashville had such a cowboy theme going on. We looked at cowboy boots but didn't buy any.

The first thing we did on the strip was to enter one of the numerous bars with live music and have a beer. It turned out to be a place called Honky Tonk Central and the music was, I believe, new country. There was a couple doing the Texas Two Step to provide more entertainment and the beer was cold so we were happy! Also, we didn't dance.

We are discovering that the parts of cities where all the action is tend to be smaller than you expect. Nashville's strip area had 3 or 4 streets that were built up with attractions. And, since so many of the stores, restaurants and bars are similar, it doesn't take that long to see most of it. This is unlike places like New York or Boston or Toronto where there are many distinct areas to explore. 

There were a few Elvis sightings today.

I think I mentioned the other day that we're finding some restaurants that were on the show BBQ Crawl. There are a few in Nashville and Jack's BBQ was our first stop. It's a small place on the strip that has won numerous awards for best bbq in the city. And, they didn't disappoint! 

We shared a large combo platter with Texas style brisket, Texas smoked sausage and ribs. Everything was excellent and then we found a free shuttle bus that dropped us off at our hotel! You won't find that in Toronto!

Knoxville and The Smokies

Today's post is a two for one because there was no time to write yesterday. We decided to take the scenic route from Lexington to Knoxville and it took longer due to a few stops and lower speed limits. 

One of the highlights of the drive, and I know this is a food nerd thing, was that we found a White Castle right at lunch time. I've always wanted to try the place even though I knew that they made little burgers on basic white buns. We've seen them on food shows and it was just something we (well, I) had to try. They tasted ok and we shared an order so it wasn't overly filling. 

With that out of the way, we continued along the scenic highway as the skies darkened. There were a few rain showers but no tornadoes. Marilyn was happier than I was about that. Our hope was to find Cumberland Falls which was on an even more scenic (smaller) road. The gps decided that this was the correct location. Probably not...

A few km down the road we eventually found the falls which provided a nice break from the drive. 

From the falls, we hopped back onto the freeway and made a beeline for Knoxville. This is one of our first views of Tennessee and what we believe are the Appalachians.

Our journey into Knoxville was a bit worrisome as the U of T Volunteers were playing and over 100,000 people were at the game. I figured we'd hit the city just as all those people were trying to go home. Luckily, we were a bit later and missed the majority of the orange clad crowd! At the end of the drive, we reconnected with some good friends that we had made on our European cruise in the spring. They kindly let us have a sleepover at their place and even took us to dinner at their country club. The club itself was amazing and overlooked the Tennessee River.

Our dinner was incredible as well. It was a high end dining experience that included organic Tennessee beef and Scottish salmon. 

Here's Marilyn with Janice and Lew. We hope to be able to show them the sights in Toronto some day. 

Reluctantly, we left Knoxville and headed off to the tourist destination of Pigeon Forge. Lew had warned us that it would be crowded but he should have said CROWDED! You are talking Dollywood, a ton of resorts and restaurants and a week long classic car show! We had no idea. It was kind of like the Vegas strip without the gambling! Our major destination was not Dollywood! It was the Lodge Cast Iron Factory Outlet. Lodge is made in Tennessee and they have a few outlets with a lot of products that we just can't get in Canada. After our visit to the store, the RAV seemed to be a bit sluggish.

Then we set off for Gatlinburg where we hoped to spend the night and explore the Smoky Mountains. The first place we stopped was a Best Western and they had a room overlooking a creek that was ready to go at 11:15. Beginner's luck with picking hotels on the fly I think. We unloaded and headed off for the mountains. There was a drive to the highest point in Tennessee called Clingman's Dome at 6643 feet. We drove in and out of rain on the way up but had dry weather and cooler temps at the top. It went from 35 degrees when we left to 19 at the summit. Definitely a nice change. 

There was a .5 mile hike from the parking lot to an observation platform that seemed more like 3 miles because of the altitude and the slope of the path. It was worth the walk.

After the walking and heat we took a bit of a break in the hotel before heading out to the strip in Gatlinburg. It's a very touristy place as well with endless restaurants and souvenir shops. We were interested in checking out one of the moonshine stores as moonshine is now legal in Tennessee. Each place that sells it makes a big show of doing a tasting of 10 to 12 of their products. Moonshine is basically just raw alcohol but they refine it a bit and add flavourings. I started with the basic moonshine or white lightning and progressed to versions flavoured with berries, fruit etc. I felt that I had to taste them all to make an informed purchase at the end. 

Here you can see some of the samples and the very small sampling glass.

They had a lot of product but, because it was Sunday, they could only sell until 7:00. 

We also had a great time listening to some live music while I rested from my sampling. There were a bunch of rocking chairs around a stage where a group of guys were playing what they called bluegrass music. It was really fun to listen to and we bought a cd that anyone who comes to sample my moonshine will get to hear!

Breakfast Bourbon?

We learned quite a bit about bourbon over the last few days but the most interesting to me was the concept of breakfast bourbon. I thought it was a joke but was told very seriously that you can mix bourbon and orange juice to make a great morning pick me up. I will be trying it when we get home. On a couple of tours, we've learned about the laws of bourbon as well. They are:

- must be made in the USA

- must be aged at least two years in new, charred, oak barrels

- at least 51% of the grain used must be corn

- bourbon cannot be higher than 125 proof when put into barrels

- nothing can be added to the bourbon other than water

We've decided to take as many scenic routes and back roads as we can on this trip. Also, we haven't prebooked all our hotels to encourage wandering. Today, we started off in a small town called Frankfort which is also the capital of Kentucky. It was a beautiful place but it was also really hot today so our walking tour was pretty sweaty! We did find a great coffee shop and took a walk along the Kentucky River. 

After leaving Frankfort, we found our first distillery of the day, Wild Turkey. We were able to join a just finished tour in order to do a guided tasting. This seems to be the way that the bourbon people do tastings. It's a little more serious than most of the wine tastings we do. As usual, we tried the premium bottles because they are the ones we can't get at home. And, also as usual, I liked the most expensive one the most. Good taste? 

These are the Wild Turkey rides. Marilyn wasn't interested in getting on one so here they are by themselves.

Here's the tasting room at Wild Turkey. Fancy tasting rooms also seem to be common in the distilleries we visited. Didn't get to keep the glasses.

Next we visited Four Roses Distillery, mainly to get our Bourbon Trail passports stamped. If we get all the stamps we get Bourbon Trail t-shirts. This is an artsy shot of one of the distillery buildings.

We both decided that we didn't quite feel like lunch so we ate some mixed nuts and continued on to Woodford Distillery. They produce my second favourite bourbon so we had to go. And they were on the Bourbon Trail list! On the way there, we passed through some of the prettiest countryside we've seen yet. We were on a narrow winding road that took us past some incredible horse farms or ranches. There were no shoulders to the road, so it was very hard to stop for pictures but we managed a few. Most of the road looked like this.

Marilyn took a few shots out the window when I managed to pull over and there were no trucks coming! It would be great to be able to walk or ride a bike along these roads and stop wherever you wanted.

This is Woodford Reserve Distillery. Our tour there was the best one so far. 

I know not everyone is a bourbon drinker, but I really need to post some pictures from our tour of the distillery. It was very informative and interesting. 

This shows how the taste of bourbon is formed. Interestingly, the rye for this year's batches of bourbon came from Canada because US crops were sub par. 

These are the giant cypress wood tanks that hold the mash as it ferments. We were able to see a batch in action. There is a pleasant smell, heat and a lot of bubbles.

There was an empty tank where we could see the pipes that are used to heat the mash.

These are the giant copper stills where the alcohol is condensed from the mash.

The finished bourbon is placed into new, charred oak barrels which are placed in storage for 6 to 10 years. 

The storage buildings, called rick houses, are not temperature controlled. Apparently, the best bourbon is produced from barrels in the centre of the rick house. They use those barrels to produce the premium, single barrel products.

The bottling area is surprisingly small and not as automated as you would expect. There are still a lot of humans involved in the bourbon making process. 

At the end of the tour, we had our guided tasting in a really nice tasting room. There are only two types of bourbon produced here, the Distiller's Reserve and the Double Oaked. The double oaked is emptied from one barrel into a new one to absorb more flavour. It becomes somewhat sweeter with a more mellow flavour profile. (Stole that line.) We are bringing home a bottle of the double oaked because I don't think we get it in Canada. And if we did it would probably cost $30 more! With our tasting we had another of the famous bourbon balls which were made with Woodford bourbon of course.

For dinner tonight, we went into Lexington to a place called Billy's BBQ. It was featured on the show BBQ Crawl which is on Travel Channel. The host is called Diva Q and she is from Barrie so we thought we'd check it out. We had a couple of things that she tried that were somewhat different.

The deep fried pickles were interesting... Actually, we both liked them and would make them at home. They came with a horse radish sauce. You really have to try them to decide for yourself!

They had some interesting decorations too.

We shared a combo platter that had 4 types of meat and assorted sides. The most interesting side was called burgoo. It's a Kentucky thing. Sort of a stew with beef, chicken, cabbage, okra and other things we couldn't identify. Probably won't make it at home but it was one of those things you had to try! I have no idea how one person could eat a combo platter!!