Almost Everything You Need to Know to Travel the Kentucky Bourbon Trail– Part I

A 3 day journey to 9 distilleries

DAY ONE

For DAYS TWO and THREE (click here)

     Our mission was to visit all 9 distilleries on the official Kentucky Bourbon Trail.  The payoff would be the 2015 KBT t-shirt as bragging rights after receiving a stamp on our passport from each stop on the trail.  The "how-to-do-it" was vague from what I had read.  Does one have to tour each distillery, or is a visit to the visitor's center sufficient for validation?  The answer is you'll want to tour your favorites as it's most likely the only way you'll be able to do a sampling of their bourbons.  Beware, however, the distilleries are anywhere from 20 minutes to a little over an hour apart so plan for one (maybe two) tours per day.  They range in price from $5 to $12 including a complimentary 2 to 4 pours.  The tours are timed so if you miss one, you'll have to wait for the next one (usually an hour apart).  Tours are added at some distilleries during peak travel season.  Be sure and check closed days as that could really be disappointing.  Not all distilleries are open every day.  Lastly, tours are much more time consuming than one may originally imagine, lasting on the average a little over an hour each.  A mere visit to the grounds and gift shops will most likely be the only time you'll have for less favorite brands.

Town Branch Distillery

      We got on the trail on a Friday in Lexington (coming from Cincinnati), with a plan to work east to west.  Four of the stops are grouped in the Lexington/Frankfort area.  Our first venue was Town Branch just on the outskirts of downtown.  This was only a visit on our tour so we used it as a restroom break and to pick up our passport, which was already stamped by them.  Town Branch is unique in that it is also a brewery, producing the highly popular Bourbon Barrel Ale.  Walking into the visitor's center, a patron yelled to us to be sure and try the Coffee Bourbon Barrel Ale.  Looking back, Town Branch would have been a nice tour to have taken.  Next time!

     The drive to Woodford Reserve was through Kentucky horse country with views of some famous farms and rolling countryside along the way.  It takes one through Versailles, home to Ouita Michel's Wallace Station Deli and Bakery where folks were lined up at lunchtime.  We were looking 

Woodford Reserve Visitor Center

to make the noon tour at Woodford, and fortunately there were ones added that day due to the busy weekend.  Woodford is 

Woodford Reserve Visitor Center

the "Country Club of the Bourbon Trail", which is apparent from the time one enters the lobby.  Tour buses take visitors to the various buildings for guided tours, utilizing earphones to defuse the background noise, but none-the-less annoying as they kept crapping out.  Everything was beautiful and organized around the Woodford grounds, culminating 

Woodford Reserve Copper Distilling Pots

Woodford Reserve Bottling House

in the bottling house where all comes together from the filling and boxing of bottles to their labeling and seals.  All ends with the 2 pours and a bourbon chocolate.  Lunchtime was 

Bourbon Pours and
Truffle in the Tasting Room

planned at Glenn's Creek Cafe conveniently located in their visitor center complex.  We were disappointed with the gift shop, which seemed heavily geared to selling their bourbon rather than related gift items.

Four Roses Visitor Center

     We chose to go to Four Roses next even though Wild Turkey was closer.  Four Roses closes a little earlier and we wanted to make sure we made it in time.  John and Bryce 

Featured Bourbons

seemed interested in a tasting and, lo and behold, they were willing to give them one without the tour.  They didn't realize it was timed, which would have put us a little behind with our itinerary so they asked if they could do the tasting earlier. "Sure!", replied the manager and they were off to experience one of the highlights of their trip.  

The Grounds of Four Roses Distillery

One note here:  distilleries should consider doing tastings only.  As we stated before, it's impossible to do the tours at every brand.  Therefore, tastings are a win-win situation–the visitor gets to taste different varieties, which invariably leads to a purchase of bourbon.  Why haven't they figured this out?

Wild Turkey's New Visitor Center

     Wild Turkey was one of the shortest drives between locations.  Sporting a brand new visitor center, it was one of the smaller structures on the trail.  It was the end of day one and they were adding tours, but we had a time commitment to be at our B&B an hour away.  However, a stop at the patio area and the rocking turkeys were a must.

Hill House Bed & Breakfast
in Loretto, KY

    Our stay at Hill House B&B in Loretto (click here) was a delight.  Lisa Marie, with her dog Rudy James (because everyone in the south has two names) were our hosts for two nights.  Getting to know the six of us was a little overwhelming, but we truly felt very at home with them.  She made a few suggestions for dinner in nearby Bardstown, which had been named the prettiest small town in the USA. That night we decided on The Rick House (click here), a steakhouse located in a historic building.

Is Mark Ruffalo the heir apparent to Gene Hackman? –PART II

Recent viewings:  Night Moves

     A week or two ago, we watched Arthur Penn’s Night Moves (1975), a neo-noir private eye thriller that’s become a cult movie.  It’s understated and oozes with the betrayals of Watergate, starting with a former D-lister starlet hiring a retired football player to find her runaway teenage daughter and ending with the image of a motorboat going around in circles and a hero who may have passed out or been mortally wounded.  However, it’s on a small scale; there isn’t the baroque corruption hidden by the vast ambition at work in Chinatown (1974) or the classic misperception and sardonic turnaround ending of The Conversation (1974) that also stars Hackman in a completely different performance as a small, damaged man in a big, regular guy body.

     Hackman gives a fully fleshed out performance in Night Moves as someone who’s been around the block a few times and takes himself seriously, although no one else shows him the same respect.  He’s in over his head, but doesn’t understand it until it’s too late.  He thinks of himself as ‘a white knight’ out to save others and the title actually refers to the moves a knight makes in chess, as well as what goes on after dark.  There’s a squirming moment, which put me in mind of Ruffalo, when he wonders whether he should take advantage of Jennifer Warren’s damaged character.  As H.L. Mencken said, “Never sleep with a woman whose problems are worse than your own,” and Hackman’s character looks like he remembers that phrase while making that decision.

Jennifer Warren and Gene Hackman

     To digress yet again, what didn’t happen for Jennifer Warren?  In her screen roles, she was intelligent without having to be eccentric or daffy, attractive without having to be pretty, and sensual without having to be sexy; she was a real American woman, but that seems to be too much for either directors, producers, or executives so she didn’t get a chance at leads; instead, she turned to producing.  Joanna Cassidy found herself in a similar boat about a decade later, but turned to TV for some sharp, wild, but smaller parts.  She was, however, a great professional ‘80s heroine in Under Fire (1983), co-starring with Hackman. The list could go on, though a number of top actresses – Laurie Metcalf, Allison Janney, and now Viola Davis – have gone from the theatre straight to television with movies on the side instead of as the main dish.  The result is that television has ascended and film has descended.  They’re all just movies and many of them are no more than jumped-up, third-rate, whorish comic books.

Melanie Griffith in Night Moves

     Another era change has to be Melanie Griffith’s role as the young jailbait runaway.  She plays a couple of suggestive nude scenes that probably would be cut today.  On the other hand, her death would be much bloodier nowadays and lingered over.  Hackman’s character behaves responsibly because he possessed an avuncular quality, especially in parts where he was co-starring in or supporting a female star vehicle (Lucky Lady, All Night Long, Postcards from the Edge).

The French Connection

     He’s best known for The French Connection I and II (1971, 1975), but he could be hilarious, especially his blind hermit in Young Frankenstein (1974), a western hero in Bite the Bullet (1975) or western villain in Unforgiven (1992), and he could do war movies, thrillers, suspense, and even cartoons, though he defined Lex Luthor in the first Superman series.  I wish he’d had the chance to play Robin Williams’ role in The Birdcage (1996), rather than the more one-note senator stooge.  He could have passed easily as straight and then still provided a sense of kink.

     Part of Hackman’s maturity as a performer and understated, but extraordinary range, was nourished by years of being turned down for parts.  He seemed on the verge when he was cast as Mr. Robinson in The Graduate (1967), but as Mark Harris recounted in Pictures at a Revolution (2008), he knew he’d be fired.  There was an unstated physical reason, I believe.  Watching a bear maul a chipmunk is not funny, but watching a squirrel wrestling with a chipmunk is very funny, which is why Murray Hamilton made sense visually with Dustin Hoffman.  It wouldn’t have been believable to consider Hackman existing with Mrs. Robinson in such a sorry marital state.

The Royal Tenenbaums

     Hackman’s last great role was as the eponymous patriarch of Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), which is probably as close as we’re ever going to get to the essence of J.D. Salinger making it to the screen.  His vigorous, wild, brilliant character provides the soul to the movie and deserved far greater attention than it received.  I know some reviewers look at Owen Wilson as Hackman’s heir apparent, perhaps because of their noses that both display a somewhat phallic quality, but Wilson, while a gifted writer and a happily relaxing presence, doesn’t display the performing tension of a strong actor.  Maybe Hackman could be persuaded to come out of retirement for a one-off movie with Ruffalo.  That would be worth seeing.

Is Mark Ruffalo the heir apparent to Gene Hackman? –PART I

Recent viewings:  

Foxcatcher and The Normal Heart

Mark Ruffalo

     A few weeks ago, we saw Foxcatcher, written by E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman and directed by Bennett Miller right after The Normal Heart, directed by Ryan Murphy, written by Larry Kramer from his 1985 play.  (It took Julia Roberts’ participation to realize The Normal Heart; even Barbra Streisand couldn’t make it happen back in the ‘80s).  Mark Ruffalo displayed powerful range in both roles:  a top wrestling coach, who happens to be a decent family guy in over his head with a billionaire psychopath, and a gay civil rights and AIDS activist, who becomes more prominent and controversial than he’d ever wanted.

You Can Count on Me

     I’ve liked seeing Ruffalo ever since You Can Count on Me (2000), where his insouciant portrayal of a likeable drifter earned him comparisons to a young Brando.  I could see it in terms of looks and his vulnerability, but he didn’t possess Brando’s power or the sense, as Ellen Barkin once put it, that ‘he had secrets’ that she wanted to know.  XX/XY (2002), although little seen, takes a look at a ménage a trois, in which the male is the emotionally weakest character.  We Don’t Live Here Anymore (2004), based on two André Dubus stories, examined two adulterous academic couples; it was the apotheosis of a serious American independent movie with excellent actors stuck in something that thought it was serious, but was actually dreary.

Zodiac

     Where his persona (and career) took off for me was his performance as Detective Dave Toschi, the primary investigator, in David Fincher’s Zodiac (2007), which was one of the most ignored excellent movies of the past decade.  With a great cast (Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Edwards, and Chloë Sevigny, among others) and extraordinary production design that re-creates San Francisco in the 1969 – 1980 era, it goes so far as to unmask the identity of the Zodiac serial killer.  He was funny, foot loose, and sexy as the sperm donor out of his depth when he meets his adolescent children and their lesbian mothers in The Kids Are All Right (2010).  

Begin Again

     However, 2014 was his year with Begin Again, Foxcatcher, and The Normal Heart by playing three vastly different roles.  He was up for the Oscar for Foxcatcher, a movie that could have been released in the ‘70s with its presentation of complex characters and the revelation of the establishment’s sinister entitlement.  That type of movie only seems to receive major studio distribution nowadays if it’s about historical events, rather than fictional ones (Argo, Zero Dark Thirty and the earlier Miller/Frye/Futterman productions Capote or Moneyball).  Steve Carell went the whole way as the creepy, psychotic John du Pont, but it was Ruffalo and Channing Tatum that provided the soul to the proceedings as the Olympic wrestling Schultz brothers.   

Channing Tatum

     To digress for a moment, what about Channing Tatum and when will he get taken seriously?  He’s a wonderful dancer (I thought that watching him on the bus in Step Up  as we rode to Canada in 2006) and he has a wicked sense of humor, but he raised the stakes in Foxcatcher and was criminally overlooked.  He remade himself physically for the part and expressed such a depth of rage that I would have thought he’d be a lock for award nominations, but no.  We haven’t had a smart, funny hunk who can move for a long time:  Burt Reynolds facetiously trashed his career, Sidney Poitier was stuck being a credit to his race/nation/the whole world, which killed his humor – the same thing happened to Barbra Streisand after she and everyone else decided she had to be important – so we have to go back to Burt Lancaster to see his actual forebear.  Tatum can already produce a movie.  If he sets up a production company, goes after great material, and works with European as well as American directors, then he could be the next Burt Lancaster.  And Lancaster never coasted, never called it in, and was still funny and could still move until a stroke ended his career in his late seventies.

Foxcatcher

     So back to Ruffalo and the two moments where he displayed greatness recently.  About halfway into Foxcatcher, Neil said, “I don’t see where this was so good,” and then the scene comes where Ruffalo’s character is pushed into saying something he doesn’t believe and there’s a horrible, squirming moment in which his eyes don’t lie and his fate is sealed.  After that look, we didn’t talk back at the screen anymore, which is really saying something.  The other moment was in The Normal Heart where Ruffalo as Larry Kramer’s stand-in is getting ready for a date.  He’s been pretty low-key and might even pass for straight, but he’s nervous and running out of time and his wrists turn loose and he slightly flounces and we know this date is important to his very essence.  It’s a scene that many gay men can identify with because of those hands and, even more tellingly, he doesn’t use that gesture again.

Cake Rack Bakery

We hope they've finally found 
a permanent home in Findlay Market

The Display Window

     Cake Rack has been a bit transient since its beginnings in 1992 Cleveland.  With a stopover in Dayton on the way to Covington and OTR, we hope the magnificent pastries that we've come to know around Cincinnati have come to rest in a permanent home outside Findlay Market on Elder Street.  It's the former beloved Skirtz & Johnston space and we couldn't be happier to know that it's serving similar fare in that storefront.

     We first came to know Cake Rack from Lisa bringing galettes and scones to dinner from her Saturday outings at the market.  Matt and Joan had one helluva graduation cake for Ben a couple of years ago that we traced back to the Cake Rack in Covington.  Our Cake Rack treats have been sparse lately until our visit there last Saturday.  

Dining Area

     The space is a bit less upscale, but the pastries and sandwiches are on par with (or surpass) the aforementioned S&J.  There are several breakfast selections.  The lunch offerings are simple…Ham and Cheese, Roasted Chicken (or Turkey) and Yellow Fin Tuna Salad on your choice of house made breads, or House Salad and Bread. 

Yellow Fin Tuna Salad on Olive Bread

Eric chose the tuna salad made with yogurt and a bit of mayonnaise.  That was a plus for him, although he found it a bit too creamy.  I found it delicious, especially with the tarragon added.

Roasted Turkey on Olive Bread

My roasted turkey was just the way I like it…on the dry side, but moist enough for flavor.  We both decided on the Olive Bread, which could have been a meal in itself, and the Potato Salad as our side.  It too was creamy (most likely made with yogurt again) and touched with mustard.  But we were

Hummingbird Cake
and Cherry Tart

really there for the desserts, which we had been eyeing and debating all through our lunches.  The decision was made as we ordered the Hummingbird Cake and Cherry, Raisin and Cranberry Tart.  Perfection!

cakerackbakery.com
 

Pitch Perfect 2

More of the same, 

though that’s a pretty good thing

     Pitch Perfect (2012) came out of nowhere and did well at the box office, I didn’t realize its eminence until the residential staff played it for our students in the summer of 2013 and they were reciting the dialogue and singing along with the characters,.  I thought it a cute movie musical that was able to sincerely present college a cappella groups, while also commenting sarcastically on the proceedings through the Greek Chorus/TV personalities played by producer Elizabeth Banks and veteran improv player John Michael Higgins, both of whom are highly experienced in musical performance as well.  Rebel Wilson was a breakout star as Fat Amy and there was a hit song “Cups,” performed by star Anna Kendrick.  Competition, female friendship, and the acceptance of many types of people were more important than romance, which was refreshing.

Wilson Working on Muffgate

     Elizabeth Banks returned to direct Pitch Perfect 2, which was a smart move, with a script by Kay Cannon, who wrote the original.  Most of the original cast returned.  The sequel follows the plotting of the first movie, except this time the Barden University Bellas have to atone for “Muffgate,” which occurs at the beginning, and try to compete internationally.  Unfortunately, the characters haven’t grown emotionally in the intervening three years.  Kendrick’s Beca still doesn’t trust others to help her, Wilson’s Fat Amy still displays a confidence not entirely justified by her talent, though it’s funny, and Brittany Snow’s Chloe has remained in college for seven years because she’s afraid to leave.  This last detail is very telling because it reflects more college students than the general public would believe.

Ester Dean

     Although it’s about girl power, even using Beyoncé’s “Run the World (Girls)” to hammer home the message, the Bellas aren’t as egalitarian as they’d like to believe.  Ester Dean has played Cynthia-Rose in both movies and basically she’s used as a one-note gag, though it’s original, as the lesbian gambling addict.  She’s given little screen time, but she displays a powerful, growling mezzo on the soundtrack.  She and Kendrick have the best voices.  I could have done with more of Dean and less of Wilson, whose ribald passive-aggression never develops.  Snow and Anna Camp are stuck in one-note, three scene parts this time around and Skylar Astin, who has an easy-going, self-aware nerdy style, has even less to do as Beca’s love interest.  Of course, this is how female love interests are treated in the other 90% of Hollywood blockbusters so I suppose the creators thought turn about was fair play. Two of the Bellas still have no discernible personalities and Amy even comments that she doesn’t know the difference between them – the audience doesn’t either.  On the other hand, the Bellas are extremely forgiving; no one ever holds Amy accountable for her ribald stupidity at the beginning.

Higgins and Banks

     Banks and Higgins provide comic leavening again.  Banks has been able to maintain the honest/snarky tone, which is not an easy thing to do as a director.  She’s also kept the series running very well, thereby setting up a potential third entry.   Hailee Steinfeld charms as the new legacy addition to the Bellas, and it was good to see Katey Sagal as her mother.  I wish the single “Flashlight” didn’t resort to the currently used, but grammatically wrong, ‘… you and I’ instead of the correct ‘… you and me’ in the lyrics.  Ugh!

Remezo Greek Cuisine

Classic Mediterranean dishes 

served in a palatial grotto setting

     On a recent trip back from Columbus, we were trying to think of a new place to stop for a late Sunday afternoon meal.  Remezo's came to my mind and Eric agreed.

     Remezo's has transformed the space of a former Tumbleweed and Dueces Wild Saloon.  I'm always leery of "bad karma" spaces that have been unsuccessful so it was nice to see that nothing was recognizable, inside or out.  In fact, the interior would make any Mason/Deerfield McMansion

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity

Re-seeing three modern classics

     Yet again, TCM shows more good-to-great movies than any other channel.  The colors of the French flag represent liberty, equality, and fraternity.  Krysztok Kieslowski directed a trio of movies in the ‘90s that explored these ideals.  One of those will appear as ‘fraternity.’  

     François Truffaut’s The Four Hundred Blows (1959) still holds up decades after the French New Wave because of pre-teen character Antoine Doinel’s mercurial complexity.  When I saw this movie in college, I felt great empathy with that character and his situation.  However, in re-viewing it, Antoine more than assists in creating his situation.  His parents are strapped for cash, which is part of the reason for their random complacency, cheerfulness, and desertion.  He’s desperate to be free, whether from their boxed in lives or the

’71: Take a Dramamine and One or Two Aspirins

Scalding

     ’71, the film debut of French television director Yann Demange, moves at an electric pace like an update of Carol Reed’s Odd Man Out (1947), in which James Mason played a wounded IRA bank robber struggling to remain alive with the police after him in a Belfast-like city.  In ’71, Jack O’Connell is an English soldier, who finds himself abandoned after a

Could The Lone Bellow be Americana’s first Superstars?

Then Came The Morning

The Lone Bellows Performing on
The Late Show with David Letterman

     Neil heard The Lone Bellow a couple of times on WNKU – yes, the region’s coolest radio station – and then checked them out singing “Then Came The Morning” on a YouTube clip from David Letterman’s show.   It’s a joyous sounding break-up song that’s tempered by the dialectic of Zach Williams’ nasal tenor, Kanene Donehey Pipkin’s enveloping soprano, and Brian Elmquist’s steadying baritone.  Both have

Fond: Lunch and Deli

Ready or not, I'm truly fond of this place

     I started to think about my lunch at Fond and I found myself wanting more.  More information and more of their food.  I REALLY wanted to like this place, but there were a couple of things that happened when we were there that had me on the fence.  So I decided to wait for a return visit to make my final call.

     Ethan Snider is the chef owner and a hummus aficionado.  He's been making the artisan dips locally for almost three years and selling at local farmers markets and Park + Vine.  Opening his own storefront in Montgomery created a whole new avenue for peddling his wares, as well as products from other local start-ups in the culinary field.  It all sounded intriguing for a lunch stop in that area of town.

Tuna Melt with Sausage Chili Bean Soup

     Karen and I first visited last week.  It was a hot day for May and the door was open to the strip center store with dining tables inside and out.  It took a while to get through the