Livin' it up in Louisville

When you're told on Friday evening you have the opportunity to pack your bags and head to Louisville for some great brews and bourbons the following day, what do you do?  If you're me, you say, "Hell Yeah," pack up and get your game face on for some fun!  And that's just what I did last weekend.

I've made countless trips down I-65 in my time, but Kentucky is always a pass-through state for me.  I know Louisville only by the skyline view from the interstate.  It was pretty awesome to finally take an exit and venture into the city.

Though I heard about many fun shops and museums to check out, the sightseeing I chose consisted more of food and beverage than anything else.  It started out with a Louisville classic, the Hot Brown.  Recommended by a friend and affirmed by the locals, my adventure buddy and I set out for the Brown Hotel to get a Hot Brown.  I really didn't know exactly what I was in for.  I didn't read the description or look too hard at the picture, I just ordered it up.  What appeared in front of me was a stoneware skillet filled with a white sauce, tomatoes, bacon and a heap of other stuff I couldn't immediately identify.  All I knew was it came highly recommended and it had bacon so I had no worries about how it would taste.  One bite and I was hooked!

After filling up on the Hot Brown, it was off to Jack's Lounge for a taping of The Bourbon Lounge TV show.  I met some great local folks there including a lady in some fantastic derby attire, hat and all.  The hope was that there would be some bourbon sampling going on during or after the taping, but no such luck.

Let's see... what was next?  There really wasn't any big plan for the day so plans got made up as we went along.  Actually, we invented a very fun sightseeing game.  Let's call it GPS Roulette.  We found several places that sounded interesting, some recommended by locals, others we found by Googling around and entered the addresses of each place into a GPS.  When we were done at one place, we would pick another address on our list, never knowing which place it was.  There was a certain level of giddy excitement not knowing where the GPS lady's voice was going to lead us or what adventure was in store next.  I highly suggest trying out this game!

The next stop was the Louisville Water Tower.  I think there is some kind of art museum right there with it, but it was closed.  We had fun taking some pictures with it though.

Then it was on to a place that actually had adult beverages for us!  Apocalypse Brew Works is a fun little treasure nestled into a little corner of Louisville with libations with names like Fallout Dust and Nuclear Winter.  We weren't quite sure what to expect because this is a newer brewery, so even the locals weren't overly familiar with it.  The front of house area was really small, but had everything it needed.  They had ten brews on tap and we tasted them all!

After ten tastes and one full beer, it was back to playing GPS Roulette.  I thing the 13% alcohol brew I chose at Apocalypse did me good, because I recall giggling like an idiot at how fun it seemed to select the next address and not know where we were heading.  We ended up at a large, old brick building in a cute area of town.  The building had formerly been a church and is now a bar called Holy Grale.  A beer flight was consumed and we were back on the road.

Next stop, Against the Grain!  As soon as I heard there was a brewery called Against the Grain I knew I'd be buying a growler whether I liked the beer or not.  The brewery's name is also the name of one of my favorite Garth Brooks songs.  Amazingly enough, they had a beer that was my favorite of everything I'd tried that day.  We had another flight and a whole beer as well as some pulled pork nachos that were out of this world!

Hmmm... I'm trying to count up how many beers I had at least tasted at this point in the day...  21!!  How appropriate!

A trip was made back to the hotel to freshen up and park the car so the day could continue safely.  Luckily, the Hyatt Regency is right in the heart of downtown and within walking distance to a number of fun spots.

Stop #1 for the evening was the Maker's Mark Bourbon House & Lounge.  A little fun fact about me- I LOVE whisky.  However, I don't prefer bourbon.  But I figured,  "when in Rome!"  And luckily Maker's Mark makes a bourbon I greatly enjoy, Maker's Mark 46.  I sipped my beverage and we enjoyed the company of some other locals who filled us in on the hot spots around the area.  They even invited us to join them later in the evening and gave us some insight to avoid paying cover.

Food sounded like the right thing to head for after a lovely bourbon (and 21 beers from earlier).  A place called Gordon Biersch looked like a winner.  The food was outstanding!  Nuff said.  Oh, and I skipped the adult beverages this time.  ;-)

What a day!  So much had happened and I'd had so much fun.  I hated for it to end, but I was definitely ready to call it a day.  Heading back to the hotel, my adventure buddy (I hope he likes that title... it seems appropriate) reminded me of something we had discussed earlier in the day, a beverage called Drambuie.  It came up when I was talking about how I enjoy Jack Daniels Honey.  I'd heard of Drambuie on TV or in a movie, but never knew what it was.  We checked the hotel bar and discovered they had a bottle, so I had to experience it!  We had a great time sipping our Drambuie (I just like saying Drambuie) and chatting with some trade show attendees who were staying in the hotel.

All that in about 12 hours!  How's that for an adventure?

It's almost the weekend AGAIN!  I wonder what I can get into this time around?  Thanks for reading, friends!