Travel dates: Wednesday, May 25 - Friday, May 27
Since we didn't spend too much time in Lexington, I think it would be more appropriate to focus on the highlights. Here goes!
Accommodations:
We spent two nights at Eighth Pole Inn, a magnificent estate. The house is more like a mansion and the grounds consist of a fire pit, patio with barbecue, and finally, a stable plus pasture for horses! Neither Evan nor I are really "horse people". I love all animals, including horses, but I respect them from a distance. I find their size and ability to kick you in the head a little intimidating. Either way, it was cool to see the mamas with their foals. They really are majestic creatures.
I should probably take a minute to say that I don't condone horse racing. Haha. It seems like a weird stance to take and then go to Kentucky, the center for horse breeding and racing, but that's how I feel about it. To affirm my stance, while in town we heard the news that two horses died during the Preakness. I just don't like the idea of animals being exploited for human entertainment or profit. With that out of the way...
We really enjoyed our stay at Eighth Pole Inn. It's a very modern, updated home. We also liked that breakfast was casual and made to order. We came downstairs at our leisure and ordered eggs with bacon the first morning and delicious omelettes our second morning. Hands down, our favorite part of Eighth Pole Inn was its mascot, a probable corgi-mix, Scruffy. She's a real love bug and she adores a good belly rub. Just don't leave your food unattended!
Food:
We had both of our main meals at Windy Corner Market, a local, organic, farm-to-table establishment. It's on the corner (duh) between several farms right in the middle of the country. (By the way, Lexington is pretty much a series of horse farms. There is a small downtown but mostly, it's horses, horses, and more horses.) Overall, this was probably our favorite food experience of the trip. We loved the casual atmosphere, the service, and the food was fresh and delicious.
The first night we each got a po' boy. Evan got pulled pork and I got fried catfish. We substituted wraps for their house made brioche rolls. Awesome! Evan also got a delicious milkshake with rich bourbon chocolate sauce.
Our second night we both got burgers. Evan got a traditional burger while I got their Bourbon Barrel Deluxe. It had the perfect trifecta of bourbon - bourbon barbecue sauce, bourbon bacon jam, and bourbon barrel beer cheese. Amazing! Evan also tried a local Kentucky beer.
We got some sweet snacks at North Lime Coffee & Donuts one afternoon. It was decent but a little disappointing, too. Two of the donuts we got were a little dry (I suspect they weren't fresh) and one was a little better/more enticing than the others. I'd probably give them another try but they weren't exceptional by any means.
Activities:
While in Lexington I thought we should get some historical perspective so went to Ashland, Henry Clay's estate. I wish I had some fun factoids to share about Henry Clay but our docent was THE WORST. Fortunately, she was so bad that it's turned into a funny story.
She knew little to nothing of the subject matter, forgetting names and mixing up historical facts. For instance, there was this very distracting and I thought, gratuitous corset exhibit featuring the women in Aaron Burr's life, and she would intertwine the information about these women with information about Henry Clay and his home. It just didn't work. She also told us that Alexander Hamilton killed Aaron Burr in a duel. Uh...other way around, lady! She looked like what I'd assume Meryl Streep will look like in twenty years so we've been referring to her as "old Meryl" ever since. Needless to say, we didn't learn much of anything. In fact, I think we came away from the experience dumber.
We spent a little time in the garden where I tried to salvage the visit with some pictures.
After that debacle we were ready to get a taste of some of Kentucky's famous bourbon. After much research, I picked Buffalo Trace Distillery. Despite not being much of a drinker, I really enjoyed the experience. First of all, Jimmy, our guide, really put "old Meryl" to shame. He was the epitome of a great guide. He was engaging, interesting, entertaining, and informative.
We learned that Buffalo Trace was named for the traces or paths tread by millions of buffalo during their migrations to the Kentucky River. Buffalo Trace was one of four bourbon distilleries allowed to stay open during Prohibition. Apparently, you could go to the doctor for a prescription and then buy bourbon for medicinal purposes. Ha! Kentucky is a bourbon hub because of its tremendous resource of limestone water. Bourbon is bourbon because it's 51% corn. If it's even 50% corn, it's NOT bourbon. As Jimmy explained, it's mixed with other grains. He had a fun pneumonic: rye is robust; wheat is sweet. Bourbon starts out clear like vodka but turns amber during the aging process while stored in charred barrels. Finally, bourbon is the bastardized version of the French name Bourbon. There are actually a few French-named places/things in Kentucky that have been butchered. Another example? A town nearby called Versailles is pronounced VER-SAILS. The French would be so pissed!
Needless to say, we had a great time. It's a very extensive complex that you can walk around on your own and there are various themed-tours. We did "The Trace Tour". I really liked seeing the assembly line. While done with the help of machinery, people are very integral to the bottling/packaging process. We were able to sample some of their products at the very end and I can say wholeheartedly that I DO NOT like bourbon! The small sip I took burned all the way down and continued to burn for something like ten minutes. Awful stuff.
This is a buffalo sculpted out of a 300-year-old sycamore tree that was split in half by lightening:
We had a fun time in Lexington, though we didn't actually spend much time there. Buffalo Trace is about thirty minutes away in Frankfort. We skipped a lot of the horse-themed activities in Lexington and after the disappointing tour at Ashland we weren't compelled to try any other similar historically-themed tours. Mary Todd's house is in town and who knows? That might've been worth our time. We drove through the downtown a few times but never felt motivated to park and walk around, though it looked nice enough. If for no other reason, we would definitely return for another meal at the Windy Corner Market and to give Scruffy a belly rub.
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