Lexington KY / Cincinnati OH 2021


It was May 2021. Since March 2020 we had been wearing masks and missing everything from festivals to parties to graduations to weddings to concerts. Having a great group of friends was never more important than it had been for the previous 14 months because we had been keeping each other sane with local gatherings.

Things were starting to return to normal. Folks were getting vaccinated, mask orders were lifting, events were being planned, and people were going out. As fantastic as Severna Park is, we were itching to go somewhere. So, at Tom's suggestion, we decided to visit Kentucky and Ohio, where his roots are. Six of us (Tom, George, Mike, Dirtman, Kurt, and I) would road trip in an RV, two (Todd and Billy) would fly down, and one (Tom's son Tommy) would drive on his own.

Tuesday May 25. Tom rented a 2021 Thor Chateau 31EV motor coach, with all the modern comforts and conveniences such as a fridge/freezer, sink, stove, shower, toilet, wall slide, television, awnings, and room to sleep seven. We packed it with clothes, musical equipment, whiskey, beer, food, water, Dirt, sleeping bags, etc.


Wednesday May 26. We took off promptly at 8ish. Along our route we drank bloody Marys, beer, whiskey, and screwdrivers. In fact, we opened the refrigerator so often that we sort of broke the latch mechanism, which made opening the door rather difficult all week. Everyone blamed me, just because it was my fault. Later someone asked, "Does anyone smell gas?" Apparently I had bumped into the stove and accidentally turned it on. I had never been blamed for this type of gas before. Anyway, half of us shared the driving. Not me, as I had never driven a 32-foot vehicle before, and besides, after the way I handled the appliances, there's no way they were going to entrust their safety to me. We had a great time joking, drinking, and playing games such as Cards Against Humanity, Heads Up!, and one that we invented: RumbleSip (every time the tires hit a rumble strip, you drink). We stopped a few times to fill the gas tank and empty our bladders, and we got a nice view at Sideling Hill Welcome Center. We made decent time, arriving in Lexington a little after 5:30.

The original plan was for most of us to sleep in the RV, but good sense made everyone realize that living in close quarters with a bunch of drunken hooligans was probably not a good idea. So, everyone else opted to get rooms at the Hilton Lexington Downtown, while the appliance wrecker would sleep in the RV. They all unloaded their stuff and checked in, and then we parked the vehicle in a lot at nearby Rupp Arena. The prospect of spending the night alone in a downtown parking lot didn't worry me at all because for most of the 1990s I lived in Glen Burnie.

We met Billy and Todd, who had landed in the early afternoon and had already been drinking for hours, at Bigg Blue Martini, a generic bar located in the hotel lobby. The beer list was predictably pedestrian. I tried Lexington Brewing & Distilling Bourbon Barrel Ale, which was slightly better than doing your taxes.

We went out on the town to find a place to have dinner. This is unrelated but Lexington, like many cities, has Bird scooters that you can rent.

Anyway, we had a heck of a time finding a place where we could eat and drink. In most places we could do one or the other, but not both. Oh, and many places asked people to wear masks. Eventually we found a nice restaurant called Dudley's on Short. It had good bourbon and wine selections. We got a $250 bottle of Domaine du Pegau Chateauneuf du Pape Cuvee Reservee 2003. The beer selection was ... well, let me put it this way. If the bourbon and wine selections were Jennifer Aniston and Emma Stone, the beer selection was Roseanne. The one good beer they had was Rhinegeist Truth IPA, so I got that. We dined downstairs but there was also rooftop dining. The food was great.

Rooftop.

Then we stumbled upon McCarthy's Irish Bar where we drank - surprise! - Irish whiskey and beer.

I wanted some craft beer, so Dirtman and I went around the corner to Ethereal Brewing Public House. Ethereal Brewing has three locations in town. Their beer is not brewed at this one, but it was convenient. Eventually Tom and Todd joined us. We were the only customers, but it was late on a weeknight. We told jokes and cracked the bartender up, and since I was the beer geek of the group, he gave me a can of Ethereal's Peach Better Have My Money. The draughts were only $5 or $6 a pint, and there was not a bad one in the bunch. We tried:

We went back to McCarthy's, which Billy, Mike, and Kurt had never left (George had gone back to the hotel). It was a small crowd until 11:40, when dozens of youngsters came in. They were doing a pub crawl because most of them were graduating from nearby Transylvania University. We decided to stay and ogle the hotties. No, I mean, *I* ogled the hotties. The other guys were married, so they didn't even look. Really.

When the bar closed at 1:00, a couple of the guys - I forget who - walked me back to the RV to make sure I made it and didn't get arrested.


Thursday May 27. My first night sleeping in an RV was pleasant enough. I slept only 3½ hours, but that's not unusual for me. Getting up before dawn gave me plenty of time to shower, walk to the hotel, get on the wifi (that's the one thing the RV didn't have), and work on this web page. I had breakfast with George in the hotel restaurant, and the food was excellent. Service was a bit slow, but we were in no hurry.

Today we would ride a limo bus, which Tom had arranged, to distilleries on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. As of this writing, there are officially 18 distilleries on it, but there are a lot more distilleries throughout the area, and many people consider pretty much any distillery in Kentucky to be part of the trail. Due to Covid capacity limits, reservations at distilleries were difficult to get. In fact, they're not easy to get even during normal times because tours and tastings are very popular. The limo company managed to get us reservations at three distilleries that were not officially part of the trail.

By the way, you might be interested to know the difference between whiskey and bourbon. Whiskey is any spirit distilled from malted grain. In order for it to be called bourbon it must:

There is no minimum time for which bourbon must be aged in oak (in the U.S., that is; some other countries have minimums). However, it must be aged for at least 2 years to be called straight bourbon.

Tommy arrived and the nine of us piled into the limo. We drank beer from a cooler because God forbid we spend five minutes not destroying our livers.

Distillery #1: Glenns Creek Distilling. Our "tour guide" (i.e., bartender) told us about the place while serving us samples of their products, and I don't remember much of what he said, probably because I was drinking.

Distillery #2: Buffalo Trace Distillery. This place has been distilling since 1786, and is the longest continuously run distillery in the U.S. We learned that most of the "angel's share" (evaporative loss through the barrels) is water, not alcohol. Also, seasonal temperature fluctuations cause the liquid to go into and come out of the wood, which speeds up the production of flavor. We got a tasting of one vodka, three bourbons, a bourbon cream liqueur, and Freddie's root beer (named in honor of longtime tour guide Freddie Johnson).

Next we grabbed a quick lunch at Staxx BBQ, located in Kentucky's capital, Frankfort. The food here was simply amazing. I got a pork sandwich that was so tasty and big that I couldn't believe it was only $6.

Distillery #3: Three Boys Farm Distillery. We tasted five different bourbons straight from the barrels, and they have a deal where you can purchase your own blend by filling a bottle from any number of the five barrels in whatever proportion you want.

We came back to town to freshen up before the evening's activities, and by "freshen up" I mean "drink". On the way from the RV to the hotel I stopped at Triangle Park, which is right across the street. The bottom right photo was taken later that night in order to show how the fountain looks at night versus day.

I also took a daytime video, and another one that night:

Tommy parted ways and most of the rest of us gathered at Bigg Blue Martini for a drink or two. Then all the old timers walked to Jeff Ruby's Steakhouse, a very high-end restaurant. We sat in one of their private rooms called the Breeder's Room. Drinks included the Barrel-Aged Manhattan for most of us, as well as three bottles of a high-end wine called The Prisoner. We got lots of different steaks, as well as sushi, shiitake mushrooms, a few desserts, port wine, and probably other stuff that I don't remember. Everything was amazing, and of course enormously expensive. My best guess is that we spent a total of $1500, but it was worth it.

Afterward we walked to the Stagger Inn, where there were lots of young people and a guy playing live country music.

We capped off the evening with acoustic music, beer, bourbon, and cigars in the parking lot where the RV was parked. At one point a young guy (orange shirt in the photo) stopped by and played a few songs on one of our guitars. We called it a night in the wee hours.


Friday May 28. I came over to the hotel to write for a few hours. Tom brought the RV to the hotel so everyone could pack their stuff. We left at 10:00 for an 11:30 tasting at Boone County Distilling. We sampled a clear whiskey, a bourbon, a rye, a bourbon cream, a rum, and two gins. It was all good stuff and many bottles were purchased.

Next we went to The Party Source, which many people refer to as Party Source Cincinnati, but it's really located in Bellevue KY. It's touted as having the largest selection of beer, wine, and spirits in our nation. I can't confirm that but there certainly were a lot of products. We bought a bunch of stuff.

Todd had to fly home for a family event, so Tom and Billy drove him to the airport. The remaining five of us tried to get an Uber or Lyft into Cincinnati because finding a place to park the RV would be difficult, but no cars were available. Fortunately there is a tap room in the back part of Party Source called Braxton Labs, which is one of Braxton Brewing's six locations. We figured we'd hang there until Tom and Billy returned and could drive us all into town. Braxton didn't serve food, so Mike and Kurt walked to Gold Star to pick up some chili dishes. We filled our bellies and sampled many beers. The four I got in my flight were:

Tommy showed up, so the six of us drove into the Over-the-Rhine area of Cincinnati, and Tom and Billy would meet us. We managed to stuff the lot of us into his Mazda by having the smallest of us (me) lie across three guys' laps. I took the left photo just before I got in. The right photo is a George's-eye-view. Needless to say it was a rather intimate ride.

Those are my knees, you perv.


Our first stop in Cincinnati was Taft's Ale House, one of Taft's Brewing's three locations. Taft's Brewing Company was founded in 2015 with the creation of Taft's Ale House, which was originally a church built in 1850. The place has a neat vibe. My flight consisted of:

Next we walked in the rain to Rhinegeist. They made us wear masks to get in. It's a huge place. The tap list was pretty good, and there was a food place inside called OTR Chili. Rhinegeist didn't serve flights so I got their Share, a good DIPA. The beer and food service were quite fast.

Nice, Dirtman.

We walked back to our vehicles in heavy rain, drove to the RV, and then drove all three vehicles to MadTree Brewing. It's another huge place, and the parking lot was packed (it was Friday after work). Tom's brother Tyler was there, and the nine of us sampled 20+ of MadTree's 30+ beers. I liked a handful of them, including an IPA and a Brettanomyces beer.

Then we went to Tyler's house. He has a very large, beautiful home in Cincinnati, with a nice bar and many scotches and Irish whiskeys. We drank until ... I don't know, I was dozing off. We all crashed there on various beds and sofas.


Saturday May 29. Gray and overcast. High temperature of 56° predicted. Today would be Man Day (as if all the other days on this trip weren't). Man Day is an annual tradition in our neighborhood where several dozen men gather in Tom's yard in January for a day of grilling meat, drinking beer and bourbon, and playing music and cornhole. We did not have one in January of this year due to Covid, so the 2021 event would be on the road.

At around 10:00 we headed out and got supplies. Dirtman and Billy went to Walmart, and the rest of us went to Holzman Meats & Deli.

After a detour back to Tyler's house to retrieve Kurt's wallet, we went to Broken Arrow Farm, an event venue owned by a relative of one of Tom's friends. The property has a big event space with a wet bar and refrigerators, a bridal suite, a barn cabin, and 125 acres of land. The owner, Brett, has a collection of bourbons, some of which are worth hundreds of dollars.

Bar and bourbons. Bridal suite.

Bridal suite. Bridal suite.

Barn cabin. Barn cabin.

We prepped the meats in the bridal suite, which has a kitchen, and cooked them on a Blackstone griddle and a Traeger wood pellet grill. Dirtman provided four kinds of Dirt for everyone to use. There were various cuts of beef, pork, sausage, shrimp, salmon, and even some opossum. We also had oyster shooters. Everything was delicious.

Pellets for the wood grill. Oyster shooters.

We drank lots of bourbons (compliments of Brett), as well as beer.

What goes with alcohol? Firearms, of course! We shot various guns. Someone handed me a pair of noise-cancelling earmuffs that enabled me to hear better than without them, but that also reduced the gunshot noise.

I napped in the RV and woke up to shotguns being fired at clays. I'd never shot clays before. I still haven't, because I missed completely. Then someone threw a partially filled can of Bud Light and I shot it, which was appropriate given what a beer geek I am.

We also went four-wheeling, another thing I'd never done before. I couldn't take photos or videos of my trip because it was very bumpy and I had to hold the grab handles. Here are the vehicles though.

There's a pond, which Billy jumped in despite the cool weather. Unfortunately I didn't get a video.

And of course there was live music, with George on guitar and vocals, Tom on guitar and harmonica, Kurt on cojon, and two of Brett's friends on drums and guitar. They got me to sing and play harmonica on a couple of songs as well. Everyone had a fine evening of camaraderie, libations, music, and cornhole.

Both of Tom's brothers were there.

L to R: Tyler, Tom, Dave.

We all slept in the event space, the bridal suite, and the RV. Well, they slept; I didn't. I lied on a couch from about 2:00 to 6:00 AM and didn't sleep a wink. Good thing I'd had a nap in the afternoon.


Sunday May 30. A bright sunny morning, which eventually gave way to clouds. It was a little warmer than the previous day, but still unseasonably cool. Billy flew home and the rest of us headed back to Cincinnati and stopped at Streetside Brewery just before noon. They had 23 taps that included several NEIPAs and sours, and also a couple of slushy mixed drinks. We tried:

Next we stopped at Skyline Chili, which had some very good food.

Then we went to Fifty West Brewing, which has a huge outdoor beach-like biergarten with sand, picnic tables, a boardwalk, cornhole boards, and a burger bar. There were hundreds of people, including lots of kids and dogs. Its popularity is most likely due to the beachy vibe rather than the beer. I tried:

After that we went to Cottage Park, a beautiful little neighborhood situated next to the Little Miami River with an elliptical loop of about 28 small cottages that were built in the early 1900s. They are somewhat run down due to their age, plus occasionally the river will rise up and flood them. However, the location is quiet and peaceful, with lots of big trees, a playground, a basketball court, a tennis court, a pool, and a pavilion. There were lots of kids playing outside. It's a safe community where the residents get to know each other and become friends, the way things were before TV and the Internet. There are no streets in the neighborhood, and people were riding around on trikes. There were lots of cicadas, which seemed to be a bit smaller than the ones in Maryland.

Cicadas.

Tom and his siblings spent a good amount of time here in their youth, and his father lives there now. Today was a sort of family reunion for Tom, as several of his relatives were there: his father, siblings, children, and some cousins. Tyler and Dave showed up, as did their sister Heather. Tommy was there, and Tom's daughter Robyn had flown in from Maryland with her boyfriend Adam.

A few of us would be staying in a cottage owned by Tom's cousin Bill, so I claimed a bed and took a much-needed nap. Then we had a brief cookout with Bill and some of the neighbors. In the evening we held a shindig in the pavilion. George, Tom, and Kurt provided live music, and some other folks got up and entertained. Heather sang, Adam played guitar and sang, and Tom's niece Dana sang a number of songs with her heavenly voice. It was a beautiful setting with lots of greenery by the river. We had a great time socializing with the local folks.


Monday May 31. It had been a cold night. Tom slept in a sleeping bag in the pavilion. George, Kurt, and Mike slept in the RV, and the heat went off in the middle of the night. Dirtman and I were nice and warm in the cottage. We all gathered at the cottage, where Bill cooked us breakfast, including a meat-and-grain sausage called goetta. We said good-bye and headed out.

About a quarter of a mile into our trip we decided to pose for a parting shot at Cottage Park. So we disembarked, walked back, and snapped this photo:

We stopped at Jungle Jim's International Market, which some believe is the largest supermarket in the world. It's got huge selections of everything from produce to hot sauces to alcohol to pretty much anything consumable. There are sections for foods from many countries, including Macedonia. The beer selections numbered in the thousands, and prices were very reasonable. They even had homebrewing supplies. The bathroom entrances are port-o-potty doors, which fool some people; the doors are just entrances to real bathrooms.

Hi George!

By noon we were having Manhattans in the RV, with beer to follow, and eventually moonshine and wine, because apparently we have a death wish. We stopped at White Castle for sliders and fries because ... see previous sentence. They packaged the food like lightbulbs.

We stopped to empty the RV's wastewater tanks because the "black water" tank was full. Translation: we filled the shitter. I mean, a week with six guys eating meat and chili? Granted, we did most of our intestinal unloading in various hotels and houses, but still.

It was a pleasant trip home with good friends, music, food, and libations. There were no mishaps, except Dirtman managed to break the handle off the refrigerator. Now we had to open the freezer, grab the top of the fridge door with one hand, and push in on the latch mechanism with the other to open it. We put Dirt on several snacks, including popcorn, carrots, and fake crab. The weather was great: mostly sunny, and around 70°. There was lots of nice mountain scenery along our route.

We stopped for dinner at BJ's in Hagerstown MD. Their beers were predictably sub-par, but the food and ambience were good. I tried:

We made it back to our neighborhood around dusk. Todd and Billy met us, and we all unloaded the RV. What an amazing trip it had been. Traveling in an RV, visiting distilleries and breweries, eating great food, playing live music, and all the other stuff were great, but most important was the company. Having these experiences with a great group of friends made the entire trip very fun and memorable.

Thank you for reading. We'll end this tome with a few quotes from the trip: