Kentucky Archives - Page 3 of 4

Kentucky

Breaking bread over bourbon with Michael Veach

Posted on November 3, 2017February 25, 2018 by Pat and David

While we were in Louisville, we met historian Michael R. Veach for dinner one night at Decca (812 E. Market St., 502-749-8128, deccarestaurant.com). It was a felicitous convergence of Kentucky food and spirits. Veach, pictured above, is the author of Kentucky Bourbon Whiskey: An American Heritage (University Press of Kentucky, $24.95). And under chef Annie Pettry, the farm-to-table restaurant is one of the city's best. Veach absorbed bourbon history as archivist for United Distillers and later for the Filson Historical Society. He has also worked closely with the Oscar Getz Museum of Whiskey History in Bardstown, Kentucky. While at United Distillers, he sharpened his palate by joining the quality control sampling of barrels in the warehouse. “We did ten a day,” he recalled, describing what...Read More

Evan Williams stakes claim to bourbon history

Posted on November 1, 2017February 25, 2018 by Pat and David

When Heaven Hill Distillery opened the Evan Williams Bourbon Experience (528 West Main St., Louisville, 502-272-2611, evanwilliams.com/visit.php) in 2013, it marked the first new bourbon distillery in downtown Louisville since the late 19th century. The brand is named for the man said to be Kentucky's first licensed commercial distiller, Evan Williams. Some folks dispute that, pointing to Elijah Craig. What is known is that Williams erected a still on a spot across Main Street in 1783 and began making corn whiskey that he shipped downriver in oak barrels. Other distillers soon followed suit and by 1800 the street was known as Whiskey Row. Everyone on the street was making, selling, or shipping bourbon. The Evan Williams Bourbon Experience is a delightful blend of low-tech history...Read More

Bon appétit, y’all! (At the English Grill)

Posted on October 30, 2017February 25, 2018 by Pat and David

Louisville certainly has some nice new hotels, but for old-city ambience and sheer Southern comfort it's hard to beat the Brown Hotel (335 West Broadway, Louisville, 502-583-1234, brownhotel.com). A bastion of hospitality since 1923, it's a pillar of the New Old South. Its English Renaissance-inspired architecture has a polite reserve that reflects Louisville's role as the epicenter of bourbon and thoroughbred racing. If we were true barflies, it would be hard to pry us out of the Brown's elegant sepia-toned lobby bar. The room opens at 3 p.m. and by late afternoon it begins to fill with Louisville's business elite. As befits one of the city's finest and most storied bars, it even has a bourbon steward. On our last stay, it was Troy Ritchie,...Read More

Tastes from two banks of the mighty Ohio

Posted on October 27, 2017February 25, 2018 by Pat and David

Long-time readers of HungryTravelers already know that we have a soft spot for the state of Kentucky. (David was born there and Pat's a Kentucky Colonel.) On our recent visit to Louisville, though, we ventured across the Ohio River to explore the newfound hipster cachet of the southern Indiana communities that go by the catchy rubric of SoIN—as in SoIN to food, SoIN to you, SoIN to music, and so on. It was a tasty journey. Sorry, folks: some history Geography is destiny. The Falls of the Ohio made Louisville possible—and necessary. The 26-foot drop in the Ohio River meant river traffic from the east had to unload at Louisville. Goods were then transported overland and reloaded downriver to make the journey to Cairo, Illinois,...Read More

First Vineyard marks origin of American winemaking

Posted on October 2, 2015 by Pat and David

The first libations that come to mind in north-central Kentucky are likely to be bourbon, and, if you're a craft brew fan, beer. But the first commercial winery licensed in the Midwest and adjacent South was actually in Jessamine County, Kentucky in 1799. (Franciscans, of course, were making wine in the missions along the Rio Grande and in California a century and a half earlier.) The current owner of the land, Tom Beall, has rescued that tidbit of history by resuming production at First Vineyard (5800 Sugar Creek Pike, Nicholasville, Kentucky; 859-885-9359; www.firstvineyard.net). John James Dufour hailed from a wine-making family in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. In the 1790s, he purchased a piece on land on the Great Bend in the Kentucky River that...Read More

Bourbon cocktails: mysterious … and easy

Posted on September 15, 2015January 13, 2020 by Pat and David

Among the bourbon craft cocktails we tasted in Lexington, one of the most intriguing was the Blue Heron 46, a house specialty at the Blue Heron Steakhouse (185 Jefferson St, Lexington, Kentucky; 859-254-2491; blueheronsteakhouse.com). The menu describes the drink as Maker's 46 (a smoother, woodier version of Maker's Mark with more pronounced caramel notes) with handmade apricot ginger syrup served on the rocks. How do you make that syrup? Bartender Seth Kinder—the “Hell on Wheels” character mixing a drink here—was downright coy. He did suggest that the syrup was made by cooking down a pound of apricots with sugar and water, and an equal amount of fresh ginger also boiled in syrup. We'd make it like this. Combine 1 pound of dried apricots and two...Read More

Coles keeps faith by reinventing the classics

Posted on September 13, 2015September 6, 2015 by Pat and David

Lexingtonians have been heading to the brick building at the corner of East Main Street and South Ashland to dine for decades. The spot opened in 1938 as The Stirrup Cup, adding the iconic murals of English hunt scenes—complete with a blessing of the hounds—in 1949. A succession of restaurants have occupied the space, but none more felicitously than current occupant, Coles 735 Main (735 East Main St., Lexington; 859-266-9000; coles735main.com). More than six decades after they were painted, those murals still lend a sense of occasion to the pretty dining room. And, as you might expect, executive chef Cole Arimes concocts a sophisticated mix of local and global tastes just right for a big night out. He might add truffle-infused lobster cream to a...Read More

Boone Creek Creamery makes real KY cheese

Posted on September 10, 2015September 6, 2015 by Pat and David

Ed Puterbaugh, the master cheesemaker and jack-of-all-trades at Boone Creek Creamery (2416 Palumbo Drive, Lexington; 859-402-2364; www.boonecreekcreamery.com), is a regular at the Saturday farmers market on West Main Street in downtown Lexington, Kentucky. But if you miss him on the weekend, you can stop by his tidy headquarters in an industrial complex just off Route 4 south of town during the week to make your purchases. Puterbaugh will be glad to give you a quick tour of the cheesemaking operation and the “cave” where he ages between 1,500 and 2,000 cheeses at a time for anywhere from three to six months—sometimes longer. Puterbaugh only began making cheese six years ago and admits to “getting carried away.” He makes 39 varieties by hand following traditional European...Read More

Dudley’s on Short is long on bonhomie

Posted on September 5, 2015September 4, 2015 by Pat and David

Located in the Gothic Revival National Bank Building of 1889, Dudley's on Short (259 W Short St., Lexington; 859-252-1010; dudleysrestaurant.com) just might be the crossroads of Lexington, Kentucky. The last time we had dinner there, mayor Jim Gray—resplendent in a seersucker suit—stopped by the table to greet some of our local tablemates. And after dinner, we were nearly waylaid from our next whiskey bar by garden designer Jon Carloftis and his partner Dale Fisher, two of the city's legendary bon vivants and owners of the historic estate Botherum profiled in Garden and Gun. The menu is calculated to encourage conviviality. The list of dishes “for the table” is nearly as long as the entrées and some of the “snacks and bites” (house fries with green...Read More

At Smithtown Seafood, ‘local’ is measured in feet

Posted on September 1, 2015January 16, 2020 by Pat and David

Chef Ouita Michel, who calls Holly Hill Inn (www.hollyhillinn.com) in Midway, Kentucky, her home base, is completely on board with the vision of FoodChain (see previous post). She's so on board that she opened the little takeout seafood restaurant inside the Bread Box called Smithtown Seafood (smithtownseafood.com) and installed the immensely talented Jonathan Sanning as her chef de cuisine. (That's Jonathan below holding the fried fish.) Ouita (as everyone in Lexington seems to call her because everyone in Lexington who cares about food knows her) studied at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, and took as her primary lesson the observation that the best French and Italian chefs create meals out of what they find around them. She's inculcated that same respect for...Read More