The Road to Music City

We left Cape Cod and drove to Ohio State in Columbus in one day - an 800 mile feat that having 3 capable drivers really helped with. We stayed with Jenna's friend Carolyn there for a night, during which we went out to check out the OSU scene - one that was much bigger and on another level than going to college in a rural Virginia town can prepare you for. Thanks to Carolyn's good friend on the women's basketball team, we got a behind-the-scenes tour of the men's and women's basketball facilities the next day, which I really enjoyed and was amazed by. They were equally on the next level compared to any of Virginia Tech's athletic facilities.

After a one-night stop in Cincinnati with more of Jenna's family that live there, we drove through Kentucky to Tennessee, the most interesting part of which was by far the bourbon distilleries there. We stopped and toured two of them (Wild Turkey and Maker's Mark) but there are about 10 in the area. I have little experience with whiskey - just a general knowledge from a wine class I took at Virginia Tech - but learning about the history and processes around Kentucky bourbon was really interesting.

Both tours were good - over an hour long - and we walked through the production all the way from grain delivery to bottling. Wild Turkey is a more widely distributed mass-production spirit, whereas Maker's Mark was a smaller, more high-end operation. The best part was the comparison of the two. Just one example - Wild Turkey uses 27 30,000-gallon stainless steel tanks to ferment in, while Maker's Mark uses just 9 century-old wooden vats.

Wild Turkey fermentation room

Maker's Mark fermentation room

Both brands, like almost all of them, still use charred wooden barrels and old barrelhouses to age in - the last thing you would expect to see at a modern, large-scale operation.

Quality control is, of course, also still done the old-fashioned way, no matter where you go.

Maker's Mark included a very educational tasting at the end. It was familiar territory since I learned so much about wine tasting this past year; we discussed flavors, where they hit on your tongue, and why they are expressed they way they are - similar to wine, but a little (or a lot?) too strong to be the same kind of enjoyable.

Maker's Mark tasting

After the long day of winding through Kentucky's tobacco fields, we arrived in downtown Nashville in time to meet my dad for dinner and check out the famed music scene - a whole story on its own!

Jenna and Brett... riding the wild turkeys?