Louisville: Blue Grass and Brown Whiskey
July 11-13, 2008

In 2008 we traveled to Louisville, Kentucky, home of the “most exciting two minutes in sports,” and the arguable birthplace of the old fashioned. We played dainty, an only-in-Louisville game, in the streets of the city’s Schnitzelburg neighborhood. We gathered in the Rathskeller, beneath a tooled leather ceiling, to toast the work of Minnie Fox and the African American cooks she honored in the Blue Grass Cookbook.

We tasted Benedictine spread and Henry Bain sauce. We sipped brown whiskey from the state’s best distillers and red wine from grapes raised by a onetime tobacco farmer.

We dined on fried catfish at the All Wool and a Yard Wide Democratic Club, and tasted farm-fresh fare at Lilly’s. We sampled bourbon-marinated smoked fish. And bourbon
barrel-aged sorghum.

Folks like Wendall Berry and Sarah Fritschner showed us the way, providing context and amplification.