Month: August 2017

Adorable Rustic Cabin in the Virginia mountains

The mountains of Virginia, my home state, are one of my favorite places on earth. Madison County, especially, has such a wide variety of fun activities for kids and family, delicious food and natural beauty that it’s a region I love to come back to often. My parents and I took my three children to stay at a beautiful, modern and stylish rental house up the road from Graves Mountain Lodge for two fun-filled, off-grid nights to celebrate the end of summer.

The Old Church Cottage is an Airbnb.com rental in what was formerly a Mennonite church. It has rustic charm with a fully modern kitchen, and is outside the range of both cell service and wifi (although the Syria Mercantile up the road has wifi). 100 yards behind the property is the Rose River, a picturesque stream shallow enough for wading.

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Graves Mountain offers breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as horseback riding and other activities. If you’re in the area during the fall, you can pick apples and visit the apple harvest festival. In downtown Madison, you can visit the Feed Store, an antique store packed to the rafters with old and interesting things to look at and buy. A quick lunch of delicious barbecue can be had at Pig N’ Steak, and the best dessert is at Tastee Freeze on Route 29. For grocery staples, visit Yoder’s Country Market, also on Route 29.

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Madison County has several wineries. DuCard Vineyards is near Graves Mountain, nestled in a small valley. Standouts at the solar-powered tasting room are C’est Trop, a dessert-style port wine and 2nd Corps, a slightly sweet white. Early Mountain Vineyards offers beautiful views and an award-winning tasting room and patio for outdoor events and live music. Heading up Route 29 towards Culpeper, Prince Michel Vineyard and Winery has a wide range of wines to taste your way through, including a line of fruit wines. The newest additions to Madison County’s gourmet offerings are Bald Top Brewing Co., Virginia’s first historic farm brewery, and Mad Local, a veteran-owned restaurant in downtown Madison featuring local meats and veggies, beers and wines.

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If you’re looking for a little slice of heaven for a weekend getaway this fall, make the trip to Madison! And don’t miss the 25th annual Taste of the Mountains Street Festival, with local vendors, arts and crafts, a beer and wine tasting tent and more.

Louisville Weekend Road Trip – Part Two

After a fun-filled Friday, my husband and I woke up bright and early Saturday to visit another distillery. Located in Lawrenceburg, about an hour outside downtown Louisville, Four Roses Distillery makes three standard bourbon offerings, as well as a handful of special, limited-edition offerings each year. The distillery is currently expanding its operations and while construction takes place, the distillery tour has been modified and does not include the stillhouse. My husband and I didn’t want to wait until the hourly distillery tour, so we opted for the tasting only.

Outside on a covered patio, we received an education in the history of the Four Roses Distillery, from its romantic origin to its place of prominence in one of the most famous American photographs ever taken. Complimentary Four Roses tasting glasses were passed out and our tasting host walked us through Four Roses Yellow Label, Small Batch and Single Barrel offerings.

A short drive away through beautiful horse country and back roads, Woodford Reserve Distillery offers tours throughout the day. Unfortunately, we hadn’t made a reservation, and when we arrived the distillery was overrun with visitors and tour buses.  I’d highly recommend reserving your tour online, which you can do the day before (or even earlier). We did check out the gift shop, and from what we saw the facility looked gorgeous. I’d definitely like to come back for the full tour.

Heading back into Louisville, we visited the Louisville Slugger Museum, which was about a 15-minute walk from our hotel. The museum offers a factory tour, which provides information on the history of the brand and how they manufacture baseball bats today, as well as how bats have been made through the years. An exhibit showcases special bats made for the greats of baseball, and when the tour is over, visitors have the chance to pose with bats used by various heavy hitters.

The home team was in town, so after our museum visit we headed back down Main Street to Louisville Slugger Field to see the local team, the Bats, who are the AAA affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds. The stadium was gorgeous, and offered a special package with a premium game ticket, hot dog, soda, program and Bats hat for $25 a person. My husband and I had a great time at the game – there’s nothing better in the summertime than a baseball game, hot dogs and cold beer! Local brewery Against the Grain, which has a brewery and smokehouse attached to the stadium, offers beers inside the stadium as well. Unfortunately, the “Bats Win” golden ale I bought wasn’t enough of a good luck charm – the Bats were shut out by their opponents.

We headed back to our hotel after the game and woke up bright and early on Sunday, ready for our 7 1/2 hour drive back to Richmond. If you’re making Louisville a weekend road trip and planning to grab some bourbon souvenirs, be aware that many liquor stores outside the city don’t open until 1 pm, and some counties don’t sell liquor at all on Sundays.

Our quick weekend getaway was a great time. We both decided we’d love to go back to check out more distilleries. Next time, we’ll be sure to pre-reserve our tours, especially in the busy summer season.

 

Louisville Weekend Road Trip

With the kids at their grandparents’ house last weekend, my husband and I decided to take a road trip to Louisville, Kentucky to taste some bourbon and take in a baseball game (and a visit to the Louisville Slugger Museum).

A 7 1/2-hour drive from Richmond, Louisville lies on the Kentucky river, which separates Kentucky from Indiana. Though you can follow I-64 all the way there, it isn’t quite a straight shot as the interstate winds through the mountains of Virginia, West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky. For bourbon lovers, you could make an easy stop at the Smooth Ambler distillery in Maxwelton, WV on the way there or back.

The Louisville area is home to many distilleries, from small, craft distillers like Willett, Town Branch and new distiller, Jeptha Creed to huge worldwide brands like Wild Turkey and Jim Beam. One tip to note: the distilleries in this region of Kentucky can be pretty spread out. If you’re pre-reserving tours, be sure to budget enough time into your schedule for the drives between sites.

On this trip, we visited Buffalo Trace Distillery in Frankfort on our way to Louisville. About an hour outside Louisville, the distillery is situated on the banks of the Kentucky river on the site of an ancient “buffalo trace,” a trampled-down region that resulted from the mass migration of millions of buffalo centuries ago. Buffalo Trace produces some of the most sought-after bourbons in the world, including Pappy Van Winkle, Elmer T. Lee, E.H. Taylor and Blanton’s.

The tour features a visit into one of the aging warehouses, and an educational video on the history and distilling process of Buffalo Trace, then culminates with a trip to the small building housing the bottling line. On the day of our visit, Blanton’s was making its way through the bottling line.

The post-tour tasting offered samples of Buffalo Trace and Eagle Rare bourbons, Wheatley Vodka, White Dog Corn Whiskey and Buffalo Trace Bourbon Cream, plus Dr. Mcgillicuddy’s root beer for those who were under 21. Off the tasting room, a locked vault housed some of the rarest past releases, including Pappy Van Winkle 25 Year bourbon and decades-old Weller and Old Taylor bottles.

Later that evening, after checking into our super-convenient, downtown Louisville hotel (the Hampton Inn – Louisville Downtown, which is within walking distance to most major downtown sites and also has a free local shuttle), we ventured back out into the countryside to visit Jeptha Creed Distillery, a relatively new local distillery that makes flavored moonshines and vodkas, as well as a very limited-release bourbon.  On Friday nights, the distillery puts on “Jammin’ at Jeptha,” a concert series featuring local bands.  One or more food trucks sell meals and snacks, and the distillery serves up craft cocktails. Local brews are also available, such as Country Boy Brewing beers.

Day one of our Louisville trip was full of fun and bourbon. We were excited for more on Saturday!