Day 8 - 5/15/07 (Bardston/Loretto, KY, Corbin, KY, Clinton, SC)
To
day Kentucky presented me with two of my favorite things, bourbon and the Colonel's chicken. Originally I was only going to go to the Makers Mark Distillery, but the Jim Beam was only a few miles away and figured I couldn’t pass that up, so I made it my first stop. The “tour” wasn’t really anything. I watched a short movie and then there’s a self guided tour and you never go in any of the working buildings. Instead you just view replica machines and read plaques about what they do. There is a tasting at the end though. The two I tasted were from the small batch collection, Baker’s and Basil Hayden’s. They were pretty good. The small batch collection is significantly better than the regular Jim Beam label.
Next I went up to the Makers Mark Distillery. Now this tour was cool. This was a lot more interactive than the previous two. We got to go and see the huge vats where the corn, barley, and wheat mash was fermenting. I saw this at the Jack Daniels Distillery too, but at this one the tour guide encouraged us to stick our hand in the vat and taste it. We did this in three different vats, each one being at a different point in the fermentation process and therefore tasting differently. Most people just stuck one finger in. I st
uck in my whole hand. After a visit to one barreling warehouses we went to the bottling and saw the bottles filled, labeled, and finally hand dipped in the wax. At the end of the tour we had the option of buying a souvenir bottle and dipping it
in the wax ourselves. Of course I did this, but unfortunately, I chose the wrong person to offer my camera to, as the picture she took was about 15 seconds after I had already dipped and spun the bottle and placed it down to cool. Ugh!!! I almost paid the $15 to buy another bottle and do it again so I could get a shot of it, but finally convinced myself that it was ok, life would go on…
After the 
distilleries, it was time to finally travel down to Corbin, KY, where KFC was born. The “museum” at the first ever restaurant definitely left a lot to be desired. It was pretty much
some display cabinets showing newspaper articles, old menus, advertisements, and pictures of KFC through the years. You may think I'm being ridiculous, but the story of KFC is actually a great one. I won't go into it all now, but ask me sometime and I'll tell you how the Colonel went up and down professionally his whole life and didn't actually start becoming a success until he was 60. The first KFC was actually called “Sanders Cafe” and there was a full replica of the original kitchen from 1930 where the Colonel created his famous recipe. I don’t know if this is a site I would recommend to the average person traveling through Kentucky, but I loved it! After looking around and taking pictures, I bought some lunch, original and extra crispy. I also bought a great shirt that simply says, “I ate where it all began.”
I was hoping to make it all the way to Savannah, GA after Kentucky, but my extra time at Jim Beam and the time it took to fully savor the friend chicken threw my schedule off. So I began my drive through the Appalachians and into North Carolina and South Carolina for my first time. I made it to Clinton, S
C by sundown, which is where I am right now, about 200 miles north of Savannah. Tomorrow morning I will finish the drive and spend the bulk of the day in historical Savannah. Check back then.
Fast Facts:
Today's Mileage: 482
Total Mileage: 3,509
Today's Gas Price: $2.87
uck in my whole hand. After a visit to one barreling warehouses we went to the bottling and saw the bottles filled, labeled, and finally hand dipped in the wax. At the end of the tour we had the option of buying a souvenir bottle and dipping it
in the wax ourselves. Of course I did this, but unfortunately, I chose the wrong person to offer my camera to, as the picture she took was about 15 seconds after I had already dipped and spun the bottle and placed it down to cool. Ugh!!! I almost paid the $15 to buy another bottle and do it again so I could get a shot of it, but finally convinced myself that it was ok, life would go on…
distilleries, it was time to finally travel down to 
some display cabinets showing newspaper articles, old menus, advertisements, and pictures of KFC through the years. You may think I'm being ridiculous, but the story of KFC is actually a great one. I won't go into it all now, but ask me sometime and I'll tell you how the Colonel went up and down professionally his whole life and didn't actually start becoming a success until he was 60. The first KFC was actually called “Sanders Cafe” and there was a full replica of the original kitchen from 1930 where the Colonel created his famous recipe. I don’t know if this is a site I would recommend to the average person traveling through 
2 comments:
It sounds like you are buying a lot of souveniers for yourself but what have you purchased for your faithful blog readers??
okay, so two points:
1) the pic of the hand-dipped waxing of the maker's bottles is awesome...especially the rejected bottle at the bottom left, accidentally dipped way past the neck. would have been a good souvenir had you ganked it.
2) the pic of you and the colonel on the bench is a classic! you can forget about all the other pics on the this trip that didn't come out per your expectations - that one will live on for years to come. couldn't be better. it is as if you two were meant to be together.
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