Man, that joke just never gets old. Shefali is pretty much the greatest wife ever. We came back from Europe for a wedding or three, and so we took a quick break to head south for the first of those and to catch up with some old friends. After that our first official trip in America was perhaps the greatest place to be in America – the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. Those of you who know me know bourbon is one of my favorite hobbies. We hit up Louisville (where they just call them Sluggers) and Lexington (where they just call him Steele) though not necessarily just once and not necessarily in that order. We actually hit three trails – the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, which is mostly the big brands you’ve probably heard of (Wild Turkey, Makers Mark, Jim Beam), the Craft Bourbon Trail, which is all smaller distilleries, and the Urban Bourbon trail, which is really just drinking bourbon in Louisville, and probably something I’d be doing eight days a week if I lived here. Protip: The tours are informative and interesting, but pretty much all the same once you’ve seen about two of them. It gets repetitive quick. Most of the distilleries will just give you a free tasting, however begrudgingly, if you simply ask or just play dumb about the etiquette. We also met a local street artist in Lexington when I was taking pictures just outside the city. He was milling about outside his studio and, as is my wont, I bombarded him with questions. We chatted a bit and he invited me in and we chatted a bit more, mostly about the work he does and how he’s trying to maintain some legitimacy since he was picked up for “art-related offenses.” He also brought up the interesting point that context plays such a huge role in art of any variety, like how we look at cave paintings and think it’s some sort of timeline or a primitive language but really it could just be a bunch of dick and fart jokes between the taggers of the Upper Paleolithic. We bought a couple t-shirts to support the local art scene and noticed some of his characters (drones) on the way out. We were at a brewery just after that and were told that he was prolific, and she (the bartendress) knew we weren’t local to Lexington because we had never seen the drones before. He’s literally made his mark (get it???) everywhere in the city. So I guess we met our first local celebrity too. It was a nice cap to a fantastic time on the Bourbon Trail. It’s like Disneyland if I was an adult. And, truth be told, I was concerned that we’d have some… issues… traveling around Kentucky, but I was happily proven wrong as literally everyone we encountered was friendly and welcoming, as generous with their spirits as with their hospitality. Freshly fed and with a trunk full of bourbon, we headed back east for the event of the year.
- Shefali and Vijay
[1] Lexington
[2] Louisville