For several days on our Road Trip home to West Virginia we’d been having trouble finding Hilton brand hotels (that we could pay for with our HH points) that had an electric outlet outside for our freezer full of elk meat, and while we eventually found one each night, it often took us several hours of calling and driving around, and many of the hotel clerks I spoke with had no clue about outlets and couldn’t be bothered to go look. 🙁 This evening was especially grueling, as we still hadn’t found a hotel by 11:45pm, and we were both beyond tired, when Kitten, the desk clerk at the Hampton Inn Columbia. Missouri: https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/couhhhx-hampton-columbia/, really came through for us: she told me to book online before midnight so I could use my points, and if she couldn’t find us an outlet we could use she’d refund my points. When we arrived and that turned out to be the case, as the plug was too far from the where we could park our truck, Dan went in to ask her for the points refund, and Kitten managed to find us a 100′ extension cord so we could plug in our freezer! YAY for Kitten!
Missouri’s got it goin’ on in the booze department!
On 12/17, back on I-70 heading east, we stopped for a wine tasting at the Curling Vine Winery http://www.curlingvinewinery.com/ in New Florence, Missouri after it happily popped up on my iPhone GPS. The New Florence area is in Missouri Wine Country, and boasts a number of wineries, but Curling Vine is literally right on the highway, and as we were pressed for time that is the only one we were able to get to. The owner grew up in a winery, as his parents opened Stone Hill Winery in Hermann, MO in the 1960s, bringing the long-dormant Missouri wine industry back to life. In 2016 he and his wife opened Curling Vine Winery and began a new chapter of the story! To make it even better, we discovered a distillery right next door to the winery, which turned out to be unique and truly excellent: Wood Hat Distillery! http://www.woodhatspirits.com/ And yes, Gary Hinegardner, the distiller, makes gorgeous, one-of-a-kind wood hats! A true “Field to Glass” experience, Wood Hat’s spirits are fermented, distilled, and aged onsite, using the only wood-fired still in the country; the distillery is certified as a true Craft Distillery by the American Distilling Institute. The whiskey I liked the best- and bought a small bottle of- turned out to be Twin Timbers, which is finished in a pecan barrel, resulting in a lot of evaporation and thus making it more expensive…
That night we had the last, great dinner of our fabulous road trip, and it was truly sensational: a superb, inventive gourmet steak dinner at Brooklyn & The Butcher in historic, downtown New Albany, Indiana. Brooklyn & The Butcher is a farm-to-table restaurant headed by Chef Ming Pu: http://brooklynandthebutcher.com/ When I started to hunt for restaurants on our route, due to the one hour time change I found that most restaurants would be closed before we could get to them! When I called Brooklyn & The Butcher, which had a very appealing menu and top ratings online, I was told that as long as we arrived before their closing time of 9pm we’d be fine, and wouldn’t be rushed. 🙂 The elegantly appointed restaurant, housed in a 19c hotel building, sets aside 2 hours for each diner(!), and while rather expensive ($100 per person, including drinks), I have to say that it was honestly worth it. Dan and I shared an appetizer of Kentucky Freedom Run Farm Lamb Meatballs in a Shakshuka tomato sauce with Dukah (an Egyptian spice mixture usually made of roasted sesame seeds, chickpeas, and hazelnuts, along with coriander seeds, black peppercorns, and salt), after which Dan had the 7oz Prime Filet, rare, “Forager”, topped with mushrooms, allium, and black truffle butter, and I had the 7oz Prime Filet, “Pittsburgh” (seared and super-rare inside), “Oscar”, topped with Chilean crab, asparagus, and a Truffle Béarnaise Sauce. Dan enjoyed an Irish Coffee with The Jameson, and I treated myself to two of their inventive, complex, and delicious “fat washed” cocktails: a foamed “Lazy Lion” (my favorite), made with Sesame Oil-Washed Tottori Whiskey, Yuzu Citrus, Orgeat, Demara, Aquafaba, and Toasted Almond Bitters, and “The Butcher”, made with fat-washed Old Fo 86, Malmsey, Madeira Port, Demara, and Angostura. I’d read about fat-washed cocktails in B2B beverage publications for years, but this was the first time I’d been able to try them- and they are smoky, savory, and yummy- just my taste! The service was charming and professional, we weren’t rushed at all, and we enjoyed every single minute of this glorious dinner!
We spent our last road trip night at another Hilton Garden Inn, and the next day high-tailed it home, stopping for a lunch of ribs at Barnyard BBQ in Milton, WV: https://www.thebarnyardbbq.com/milton
We got home to the Elkhorn Inn http://www.elkhorninnwv.com that evening. We kissed and cuddled our puppies and kitties, unloaded our suitcases, wine, booze, and and our freezer-full of elk and lamb, and thanked our BFF Inn-Sitter from the bottom of our hearts for having made this amazing Road Trip possible!
