More Fun in Bowling Green, KY…

In and around Bowling Green, Kentucky there has been a lot of spotty thundershowers  and as a result there have been a lot of flash flood watches. We aren’t too concerned here at Barren Tailwater COE park as we are below the dam of the lake. However, I have heard the siren go off a few times which is a signal that they are letting a higher volume of water out. The river we see out our front window is pretty much full and above flood stage but it is being controlled so again no worries for us.

What has been a challenge is to find things to do between  rain showers. One afternoon we drove around the countryside and checked out all the small communities near us. The rolling hills here in southern Kentucky are lush and green with all this rain. We did find a small Mennonite community where we stumbled upon a small Mennonite store where the locals bring what they can spare to sell for the general good of the community. We scored some great produce and a jar of raspberry jam….I am sure looking forward to eating it!

Another day the rain let up some so we drove back over to Bowling Green to the Aviation Heritage Park. There are several planes and jets on display there but we decided to play their disc golf course first. There are 8 disc golf courses in this area! We played about 14 holes when a thunder rumble warned us we had better hurry. Try as we might we didn't quite make it and got rained upon but had fun anyway. We decided against stopping to take pictures of the planes due to the rain so we looked for something to do indoors.

Next up we decided to tour the Corsair Artisan Distillery. Every hour on the hour tours are offered and we made it just in time for the last tour of the day at 4:00 pm. It was five bucks for the informative tour of the small scale distiller and included 4 samples each at the end. This artisan distillery distills vodka, rum, gin and whiskey.  It is so small that it still corks and labels each and every bottle by hand. Sharon especially liked their logo and the story is that one of the owners was "researching" distilleries in Ireland where he snapped  a photo of three men headed to a pub just after work.  A graphic artist turned the photo into their logo and Sharon liked it so much we purchased a glass after the tour. It was a nice tour and some of the samples were pretty interesting.

Sharon tried their vanilla bean vodka, spiced rum, and oatmeal stout whiskey .They had a gin that was barrel aged in a spiced rum barrel which was very good. I also tried their most popular triple smoked single barrel whiskey. Another interesting artisan product was their hopped whiskeys where they use hops in the process giving the whiskey a hoppy smell but not too much of a hoppy taste. Lastly we both tried their Red Absinthe which was an interesting blend with a distinctive licorice flavor…

After the tour I drove us over to the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge. Why? Well I read on the internet that there was a Bluegrass Jam held there every Thursday night beginning at 5:30pm and was free to the public with donations accepted at the door. Well we didn’t arrive until after 6:00 pm  and although we saw a staged area, no one was playing. We sat down and then noticed there was a spread of food laid out.  We then heard it announced to everyone to come get a plate. We made a donation, got some food and sat down wondering when the music would start. Before long several of the locals came by to greet us and introduce themselves.  They were happy to see us but all wondered how we found this place!

The music didn’t start until closer to 7:00 pm but we had a great time listening some some good local musicians.  We really enjoyed the fiddles, banjos and all the other instruments that came together for some good bluegrass music at this most welcoming place…