Embedded Files
Post date: Mar 19, 2017 10:21:20 PM
Because colleges for the most part are not operating on weekends I have been trying to at least target the weekends for something I would like to do. The weather having pushed me over the dragon on Friday I found myself outside Knoxville TN, with two choices on my id list. Drive 200 miles west into Kentucky to visit the Makers Mark distillery, or drive about 30 miles to Gatlinburg TN where I saw there were a few distilleries that sampled moonshine. I chose the latter.
Gatlinburg is located right next to The Great Smokey Mountains National Park a beautiful area. My route there took me through Pigeon Forge, which is kind of surreal. I guess Dolly Parton put a theme park there and it has grown. Coming through the mountain roads is all quite quaint with wood carvers and rocking chairs on every front porch. Then I noticed a small roller coaster build into a hillside. Very novel little thing, with individual sleds that roll down the twists and turns build into the hillside assisted by gravity. Then I saw another… then a miniature golf course, and an arcade, by the time I made it to Pigeon Forge the attractions were out of control. The wide thoroughfare through town being covered with theatres, jungle rides, and neon, much like Las Vegas without the gambling. All the attractions are very rated G family oriented. Being without family, I did not stop.
Gatlinburg is a similar tourist destination without the scale being land locked between the mountains, and closer to the national park. The rivers that run through it were brimming with water and the riverbanks filled with hotels with overlooking decks. I could see how the natural beauty of this place draws people to it. Which it did on Saturday, backing up traffic for miles, by the time I made it into town I abandoned my bike to the nearest legal parking spot and set out on foot.
Gatlinburg is also a place where the local culture has been successfully marketed, including moonshine. There are a few distilleries there that have set up tastings. For a small fee they line the tourists up to the bar and give them a thimble full of each of their different flavors. Releasing them into the surrounding gift shops where they can purchase the liquor directly from the manufactures. Throughout the course of the day I tried tastings at three different distilleries. Spending my time in between listening to great bluegrass bands that played on small stage surrounded by a sea of wooden rocking chairs for all the audience to sit in outside one of the distilleries. Environment is everything, I can tell you even the liquor tastes better when served by colorful local barkeeps who tell stories and jabber in dialect as they pour. I was having a great time…
By the late afternoon, sated with tastings I thought it best I should eat something. I tried to get a seat at the local brewpub but it was too crowded with patrons watching the basketball tournament, so I settled for a pizza joint instead. In retrospect this was a big mistake. At first I thought it was just that I the days moonshine had caught up with me, but in retrospect given the timing of the illness that followed I must have gotten some bad sausage in my dinner. Mind you priming my body with various flavors of moonshine did nothing to help my health but the evening was spent is sickness trying to hydrate a GI track that was trying to clear itself of everything as fast as possible, by every means possible. By this morning I felt better. But I also felt like I was playing out my own miniature morality play on the evils of drinking “white lightning”. The lesson was strong but not strong enough for me to abandon the bottles I had purchased and packed away in the side bags earlier in the day. Again, marketing works, and we have wonderfully erasable short-term memory….
Page updated
Report abuse