Car super-speed boost to New Orleans

Well we just couldn’t help our hankering for New Orleans, so we drove straight on through after Nashville. This post will be a quick one, but does include a distillery knowledge fail.

We passed through Memphis, mainly so that I could walk in Memphis. Since we were already there, we decided to stop at Graceland. And guess what. It’s $75 to see Elvis’s house. How poor is this dude he needs to charge so much to see his house. There is a cheaper option, but you don’t get to go in the house with that one. And none of these options even have a tour guide. Self-guided for $75. We passed. So here are some pics of what you can see in Graceland for free. (Not much. And that’s after you pay $10 for parking. Though the attendant did give us our money back after we said, “Do you know what it costs to go in there?”

  • Well, here’s the engrance. (I’m already so over writing about Graceland that I’m not even going to correct that typo.)
  • Here are some sort-of-clever socially distancing guidelines.
  • And here is the pricelist – the most shocking sight in Graceland! Not that I would really know, since I didn’t go in.

We did find some pretty decent Memphis ribs at Central BBQ.

With some phenomenal house-made pork rinds on the side

And now:

distillery knowledge fail

Samual T. Bryant distillery, pictured below, had some OK whiskeys. They aged them in stainless steel barrels with oak spirals, which are never going to be as good as whiskeys aged in oak barrels. They also sold a (not very good 🙁 ) agave spirit, which they (correctly) told me can’t be called tequila as it’s not made in Mexico. (Well, they were mostly correct – tequila can’t be made everywhere in Mexico; it has to be made in Jalisco or in a few select municipalities in other states. But, OK, mostly credit.)

Not having real barrels frees up all kinds of space.

Then the server told me “Just like bourbon has to be made in Kentucky.” WHAT??!! I tried to tell her that lots of other states made bourbon and she just glowered at me, like she was tired of trying to explain this shit to stupid people. Bourbon has to meet several requirements to bear that name, and one of them is being made in the United States – not Kentucky.

Not knowing what bourbon is is a major distillery knowledge fail. And, not knowing when you’re speaking to your betters is a life fail.

OK, whatever, it was a lot of driving in one day.