From Tree City to Music City

This weekend we took an overnight trip to Nashville with our friends. We left early Saturday morning and grabbed some breakfast at The All Steak in Cullman, AL. We can check off another item on the "100 Dishes to eat in Alabama before you Die" list! The hot orange rolls were quite awesome.

We arrived in Nashville and decided to brush up on our history before heading to our main attraction. We toured the largest replica of the Parthenon in the world. Pretty cool and interesting to learn about how it was built.

Then we headed back to the hotel to check in and grab some Tennessee BBQ downtown. We ate at Jack's, "The Best BBQ in all of Tennessee." The place was packed - the equivalent of Jim's on Southstreet. The BBQ was great, and we got to choose from 6 of their famous sauces (my favorite was Kansas City - Mild, Sweet, & Smoky). I tried the Tennessee, because, well, we were in Tennessee, but I wasn't a fan.

With full bellies, we went to flag down a cab, and met our personal cab driver Maanka. He took us to our main attraction, the Yazoo Brewery. So good! Unfortunately, we weren't the only people in Nashville who thought touring the brewery would be a fun way to spend a Saturday afternoon. We arrived a little before 3, and the next tour available was 4:30. Luckily they had a bar :) We enjoyed some fine brews and each other's company while waiting to go on our fun little tour. Good times.

After recouping at the hotel (and planning when we are all going to procreate/adopt around upcoming trips/great american beer festivals), we headed downtown for dinner to the Big River Grille (and Brewing Works). While their microbrews were quite yummy, their food left something to be desired.

We were quite tired after dinner but managed to swing by an open air bar for some live music. We decided we were quite old when we were too tired to even make it through the set change and decided to head back to the hotel for a restful night's sleep.

Sunday morning we woke up and enjoyed some yummy complimentary breakfast at our hotel before hitting the road. We stopped at the Jack Daniel's Distillery on the way home. The tour was quite like the Yuengling Brewery tour we took a couple years ago. There was a lot of walking and going up and down stairs through all of the different buildings to see how the whiskey was made. It was quite pretty there. My favorite part was the "Mellowing" process. It's when the whiskey drips, drop by drop, through 10 feet of sugar maple charcoal. During the tour we got to get some good whiffs of this process (since the distillery is in a DRY county! Booooooooo). So no, we didn't get any tastes of whiskey. Just lemonade, but very good lemonade. Tomorrow it's back to work for me! Hope everyone has a Happy Memorial Day!