Summer Vacation 2015. Another trip to Maine? No! Six days in Gatlinburg, TN plus one day in Nashville ...
The majority of our time in Gatlinburg was spent exploring Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Zip-lining. Hiking. Driving around. Riding the rides at Dollywood. Watching the sunset from our cabin's balcony during Family Hottub Time. Sampling Moonshine. We did all that and so much more!
Nashville wasn't nearly as productive. When we pulled into the driveway of our hotel, there was a white SUV with white lettering all over its tinted windows. "The Fling Before The Ring". That's what was written on the glass. A bachelorette party.
We immediately got the sense that Nashville wasn't exactly a family vacation kind of town (it probably doesn't help that we arrived on a Friday night, and that our hotel was a very short walk away from Broadway, aka the Honky Tonk Highway). Given all that, Mrs. G-LO and The Boys decided to skip the sightseeing and spent the afternoon lounging around and swimming in the hotel's indoor pool while I took a tour of Corsair's Brewstillery.
Brewstillery I say? No. Brewstillery THEY say. They make beer AND they distill whisky at the same location. My kind of place. Let's take a tour...
The above photos were taken in the Taproom which is where I waited for the Brewstillery tour to begin. Since I arrived early and had 30 minutes to kill, I decided to try a flight of their high gravity beers. Who could resist a beer served in a laboratory beaker?
It's been a few months since our Tennessee trip, but I'm pretty sure that the beers in the above photo are as follows: Juniper IPA, Applewood Gratzer, and Pecan Smoked Peppercorn Saison. This mini flight was a great way to kill 30 minutes, but the beers weren't compelling enough to make me want to have them again.
Next stop, the Still Room and the Barrel Room...
Corsair's Nashville Brewstillery is located in an industrial building that once housed Marathon Motor Works, an auto manufacturer that built cars in this location from 1907 to 1914. Saying that the Still and Barrel Rooms have an industrial look would be a major understatement. Bricks, beams, and pipes are all out in the open with brewing and distilling equipment taking up every bit of free space. Our Tour Guide did a great job of explaining the goings on, and he even let us wander around a tiny bit.
Learning "how the sausage is made" was good fun, but let's face it, the real draw of a distillery is getting to taste their product on-site. And that's just what we did after our brief, but informative tour.
Follow me to the Tasting Room...
Fast and fun! That's how I would describe our Corsair spirits tasting. Vanilla Bean Vodka, Gin, Wry Moon, Quinoa Whiskey, Oatrage, and Triple Smoke are what we tried. Once again, our Tour Guide did a masterful job of explaining each spirit while he poured for us.
If I had to focus my attention on just one of the spirits that we tried, I would say that Oatrage was the most interesting. Corsair says the following about it:
Outrage is made with malted oats and coffee malts to create a silky flavor wing a dark finish.
I'd say that's a pretty accurate description. Oatrage tasted like they took a really good Oatmeal Chocolate Stout and ran it through a still to create a dark and delicious whisky. I liked it so much that I stayed around after the tasting to have one more drink. Here's what it looked like:
Once the crowd thinned out, I chatted a bit with the Tour Guide and the Bartender while I perused their cocktail list. When I mentioned that I really enjoyed the Oatrage, the Bartender asked if I'd like to try it in a Whisky Sour. He then asked if I'd like to try it with an egg white thrown into the mix. This put an instant smile on my face since I've been super curious to try an egg white infused cocktail ever since Limpd told me about the Old Fashioned made with a frothy egg white that he had at the Brown Hotel in Louisville, KY. My smile widened once the Bartender poured my drink.
Frothy and delicious is how it looked. As luck would have it, that's exactly how it tasted. Cold, creamy, and delicious with a lightly sweet lemony tang (or should I say twang? I was in Nashville after all), and just the slightest bite from the whisky. That drink went down incredibly easy. My only regret is not getting the recipe because I would LOVE to recreate this at home. Corsair, are you listening? Please email me the recipe!
The Corsair Brewstillery tour was well worth my time. It was easily the highlight of my brief stay in Nashville, a town that I will definitely have to re-visit since I didn't get to see all that much of it.
Categories: Booze Banter, Cocktails, Corsair
Tagged as: booze, Brewstillery, Corsair Distillery, Distillery Tour, Drinkwire, Marathon Motor Works, Nashville TN, Photography, Photos, Pictures, Spirits, Travel, Whiskey, Whisky
