Black History Travel Archives : TRAVEL/FOOD

Bourbon City commemorates its signature drink culminating on National Bourbon Day

Set down your Mint Julep, because it’s time to celebrate Louisville’s official cocktail, the Old Fashioned. Proclaimed the city’s official cocktail in 2015 by former Mayor Greg Fischer, Old Fashioned Fortnight highlights the posh and stately Pendennis Club’s original during the first two weeks of June via events, tastings, and specials. Kicking off on June 1, the anniversary of Kentucky’s statehood, and culminating on National Bourbon Day, June 14, the fortnight of festivities underscores Louisville’s whiskey history and booming bourbon culture.

Here are some ways to participate in Old Fashioned Fortnight June 1-14:

Craft Your Own Cocktail at the Frazier History Museum: The Frazier History Museum and Old Forester are teaming up to showcase Louisville’s official cocktail, the Old Fashioned. Led by Certified Bourbon Stewards, this unique experience guides visitors through making a traditional Old Fashioned with a unique twist while providing some fascinating history about the locally invented libation. Classes are for Bourbon beginners and aficionados alike and can be booked Monday-Saturday, online here.

The Ideal Bartender Experience: Head to Evan Williams Bourbon Experience’s secret Speakeasy as an actor portraying Louisville native Tom Bullock takes you back in time to the prohibition era for a guided Bourbon tasting. Bullock was the first Black American to write and publish a cocktail book and tended bar at the Pendennis Club, where the Old Fashioned was purported to be invented. Book tours online.

Urban Bourbon Trail®: Download the Urban Bourbon Trail^® digital passport and visit some of Louisville’s best local Bourbon bars and restaurants, all of which offer their own twist on the Old Fashioned cocktail. Bourbon enthusiasts who check in at six locations will earn a free T-shirt. Visit gotolouisville.com for more information.

Barrels & Billets: One of Main Street’s newest Whiskey experiences takes place just next door to the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory, where you can embark on your custom bourbon experience. Sample up to six different flavor profiles and build your own customized bottle of whiskey suited to your personal taste. If you love your newly created concoction, you can purchase your own bottle after the experience. Find tour times here.

Photo courtesy of The Barrel: Bourbon & Bites Food Tour.

Beyond The Barrel: Bourbon & Bites Food Tour: Uncover the secrets of Kentucky bourbon and go beyond the barrel to dive into bourbon’s unfiltered history – and learn all the stories they won’t tell you on a Kentucky Bourbon Trail distillery tour. As the sun sets over the vibrant NuLu neighborhood, you’ll visit award-winning restaurants, hidden speakeasies, rooftop terraces, and cozy tasting rooms, Find available dates here.

For additional ways to celebrate Old Fashioned Fortnight, a more detailed history of Tom Bullock, and recipes on how to create the cocktail visit OldFashionedFortnight.com.

Guests can use Louisville Tourism’s annual Visitor Guide to see the city’s top attractions, culinary hotspots, and bourbon distilleries. Travelers also can learn about attractions, lodging and where to dine at gotolouisville.com.

History of the Old Fashioned

Heaven Hill Distillery Old-Fashioned Cocktail. Photo courtesy of Heaven Hill Distillery.

The Pendennis Club in downtown Louisville has long claimed the invention of the Old Fashioned cocktail since the 1880s. Club member and bourbon distiller popularized it, Col. James E. Pepper, who would go on to introduce the cocktail to the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, leading to its widespread popularity. Louisville native and pre-Prohibition mixologist Tom Bullock included his original Old Fashioned recipe in the preeminent cocktail book, “The Ideal Bartender,” published in 1917.

Classic Old Fashioned

Ingredients

2 oz. Old Forester 86 Proof
0.5 oz. Demerara Syrup (2:1)
2 dashes Angostura™ Bitters

Instructions

Enjoy the Classic Old Fashioned cocktail by Old Forester. From scratch classic build of sugar, bitters, bourbon, stirred to perfection.

Stir with ice, strain into double old-fashioned glass with fresh ice. Garnish with wide orange peel, oils expressed over the cocktail.

Facility That Sharing the Stories of the Survivors of the Last Slave Ship To Arrive in the United States Will Open This Summer

At a February 3 event honoring the 110 survivors of the Clotilda, the last slave ship to arrive in the United States, the page was turned for the next chapter of a story that’s been being told for more than 150 years … in secret for decades but now shared on a global stage.

This past weekend marked the “Spirit of Our Ancestors” festival in the Africatown community of Mobile, Alabama. As part of the annual tribute, which is coordinated by the Clotilda Descendants Association, the community came together at the site of the new Africatown Heritage House to witness the unveiling of a signature piece of artwork and to hear the news that the facility is set to open on July 8, the 163^rd anniversary of the date the community’s founders arrived in the United States … in shackles.

To understand the magnitude of this announcement, it helps to know some history:

Under the cover of night in the summer of 1860, a ship carrying 110 Africans slipped into Mobile Bay. The Clotilda, the last known U.S. slave ship, made its illegal voyage 52 years after the international slave trade had been outlawed. (Though it was illegal to bring enslaved people into the United States, domestic slavery itself remained legal until 1865.)

Upon arrival in Alabama, the captives were offloaded into the marshes along the Mobile River. In an attempt to conceal the crime, Timothy Meaher, the man who arranged the transfer, ordered the boat burned and sunk. Some captives remained in Mobile, enslaved by the Meaher family, and others were sold to Alabama plantations north of Mobile.

When slavery was abolished in 1865, the survivors dreamed of returning to Africa, but they didn’t have the financial means to make that happen. Instead, many of them pooled their limited resources to purchase land from the Meahers and turned it into the independent community known as “Africatown.” There they maintained their African identities, continued to speak their own languages, established their own set of laws and – in the early years – even had a chief. They built churches, schools and businesses based on what they knew from their homeland, and they effectively created their own world on the northern end of Mobile.

In 2019, it was verified that the shipwreck of the Clotilda rested at the bottom of the Mobile River, providing a tangible link to the names and stories that have been passed down through generations of descendants.

Africatown Heritage House

Africatown Heritage House is a community building that will house “Clotilda: The Exhibition,” to share this long-untold story. The facility was built by the Mobile County Commission but is a collaborative project that involves several entities working in partnership with the community. This includes the Alabama Historical Commission, which is leading the scientific efforts surrounding the search for, authentication and protection of the ship Clotilda and related artifacts, and the History Museum of Mobile, which curated, constructed and funded “Clotilda: The Exhibition” with generous support from other local organizations. The museum will operate Africatown Heritage House when it opens this summer.

The exhibition is especially focused on the people – their individuality, their perseverance and the extraordinary community they established. It will introduce the world to 110 remarkable men, women and children, from their beginnings in West Africa, to their enslavement, to their building the community of Africatown. Their stories will be shared through a combination of interpretive text panels, documents and artifacts, including some pieces of the sunken ship scientifically verified to be the Clotilda.

Africatown Heritage House and “Clotilda: The Exhibition” will open to the public on Saturday, July 8. Called “The Landing” by the descendants of the Clotilda’s survivors, this date marks 163 years since their ancestors arrived on American soil, forced against their will. Events and activities in acknowledgment of the date’s significance are being planned by the Clotilda Descendants Association and other local entities.

Africatown Heritage House will be open from Tuesdays through Saturdays, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The exhibition will have limited capacity, so tickets should be purchased in advance. Tickets will likely become available online in early summer.

For more information about the facility and the exhibition, please visit Clotilda.com, which is operated by the History Museum of Mobile. The latest details will be shared as they become available.