Last weekend, we drove to Michigan for a karate tournament. Specifically, we drove to Flint… if I only wanted to drive to Michigan, I can do that in two hours. Driving to Flint more than doubles that driving time. It’s a beautiful, scenic drive this time of year, filled with the changing colors of fall and winery billboards. Wait, what? Yes, really, the sheer quantity of winery billboards in the second half of Indiana and the first hour or so of Michigan along I-94 was astounding. For the most part, they weren’t repeating themselves… there really are that many wineries in the region.
And while I like wine, what caught my eye was the billboard for a distillery. In fact, I think it was the only distillery I saw billboards for. And it advertised food, which was perfect, as we needed to stop for lunch. As we left the highway, the next sign said it was 5 miles to the Journeyman Distillery. That’s really not far in a two lane road with no traffic lights until the turn we wanted.
I suppose you would expect a stiff drink at a distillery, but I still had a couple hours of driving to do and was already a bit tired. Rest assured, they had good coffee. That’s not to say I left without buying a drink – I took home a bottle of Sew Your Oats Whiskey as the most interesting possibility.
And yet, that’s not what I was gushing about when I told my friends about the place. We weren’t terribly hungry when we got there, though it was past a normal lunch time, so we ordered from the appetizer menu. I ordered a Southwestern chicken soup and pork cracklings, and was hooked from the first bite of the cracklings. If you’ve ever bought pre-packaged chicharrones, you have an idea of what these taste like. They are described on a package as “rendered out pork fat with attached skin.” But these… well, these were fresh. When you bite into them, they crackle, somewhat like a salty Pop Rocks. The pork cracklings alone are worth the two hour drive to Michigan.
(In other news, the tournament was fun, the drive home was just as scenic, and I got the boiler fixed on Tuesday so my house is now properly heated again.)