Honky Tonk, Hot Chicken, Jack Daniels, and More Jesus: Lynchburg and Nashville

Stretch two of our trip included Lynchburg, Nashville, and the best fried chicken in the world. Seriously. I included the recipe for you guys at the bottom. We waited for an hour outside the restaurant in Nashville to try it, but this recipe is a pretty fantastic dupe for the real thing. But first things first.

We got up early to get on the road and headed out of Atlanta.

Pros of road trips:

The scenery is beautiful and constantly changing

Cons of road trips:

You start questioning the world

Jesus saves what? If he’s saving red pandas or the slow loris or the Hawaiian monk seal, I’m in. But my soul? Welp…..let’s just say it’s a little late for that.

Yay! It’s always comforting to see signs like this so you know you’re going in the right general direction.

The drive to Lynchburg was stunning. As we got closer to the town, we got farther from the highway. We did pass by an airforce base, which was slightly intimidating.

Lynchburg is just over an hour outside of Nashville and is famous for one particular thing: Jack Daniels. The original distillery and buildings are all located there, and they are all still used just as they were a century ago. We stopped in for a tour of the grounds. Located on a beautiful old estate, the distillery was beautiful in itself.

But getting to see and understand the entire process of making a Tennessee whiskey? SO COOL. I was nerding out. The tour guide was amazing; he knew everything you could ask about, and you could tell he loved his job. Apparently, he’s one of the official tasters there as well- I guess it would be hard not to like your job if you were literally paid to drink…….

Sigh. I should really review my life choices.

The most interesting part of the tour, for me, was the charcoal process. The aged wood is burnt and turned into charcoal, and then ground down. The whiskey is filtered through it, and ta-da, you have Jack Daniels (there are a couple other steps too but that’s the important one apparently).

Attention to detail is a major factor of the job, and why they pride themselves on their product. I’m not even a whisky fan, but the pure passion for what they do makes you want to like it.

After the tour, we headed to Nashville. We stayed with family, and hands down had the best view of the city. It’s not hard to fall in love with a place like this.

The next day we tackled the downtown. Step one, as step one always is, was to find coffee.

Frothy Monkey was a place we heard about from many different people, and it really was such a cute spot.

Made famous by their speciality lattes, It’s no wonder they’ve made a name for themselves. The brunch looked TO DIE FOR. Seriously, it looked so amazing. But we knew we had plans to go to a couple places, so we just got our caffeine boost there.

We spent the rest of our afternoon walking up and down 12th avenue. It’s really, really, really hard not to fall in love with Nashville when you’re on 12th.

First of all, there’s the adorable assortment of dessert trucks.

Honestly! Who knew food trucks could be this cute??

Secondly, there was Draper James

Only in Nashville, Draper James was masterminded by Reese Witherspoon. And it’s stunning-it reminded me of kate spade, but slightly more southern and the clothing was proportioned so not only 6-foot tall models could wear it. I think they sold me when I found the boxes of champagne, prosecco and rose flavoured gummi bears. Or maybe the cookbooks. Or maybe the hats. Actually, it was probably just the balloons that coat the outside of the store. Can we bring this to Toronto? Pleaseeeeee?

Enough about that though. My I-have-to-go-there stop on 12th was Five Daughter’s Bakery. Famous for their doughnuts and aesthetic, it lived up to the reviews.

They have a wild assortment of flavours, but we decided to share a vanilla cream and chamomile creme brulee.

The doughnuts they make aren’t technically doughnuts- they’re cronuts, a doughnut-croissant hybrid. And they’re SO GOOD.

I still can’t get over how cute the place was-the entire outside was painted with tiny doughnuts in the pink/blue/white colour scheme. ANd the best part about the company? They have a doughnut cam. Exactly. You can watch their doughnuts. It’s amazing.

We took some of the doughnuts home for our hosts and planned our evening. We knew we had a few things we needed to do

1. Hattie B’s Hot Chicken
2. Honky Tonk Broadway

We decided to start out with Dinner at Hattie B’s. Nashville is famous for their hot fried chicken, and Hattie B’s makes the best. The line was long, but my god it was amazing. So amazing I decided to come home and make it. I’m going to pop the recipe into the end of the post.

We ordered the chicken, greens, mac and cheese, and fries. It was hands down the best chicken and fries I’ve had in my life, and the mac and cheese and greens were up there too. Combined with iced tea? Perfect.

We spent the rest of the evening on Broadway, attempting to find somewhere that will let us in. We were unsuccessful and frustrated, but it was pretty cool just to see everything from the street. The energy that surrounds the place is undeniably one of joy and fun. All around the city, we saw people dressed in everything from fancy black dresses to cowboy boots and jeans to….welll……whatever is going on here.

The party bikes, or bars on wheels, were hilarious. Maybe it was our timing, but watching 12 drunk people try to pedal the same bike should be a televised sport.

Overall, our time in Nashville took the cake for my favourite stop of the trip(though my favourite event was in Louisville, and will be in the next post). If you get the chance, go. If you don’t have the chance, make the chicken at home. Actually, make th4e chicken either way. You will thank yourself. It’s so easy, and that’s coming from a person who has never fried anything before in her life. Trust yourself, buy a candy thermometer and a bunch of chicken quarters. Have a party.

This served 8(ish) people, and we served it with a Vinegar based coleslaw and iced tea.

Unofficial Hattie B’s Hot Chicken Recipe

recipe adapted from Pickler&Ben

Ingredients

For the dry brine:

8 chicken leg-thigh quarters

2 tablespoons of kosher salt

3 teaspoons of cracked black pepper

For the dip and dredge:

2 cups whole milk

4 eggs

2 tablespoons Franks Red Hot Classic hot sauce

4 cups of AP flour

2 teaspoons salt

Vegetable oil (for frying)

For the spice: (make 2, but with different spice levels)

1-3 tablespoons of cayenne pepper(1 for medium, 3 for never wanting to feel your mouth again)

1 tsp black pepper

3/4 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Procedure

1. Toss the chicken, the salt and the pepper in a large bowl, cover, and let sit in the fridge for 6-24 hours. The longer it sits, the better.
2. Combine the dry ingredients for the dredge in a shallow pie or baking dish. Combine the wet ingredients for the dip in another one.
3. Prep the oil on the stove. We used two dutch ovens with candy thermometers in each. Heat the oil to 325 F. Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease use a candy thermometer. and splatter cover on the pots. Just, please don’t burn your house down. I’d really appreciate it.
4. when the oil is ready, dip the chicken in the dry, then wet, then dry, then wet, then dry once more.  slowly lower it into the oil. Repeat until all the pot(s) are filled, we could do 3 quarters at a time. Seta timer for 20 minutes.
5. begin preheating the oven to 325. Put a rack on top of a cookie sheet and leave it in the oven.
6. keep an eye on the chicken. We flipped our using tongs at about the 10-minute mark to ensure even browning.
7. When the outsides are golden and crispy(and the timer has gone off), transfer them to the hot oven. Repeat the above steps until all the chicken has gone through the fryer.
8. When the final pieces are in the fryer, combine the spices in bowls. As I said above, you should make a double recipe, but with different spice levels; we tried murderously hot and mild, but you can do a double of one or the other or whatever you’d like. It’s wonderful like that. Whisk the spiced together.
9. When all the chicken is transferred to the oven, take a ladleful of the hot oil and add it to each of the bowls. whisk until consistent.
10. Take all the chicken out of the oven and put it on plates. Let people choose how much of the spicy sauce they want on their piece
11. Eat like a pig.
12. Have so many regrets after.
13. Eat the leftovers for lunch anyway.

I hope you enjoyed this and tried the recipe-i promise it’s easier then it looks. And so worth it.