Cigar City Brewing

We didn’t spend much time in Tampa because the only real reason for us to stop there was the Cigar City Brewing Company. Unfortunately, we arrived 45 minutes late for their last tour of the facility. Slightly bummed, Jules and I talked to the bartender for a little and in the end each got a half flight to try all the beers that we haven’t already had. One of the cool thing about Cigar City is they brew a lot of different styles of beer, many of which you can only get at the brewery. Many of the beers were great but none of the best ones were available for growler fill. This is when I learned about a funny Florida law. Florida prohibits the sale of 64 oz. (standard) growlers. Because of this Cigar City sells a 32 oz. growler and a 128 oz growler. It makes no sense!

Miami Beach

Our first stop in Miami Beach was for some tacos at Alma Mexicana. That was when we realized that as English speakers, we were the minority. Both girls working there spoke very limited English and we had a hard time understanding each other, but the tacos were delicious!

Since we were both “sweatin’ more than a fat girl writin’ her first love letter” (-Paula Deen), we went to Wet Willie’s for some refreshing slushies. We spent the afternoon walking around and admiring all of the Art Deco hotels, their beautiful signage and all of the antique cars. When we couldn’t bare the heat anymore we walked to the beach to cool off by strolling along with our feet in the water. 

Next, we went to The Abbey Brewing Co., a Belgium style brewery. They’ve been open for over 17 years and serve three styles of beer. We tried them all: Immaculate IPA, Father Theodore's Stout and Brother Aaron's Quadruple but liked the IPA the best. We also got to talk a little bit to the brewmaster which is always cool. We thought it was funny that his beer of choice that day was Southern Tier 2XIPA from New York!

We also stopped in to Titanic Brewery in Miami. On our way there we finally reached the end of I95 which was bittersweet for us, realizing that our trip is almost halfway done. Their flight came in a cute little ship wheel but we weren’t too impressed with the beers, especially compared to The Abbey.

Florida

We made a quick stop in Jacksonville to check out River City Brewing Company.  The restaurant was cool with a huge outside deck area and stage for live music. Unfortunately, their beer tasted like pool water. A flight of 5 beers only cost $2.50 though, so you get what you pay for! That was about all we did in Jacksonville, our next stop was St. Augustine. It was first discovered in 1565 by the Spanish and is now the oldest continually occupied city in the United States. It has small little alley ways with little shops and grand castle-like structures. It was one of the most beautiful cities we've seen. While there, we stopped by Ripley's Believe it or Not and saw a real tree house. It's a house made from one section of a giant sequoia and has 4 rooms!

We drove through a few beach towns on our way down Route 1 to Miami. Most of them, including Daytona Beach seemed to just be a series of hotels. Unfortunately for most of the drive we were encountering rain on and off, and warnings of hail storms! Luckily, hail never came but the rain made us stop driving shortly after Daytona.

Hey Y'all!

Paula Deen says “Everyday you wake up on the right side of the dirt is a good one,” and I agree, but she forgot to mention how good that day can be if you wake up in Savannah. The city is absolutely breathtaking. Most of the buildings in the historic district were built in the 1800s, although they are beautifully up kept not showing their age. Most of the homes have beautiful wrought iron gates, each with their own unique designs. The town now has 22 squares, the other 2 squares were used to build government buildings, our favorite part about that being Liberty Square that now holds the city jail. The town’s remaining squares are beautifully canopied by live oak trees covered in Spanish moss.

Our hotel, which was within walking distance of the historic district, told us about The Old Savannah Tour that we decided to take. The tour takes about an hour and a half and showed us all of the historic district and some of the Victorian district, guided by extremely knowledgeable guides. It was the best thing we did, because it gave us a crash course on the city and saved us a lot of time. It’s also no accident that down the street from our hotel, was the only brewery in Savannah, Moon River Brewing Company. We each got a flight to sample all 7 of their beers. We really liked all of them, but loved the Slo-vannah (American Pale Ale) and the Swamp Fox (India Pale Ale). It’s a shame the only place you can get their beer is at their brewpub.

After our tour of Savannah, we went to Lady and Sons for dinner. Larry decided to get the buffet while I got fried green tomatoes. Larry loved the buffet but I was really disappointed with the fried green tomatoes. They were good, but tasted like eggplant cutlets not tomatoes! There was a little boy sitting with his family in the table next to ours and I could tell he just wanted to get into trouble. Every time Larry would go up to the buffet, he would turn around in his seat, face me and start blowing raspberries at me! When Larry would come back, he would stop and turn back around. The last time he did it, he was also screaming SO loud and finally his mom told him to turn around and stop bothering me. All of this before Larry came back, making me look like a crazy person. I guess his plan worked :) The next day we went to the gimmicky Pirate’s House restaurant. We both got the buffet which was good but we agreed that nothing compared to Lady and Sons. We also went to Leopold’s ice cream, or as our crazy, “straight” tour guide calls it: “Sinful! Sinful Sinful!" We both tried a bunch of flavors before choosing coconut with strawberry (Larry) and coconut with banana (Jules). Delicious.

We stopped at a bar, Jens and Friends for happy hour. They make the craziest cocktails ever, with marshmallow fluff, caramel sauce, snickers and many other kinds. We only ordered a few local beers but loved watching the bartender make up all of these crazy drinks. We were talking to the bartender and her friend and they suggested a few other places we should go to.  That’s also when we found out Georgia doesn’t have an open container law! We took two drinks to go, because we could, and sat in the nearest square listening to a man play the flute.  Next, we went to the roof top of the Bohemian Hotel to watch the sunset, as was recommended to us. The view was beautiful and we stayed until the sun set. 

Charleston, South Carolina

We arrived at one of our most anticipated stops, Charleston in usual Larry and the Family Jules fashion: hungry. We decided to go straight to Hominy Grill for some breakfast. Larry ordered the shrimp and grits and I ordered The Big Nasty. Being "Yankees" as we're so lovingly referred to by everyone here, we had never had grits before let alone with shrimp. This dish threw out every preconception of grits, shrimp, bacon AND food we've ever had. It was seriously delicious. The Big Nasty was also really, really good as was my mimosa. 

We planned on going to the Boone Hall Plantation at noon when they opened but had a little time to kill before the time came so we went for a walk along the water.  We saw so many beautiful houses and loved seeing Rainbow Row.  We also stopped by the oldest house in the south, The Pink House. I've been loving seeing all of the old movie theaters in all of the different cities, so I made sure to stop by the American Theater to see where Noah and Allie went on their first date :) It's no longer a movie theater, but is used for weddings and other events.

For lunch we went to Southend Brewery and Smokehouse. We ordered their flight so we could sample all of their beers. Larry thought it was the best beer we've had yet on this trip (but still thought it was nothing too special), while I hated all 6 of the beers we sampled. We shared their nachos which were great! 

On our way out of Charleston, we stopped at the Angel Oak.  Unfortunately, the gate was closed because they close early on Sundays but we still got to see it through the fence. This tree is estimated to be 1,500 years old! Its branches look like normal, huge trees and most of them lay down on the ground from holding up their weight. 

Charlotte

Today we spent the day hanging around Charlotte, North Carolina. In the morning we went to Smelly Cat Coffee (for Kerri) so we could do some blogging. It’s in the NoDa neighborhood of Charlotte which is a really cool, artsy area.

For breakfast(10:30am) we had some fried chicken at Price’sChicken Coup. We shared a half chicken and it came with tater rounds, hush puppies, cole slaw and a roll. I don’t want to lose credibility by always saying things are the BEST we’ve ever had. But it really was. THE BEST. The inside was so juicy and the outside was so crispy, it was perfection. They don’t have seats inside so we had to eat in the car since it’s our home at the moment. But I think even if we had a home that fried chicken never would have made it too far beyond the car. We spent the rest of the afternoon going in and out of antique shops and exploring downtown.

Our last stop was The Olde Mecklenberg Brewery which is a German style brewery. We got samplers of their 4 beers, all of which were easy drinking and great for a hot day. We made some friends with a couple that moved to Charlotte from New York and they gave us a lot of tips for the rest of our trip while Larry played cornhole with their son.