Whiskey with Me: City Girl in the South

A Lousville, Kentucky Bar Spotlight:  Holy Grale

Though I’d made the trip to for the love of whiskey, my longtime friend and gracious host, N. asked if I was open to the Holy Grale for my first bar visit in Kentucky, known for “good beer and good company”.

Built in 1905 as a Unitarian church and re-opened as a craft beer bar in 2010 by Tyler Trotter and Lori Rae Beck of the Louisville Beer Store, you can’t help admiring the impressive interior of the bar/dining room once you walk in — featuring a beamed ceiling, a triptych (so excited I got to use that word!) and a bar consisting of barrel staves.

The atmosphere made me feel like I had walked into a bar in Brooklyn.The bartender was pretty chill and being a Monday, it was somewhat quiet as I enjoyed some Boulevard Rye on Rye. (I had to get my whiskey on somehow and found out that this gem from Kansas City, MO had been finished in seasoned barrels from Templeton Rye.)

N. and I sat there discussing important topics like Game of Thrones over a delish Valley Farm burger and Fritjes Poutine. The changing menu features food locally sourced and a rotating craft beer menu that includes selections from their 36 taps and extensive bottle selection.

At N.’s urging, I crept up the stairs to check out the “Choir Loft” and immediately felt like I was back in Catholic School headed to choir practice. I almost expected to see Mr. Wilson (our organist and choirmaster) casually sitting down, cigarette hanging out of his mouth. Catholic guilt overwhelmed me and I went back down to the bar to enjoy my company and the crowd.

As a lifelong New Yorker, I love to people watch and sometimes, eavesdrop. It’s amazing some of the snippets that you hear while not minding your own business. I was greatly amused to find the crowd consisted of a local couple on date night, the most sober and tame bachelorette party I’d ever seen in my life. Then this fun moment happened:

A woman to my right talking to her friend: “You know what? They don’t even LIKE Dungeons and Dragons. I think they just play Dungeons and Dragons to score free weed!”

Full disclosure: I am a clandestine geek. While I never played Dungeons and Dragons due to multiple incidents involving an older brother and the Monster Manual, I gravitated towards RPGs such as Shadowrun or Vampire: The Masquerade.

So, the geek in me could not resist. N. and I ended up in conversation with the D&D folks and it was marvelous.

I admitted to them that once, in a conversation with a male friend about the NYC dating scene, I had once posited the following geeky suggestion: Keep a 20 sided die handy so that the next time a man in a bar turned to me and asked “Can I buy you a drink?” I could look at him coolly and respond, “Well, I don’t know, can you?”

I would then pull out my purple velvet dice pouch (that I’d have to dig up from the depths of my high school hoard box) and plunk down the die, looking him straight in the eyes and challenge “Roll for it.”

20 sided die aside (which really was aside on the bar), if you should make it to Louisville, I highly recommend a stop at Holy Grale. It would be a sin not do so.

Find good beer and good company at:

Holy Grale
1034 Bardstown Rd
Louisville, KY 40204
Bardstown Road, Highlands- Cherokee Triangle

Photo Credits: Holy Grale Facebook

Hazel Alvarado suggests reading her friend’s poetic article about being hungry in Paris (it made her hungry).