Frankfort-ers

James and I had one of those rare weekends where neither of us had any work that had to be done (well, I know we both probably had plenty - but it's nice to procrastinate again once in a while). So on Saturday we decided to head towards Waddy and find something to do on the farm. Along the way we decided we should make a slight detour to Frankfort, our state's capital city, which is only 10 minutes past the farm.

Now, I have only been to Frankfort twice before - once in highschool for a tournament, and once this year for the Beekeeping Conference. James, although he grew up right around the corner, hadn't visisted Frankfort much, either. So we were all for exploring that day.

Knowing we had already missed the tour times for the distillery that was next on our list we found a candy shop that gives tours on the weekends. Who doesn't want to visit a chocolate shop?!

So we found our way to Rebecca Ruth candy shop. This shop is the birthplace of bourbon chocolates, and you all know how much I love bourbon balls already. I was all about this.

We pulled up outside of a small house with a bright red awning. I was slightly disappointed by the lack of chocolate smell outside. I was full on expecting a Willy Wonka experience. We went on inside and signed up for the tours, avoided the chocolate counter because we were saving ourselves for after the tour, then perused the gift shop until our names were called. There were two other people on our tour - almost exactly the same age as us we found out, and we scoffed at how ironic it was that two young couples would be found together touring a homemade chocolate factory, surrounded by out of date machinery and history.

We walked through the front of the house and made our way to the brittle room- yes, an entire room where all they do is make peanut brittle, bourbon brittle, and Kentucky creamed candy. We admired the huge table they used for cooling the taffy and the terrifying cast iron hooks on the wall - at a dangerous height - on which they stretch and aerate the taffy.

Next, we wandered into the chocolate room. This room, we learned, had been in operation since about the 60s. It was one long conveyor which ran the length of the small shotgun house. This is where the chocolate smell started to rise. We saw how each little bon bon would travel down this little line, through chocolate waterfalls and dippers to a point where each one had a pecan placed on top of it by hand - I Love Lucy style. Tubes and vats were filled with the rich, sweet, confections, and all of my Willy Wonka dreams began to turn into reality. I briefly considered Augustus Glooping that mess but reconsidered.

I was not allowed to take pictures during the tour - trade secrets and all - so this is the only chocolate tease you get!

We followed the line all the way down until we got to the small decorative boxes the chocolates were placed in before they were shipped all over the country.

We asked a lot of questions - more between the four of us than I am sure they normally get with much bigger groups: "How old is this oven?", "What's in this tube?", "How does this work?", "Is that all sugar?". We were experts by the time we had made our way back up to the front room.

We learned that Rebecca Ruth was started by two women: Rebecca AND Ruth. They were the first of their time to successfully infuse a candy with liquor. Cheers to that!

We eventually stopped interrogating our tour guide and let her send us back to the chocolate counter, where we picked out everything we wanted to try.  James and I left with almond bark, chocolate charlies, puffamels, bourbon chocolate cherries, Kentucky Creamed candy, and, of course, bourbon balls.

While we were checking out, our tour companions mentioned they had just visited the grave site of Daniel Boone... and you say it's just around the corner? Onward!