When I say Wallace station is my favorite new bar, I’m not telling the whole truth. First of all, Wallace Station isn’t actually a bar. From what I can tell, it’s a southern style restaurant that seems to be a big hit with families. But they sell cold beer. And they have a big lawn with picnic tables and horseshoe pits. Also, it’s exactly 8.2 miles from the Woodford Reserve distillery, right in the middle of Kentucky’s horse country on the outskirts of Lexington. And when I find it one hot Tuesday afternoon, I happen to be deep into a road bike ride connecting a few of Kentucky’s finest distilleries. So yeah, to me, it’s a bar. And when you combine its location with the horseshoe puts and the big hardwoods that shade me and my riding partners from the sun (little known fact: the sun is just a little bit hotter in Kentucky), it quickly becomes my favorite bar.
We park our bikes in the shade, find some cold canned local beers and immediately start throwing shoes. Cornhole gets a lot of attention these days in the world of lawn games, but I like throwing heavy iron half circles through the air at a pole stuck in the ground. Call me old fashioned. Plus, this is horse country, so it feels right.
For an appetizer, I work my way through a Country Boy Cougar Bait, a really light ale made in Lexington that goes down fast. Then I settle into the main course, an IPA from West Sixth Brewing, also out of Lexington. It’s fruity and bitter and a hell of a lot more intoxicating than the Country Boy. So I have another and throw some more shoes. We have 11 miles to go before we’re done, and the sun is starting to get lower in the sky but there’s no hurry. When you stumble upon a bar like Wallace Station, which is, in my opinion the perfect bar even if only for this single moment in time, you can’t just ride away.
