Indianapolis in 6 hours

John Felleman
Aug 23, 2017 · 4 min read
Sign on blackboard at Hotel Tango Whisky. Photo copyright 2017 John Felleman

Be thoughtful, not pensive

I was halfway from Gary to Indianapolis when I realized that as the state capital, the city had been the center of Mike Pense’s territory. He has since left government to work as a customer relations manager/spin doctor for Trump, Inc., but I was curious whether INDY was LGBT friENDLY. The good news is that during my short visit I saw plenty of evidence of support for the LGBT community and no signs of unsupport. I know one person’s observations are purely anecdotal, but this is after all an anecdote.

A quick Google for Indianapolis distilleries led me to Hotel Tango, and artisan distillery in a neighborhood that had its own name. All of the staff and patrons at HT had names as well, and I don’t remember them either.

I parked at a bar stool at around 2:00 and had a look at the craft cocktail menu. The ROUTE 65 cried out to me. Resistance may have been futile, but I didn’t resist so I don’t really know. At any rate, this first official cocktail of the road trip was the beginning, middle, and end of my thesis. A great craft cocktail, with unique ingredients, and featuring a locally produced spirit, that was the namesake of the Renaissance Road. It was a treat to all five senses—a beautiful languid lavender in a tall glass, ice cubes clinking musically, and refreshingly cool moisture condensing on the outside, all a tantalizing prelude to fruity nose—do cocktails have a nose, or just an aroma?—ending of course with a fresh taste. The lemon led the way, with lime and cherry getting the assist.

I went on to have three more drinks, each unique and tasty. Along the way, I engaged my fellow stoolriders and the bartenders in conversation. There were groups to my left and right, and it turned out they were both on distillery/brewpub-hopping tours. When they staggered out into the light, they were making plans—or really just identifying the possibility—that they would meet up later.

This seemed to be a pattern—not the staggering, the casual friendliness. My go-to question when starting conversations with bartenders, barristas, barristers, baritones, and barnbuilders is to ask if they are native, how they like it here, etc. I try to avoid the what do you do for a living question, especially when they are doing it right before my eyes.

Indy seems to have a mix of people who grew up here or nearby and wanted to say because they like it—and people who left for a while and came back because they missed it. They exude a quiet pride of place. They feel good about their home, and they feel no need to convince others of it.

Eight-legged litmus test

You can tell something about a place by checking the concentration of these personas:

  • Born here, loved it, never left
  • Born here, went away, came back
  • Born somewhere else, came here, won’t leave
  • Born here, went away, still gone
  • Born somewhere else, came here, left
  • Born somewhere else, never came here

Technically, you could further break down the personas to distinguish between people who aren’t here and never will be, and those who aren’t but will be in the future. Without the sampling methods to do that at present, let’s stick with the others.

Tango Papa Oscar Hotel Tango Whisky

The people of Hotel Tango Whisky

(warning: this paragraph would set off alarms with high school teachers and Wikipedia sources. It is written as objective fact, but offers no support. It generalizes. It offers no new insights or conclusions.) Whichever group they represented, the people I met in Indianapolis seemed to have intuitively detected the benefits of their renaissance life. They were sourcing locally, fostering innovation—at least in their dining and drinking cultures, and having a good time. The city is big enough to offer what they want, but not so large as to crush their souls.

Salad days spent noodling around before getting my just dessert

Having nursed four cocktails into the late afternoon, I got a dinner recommendation from my hosts. If the bar had been anything but stellar, I would have been skeptical of the referral to Bluebeard, right across the street. In the event, I trusted them without reservation, which is how I arrived at the restaurant.

If you want to read about the meal, my review is on yelp. If you just want to look at it, here you go.

Dessert

The jury is in

By unanimous accord, the jury of one declares Indianapolis a city reborn.

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John Felleman

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