An occasional look at premium travel from Louisville.
Where: Rio de Janeiro. When: May 25-June 8. Airline: United. Route: Louisville to Houston to Rio. How much: $3,092 per person for business class. United reservations.
Related: TripAdvisor’s Rio page, where you can read more about the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue, pictured above. Airbnb Rio rentals. The luxe Copacabana Palace Hotel. And 36 hours in Rio.
Comfy Cow: 4:10 p.m., Saturday, behind the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts, where the premium Louisville ice cream maker’s mobile stand was busy during Thunder Over Louisville. Boulevard enjoyed a large serving of Secretariat, which the company describes this way:
Comfy Cow joined forces with Penny Chenery and the Secretariat team to make this special commemorative ice cream honoring Big Red. Paying homage to the iconic blue and white silks of this super horse, this treat includes Barry Callebaut white chocolate ice cream loaded with chunks of our very own homemade blueberry cobbler.
Launched in 2007, Comfy Cow now has eight locations, including five in Louisville.
An occasional look at premium travel from Louisville.
Where: Prague. When: June 1-8. Airline: Delta. Itinerary: Louisville to Atlanta to Amsterdam to Prague. How much: $6,832. Delta reservations.
Related: TripAdvisor’s Prague page, where you can read more about the Old Town Square, pictured above. Airbnb Prague rentals.
8:19 p.m. today, Steel City Pops, 1021 Bardstown Road. This is the company’s 11th location overall, and its first in Kentucky. The Highlands store opened late last month, and another one is planned for Lexington. Steel City launched in Homewood, Ala., in 2012.
Boulevard’s favorite coffee for home-brewing is Peet’s, a San Francisco Bay Area company that helped birth Starbucks. But out of the house, you can often find us at Heine Bros., Please and Thank You or Press On Market.
A sampling of premium varieties; weights vary:
Peet’s, Emeryville, Calif. Kona, $24.95 for 8 oz. The pitch: The region known as Kona on Hawaii’s big island has been synonymous with superb coffee for more than 150 years. Steep volcanic hillsides and a microclimate of sunny mornings and cloudy afternoons create the perfect conditions for cultivating smooth, sweet-flavored beans. The taste is mild and mellow, with a hint of tropical sweetness; it’s like Hawaiian hospitality in a cup.
Heine Bros., Louisville. Kentucky Dream, $15 for 12 oz. The pitch: This blend of Nicaragua and Sumatra has a warm aroma of gooey cinnamon buns. It is sweet with a medium body, and a dry smoky finish. You can feel extra good about purchasing this tasty blend because $5 from the sale of each bag will be donated to the Forecastle Foundation to further their efforts to restore the world’s natural awesome here in Kentucky through their efforts on the Green River with The Nature Conservancy and on Pine Mountain with Kentucky Natural Lands Trust.
Starbucks, Seattle. Reserve Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Chelba, $17.50 for 8.8 oz. The pitch: To deliver something truly unique, 700 smallholder farmers near the village of Chelba separated out their finest-quality coffee cherries for natural processing. Those cherries bask gracefully for a period of 20 days, soaking up the rich flavors and juicy body present in this vibrant cup. Driving through this region is magical in itself. The landscape lets you know something special flourishes and evolves here. The air gets lighter and the smell of brick-red top soil is always present—suggesting a light rain was just ahead of you. This is one of the highest altitudes you will find in Ethiopia as well. As you go deeper into the thicket of the coffee trees, soft limestone crumbles with blocky basalt begin to expose themselves on small stream banks. In the distance, sparkling water drops fall off bright red cherries causing you to squint in awe—you’ve finally discovered the treasure!
Good Folks Coffee, Louisville. Columbia Microdot, $19 for 12 oz. The (spare) pitch: A Castillo and Columbia varietal grown by farmer Enodth Paz Mosquera on the Deporcali farm in Columbia’s Cauca region at an elevation of 1,500 meters. The roaster notes the coffee’s hints of floral, banana and white grape.
Related: Gralehaus is more than a Highlands breakfast spot. The Forecastle Foundation’s GuideStar profile.
At 1001 Baxter Ave., near where it meets Bardstown Road, Gralehaus is also a bed and breakfast, with three well-appointed rooms upstairs starting around $150 a night. (Yes, it could be noisy as early as 7 a.m., when they’re cooking downstairs. But that’s all part of the charm. Hopefully.)
Don’t miss getting a cortado, an espresso drink I first discovered in Spain. Gralehaus’ is the most authentic version I’ve found in the U.S. $3. Their full menu.
Related: more B&Bs on TripAdvisor
Boulevard 