Coffee, I love it. In a mug, in chocolate, in chili, in ice cream, actually, I can't think of anyplace I don't love coffee... well perhaps not in my lap, but even then, if it's a chilly Minnesota day.
How do you take your coffee? I like my coffee strong and have been known to leap out of bed and race down to the kitchen in a vacation rental to prevent a fellow traveler from making something akin to warm, light brown, swamp water. Admittedly, those may have been in the younger days, now I would wait until the weak coffee lovers went to bed and set up the coffee pot. Don't like strong coffee? You can always add more water to your cup.
Strong coffee is a thing of beauty - rich, bold, smooth. (That could almost be the definition of an ideal mate too, but I digress.) I love to drink coffee, especially in the morning, and if I'm lucky and we're on the road I don't find myself calling out to a McDonald's drive through speaker, "Large coffee with two creams" of course that is not where this story goes.
It was mid-December and we were driving to the National Dog Show in Florida, I know, who wouldn't want to drive to Florida in the winter, dodging storms all the way south and then all the way north. Add to that the joy of seeing the landscape go from bleak winter to tropical greenery southbound and a soul-crushing return to the northern climes on the way home.
We had found our hotel coffee to be weak and decided that a McDonald's would surely be a good place to find consistent coffee and stopped on our way to the Interstate. The large with two creams was in the truck and we were rolling. After a couple of hours, we approached Tennessee and the signs alerted us to a visitors center. Now this might not be exciting to you, but women of a certain age that have had equestrian lifestyles benefit from getting out and moving every so often. We rolled into the rest stop and who knows why, but I felt compelled to bring my McDonald's cup with me. Maybe it needed to see the travel brochures and meet up with another McDonald's cup? Who can say?
After walking the dogs, I headed up to the building and as I walked through the doors I was greeted by two ladies working the Tennessee tourism booth. I continued gimping to the bathroom, maybe I should stop more frequently and plan for 7 total driving days. On my way out to look at guides to the area, one of the ladies asked if I wanted some coffee. How nice! My cup was about half full so I begged off the refill. Maybe these ladies saw the Minnesota plates and had received training that Minnesotans must refuse something at least 100 times before reluctantly accepting any kindness, so they kept asking me about coffee refills.
The ladies and I did the coffee dance for what must have seemed like the right amount time when one gave me the final sell push and said, "Are you sure you don't want coffee? It's Maxwell House." Well how could I resist that temptation! "Maxwell House! I've heard that's good to the last drop!"
Maxwell House is a US brand of coffee manufactured by a like-named division of Kraft Heinz. Introduced in 1892 by wholesale grocer Joel Owsley Cheek (1852–1935), it was named in honor of the now-defunct Maxwell House Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, which was its first major customer. For nearly 100 years, until the late 1980s, it was the highest-selling coffee brand in the United States. The company's slogan is "Good to the last drop", which is often incorporated into their logo and is printed on their labels.
The Maxwell House Hotel was a major hotel in downtown Nashville. Because of its stature, seven US Presidents and other prominent guests stayed there over the years. It was built by Colonel John Overton Jr. and named for his wife, Harriet (Maxwell) Overton. The architect was Isaiah Rogers. 