It’s not always about the beer
You’re not going to find fancy-pants beers at the New Boston Tavern. No Dogfish. No Sierra Nevada. No Rouge. No Magic Hat.
None were in evidence the recent afternoon I spent at the establishment, which is perched on the shoulder of Indiana 545 in Spencer County in the extreme southern reaches of the state. I didn’t hear anyone bitching about it, either.
Most of what passed over the bar that rainy, cold day were traditional American lagers of the Bud, Miller and Coor’s varieties. The taps were Michelob and Amber Bock, but no one was drinking draft.
Bottles and cans were the order of the day, and cans were a quarter cheaper. Make mine a Miller Lite, I told the busy bartender/waitress who hustled between customers on barstools and customers crowded around tables crammed in two, smallish rooms. It was like an extended family gathered for a holiday feast, which is sort of the point.
It was Froglegs Day at the New Boston Tavern, which is owned and operated by Rick and Barb Fortwendel. The place was packed shortly after a noon opening for good food, easy conversation and reasonably priced beverages.
Sometimes, a day at the tavern is not just about the beer. It’s about the place; it’s about the company; and it’s about the trip you made to get there.
The trip
Like most destinations in southern Indiana between Evansville and Louisville, there is no good way to get to New Boston, especially if you start north of Interstate 64. I took Indiana 37, choosing the nausea-inducing curves and hills south of Paoli to the longer drive and heavier traffic of U.S. 231.
It was the sort of day mystery writers might paint as “raw.” Battleship grey skies soaked the landscape with a dismal, water-colored hue. Horses in meadows dressed in the lime-green of early spring huddled together against fencerows, their rumps to a biting wind. Bulbous flakes of snow smacked into the windshield and slowly slid across the glass as they melted, like Wylie Coyote hitting the side of a cliff in Roadrunner cartoons.
A good day to drink beer at a tavern, I thought, as I dropped south of I-64 and promptly lost my way in the Hoosier Bermuda Triangle formed by Crawford, Spencer and Perry counties.
I pursued a generally southern course, knowing that eventually I would hit the Ohio River and Indiana 66 somewhere near Tell City in Perry County. From there, I would follow the highway west to Troy, where I would turn north on Indiana 545, cross into Spencer County and reach my destination.
The place
I can’t imagine that the structure that is now the New Boston Tavern began its existence as a barroom. It looks more like an old, wooden commercial building from the early 20th century. I was thinking general store as I sized up the tavern from my car, one of a long line of vehicles pulled off the side of the road near the rambling two-story building.
New Boston, itself, consists only of about a half dozen structures plopped down in the middle of farm country. Certainly, the walk-in population would not support a tavern/restaurant, and sure enough, there were folks inside who had come from all over southern Indiana. And unlike me, it was not their first visit.
The tavern is a popular dining spot, said the fellow sitting next to me at the bar. Froglegs are a specialty. A sign taped to the back bar announced that you could get five sets of legs on Friday for $7.95.
Froglegs also are prominent on the official New Boston Tavern T-shirts, which are available for $8 each. On the back of the shirt, beneath the caricature of a smirking frog, are the words: “Spread the legs. Tastes like Chicken.”
The bar is in a long, narrow room that leads to the kitchen. A sign at the entrance warns “Employees only,” but it was routinely ignored as people arrived and headed there to hail the owners. Some of these newcomers promptly disappeared into the back, where they were pressed into service to prepare a dish or to carry food through the bar to the adjacent family room.
A line of warming trays against one wall held a variety of southern Indiana comfort food: froglegs, fried fish fillets, potato salad, steak fries, pulled pork barbecue and a bowl of pickled beef tongue. The latter, everyone told me, was quite good, and I’m sure it was.
Periodically, someone appeared with a pan of something that had been breaded and deep fried to a golden brown. There were bite-sized crab cakes, catfish fiddlers and oysters. When the “oysters” appeared, I peered at the contents of the pan and asked, “What animal did those come from?”
It was a reasonable question, considering that I was in was rural southern Indiana in springtime. And considering that the fellow at the bar earlier had told me about recently enjoying a batch of “turkey fries,” to which he had added, “I didn’t even know turkeys had testicles.”
Turns out the oysters really were oysters. People told me they were quite good, and I am sure they were.
I ate double helpings of everything else. Then, when I looked around for someone to pay, I was told all the food was free. Every bite of it. The only charges were for drinks, T-shirts and jars of homemade horseradish if you wanted to take some home.
Turns out that Froglegs Day at the New Boston Tavern also was customer appreciation day, which made it my lucky day.
The company
The Fortwendels have operated the tavern for nearly 15 years. It’s a family tradition for Rick, whose brother, Mark, operates a tavern that was started by their father just down the road in Troy. It’s called the Roundup.
Mark didn’t even bother to open his place on Froglegs Day. He put a sign in the window of his bar that said, “Closed. Go to Rick’s,” which is what he did.
Rick said it was the tavern’s third annual froglegs feast, but this one was different because of someone who was not there.
Cliff Guilliams wrote about horse racing for a living. He worked for Equibase (formerly the Daily Racing Form), and he covered Kentucky horse racing for the Evansville Courier & Press newspaper.
Cliff also used to do promotional work for Ellis Park, the thoroughbred horse track between Evansville and Henderson, Ky. That’s how he got to know the Fortwendels and other country tavern owners in southern Indiana.
He would help them put on special events such as Froglegs Days, and the friendships he built with the bar owners and their customers would be reciprocated by their patronage at the track.
Cliff died last April at age 52, just before the Kentucky Derby. Rick said he decided to go ahead with this year’s customer appreciation day just like usual. For Cliff, he said.
Cliff’s widow was there, as was Tim Ethridge, technically Cliff’s boss at the Courier but really more friend than boss.
It was Tim who had told me about Frogleg Days, but he hadn’t mentioned Cliff’s connection. And, really, there was little talk of it at the tavern, except for Rick’s brief explanation of how the day came to be. Instead, the conversation ambled comfortably between NASCAR, the NCAA basketball tourney, what old friends and neighbors were up to and the weather, always a popular topic in farm country.
I got a strong handshake from Rick as I got up to leave, and I got a hug from Barb in the kitchen, having gained enough familiarity in an afternoon to be given an escort past the employees-only barrier.
Before I pulled away, I took one last photo of the outside of the building, and I thought again of what Rick had told me.
I didn’t know Cliff as well as some of the people that day at the New Boston Tavern, but we were friendly, and he never failed to buy a round when our paths crossed in some neighborhood bar.
I figure I ended up on the positive side of that balance sheet. Now, it looked like I owed Cliff for dinner, too, and for introducing me to a fine place to sit out a cold, dreary day in early spring.
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One comment
Hey Rod I sure enjoyed reading your blog for the first time. I’ve been away from the Hoosier state for many years and didn’t know Cliff Guilliams passed. He was a great character, comfortable in any barroom. Your blog made me recall a distant evening at a watering hole on Green River Rd. in Evansville. Cliff was buying drinks, and he suggested that Boodles Gin was the perfect backbone of any martini. I’ve been a Boodles guy ever since that night. Here’s a toast to Cliff, and to you, Rod.