Angela L. Das

My first (of probably many) trips to Bakersfield was for a fundraising poker night my future brother in-law was organizing for his son’s baseball team. We drove up Saturday night, where Brian gave everyone a run for their money at the tables before losing his $100 buy-in. (So what? Its for a good cause and the taco bar was both home cooked and amazing.) Gladly, I have not yet fallen into the Los Angelean mind-set that everything is too far to drive with too much traffic involved. In fact, I loved the hour-long drive through farms and fields and beautiful landscapes so much, I couldn’t stop taking pictures on the way there, or the way back.

So we’re driving along Highway 126 and I’m literally drooling at all the fresh fruit and veggie stalls since we left all our cash in Bakersfield. Assuming these stalls won’t accept credit cards, we resigned ourselves to redirecting our route home via Los Olivos for a bit of Sunday relaxation. Then I start to see these signs for a “Honey Tasting Room” and decide to make a stop.

MMmmm, honey! Bennett’s Honey Farm & Tasting Room is surrounded by orange trees and farmland, has a teeny little parking lot and a shop where their honeys are laid out on the center table. I tried the Sage (musky aftertaste), Eucalyptus (softer aftertaste), Orange (bittersweet aftertaste) and the Cactus (best of all, chunky and sugary). The shop also had a small display of hundreds of live bees working in a glass case. If you’re like me and generally hate to see bugs of any kind, I still recommend a closer look at the “secret life” of bees. Some interesting honeybee facts:

• Honeybees communicate with one another by “dancing” so as to give the direction and distance of flowers.
• A single hive contains approximately 40-45,000 bees.
• Theoretically, the energy in one ounce of honey would provide one bee with enough energy to fly around the world.
• The honeybee is not born knowing how to make honey; the younger bees are taught by the more experienced ones.
• A queen can lay her weight in eggs in one day and 200,000 eggs in a year.

Great start to our afternoon! Next, our favorite game: punching in “Wineries” into my GPS to see what’s in the neighbourhood. But the only winery to be found within a few miles was listed as the Geissinger Winery. Never heard of it? Who cares, we drove on anyway…and what a diamond in the rough.

As we walked in, I was put off a little by the “Bistro Menu” that claimed “authentic French” fare and started the list of sandwiches with a Turkey Club. Now I’m no expert, but I have been to France often and I don’t recall ever seeing turkey top a menu over there. Not even for Christmas. (They leave that to the British.) The Geissinger wines had beautiful labels that were reminiscent of 19th century designs: painted grapes on a background of musical sheets, and whether intentional or not, the bleeding ink gave it all a soft look and feel to compliment the bizarreness of the names and smells. Most notably, a red that smelled of the ocean even though the tasting notes said “pomegranate and cherry”.

Directly opposite the tasting room is an historic train depot, the Fillmore and Western Railway. With cars permanently stationed housing a creepy antiques store and shameless amounts of Thomas the Tank Engine merchandise, the F&W tourist train still operates year-round. It was getting late for us to take the time to take a ride, but I picked up a flyer and marked a date on my calendar to come back. If anyone is interested in joining us for a ride to “Ichabog” pumpkin patch next October? How about the Wizard Express Murder Mystery Dinner for Harry Potter fans? I’ve had about all I can take or Murder Mystery outings after a night with “Murder on the Orient Express” at the Prince Charles cinema in London, where I think I actually fell asleep…

Last recommendation for this trip: Pyramid Lake. If you happen to be on your way back to LA from Bakersfield, don’t forget to look right as you drive by. Pyramid Lake is located in the San Gabriel Mountains along Interstate 5, approximately 60 miles north of Los Angeles and 50 miles south of Bakersfield. According to FishersNet.com, Pyramid harbors a wide variety of fish species; most popular are the huge 30+ striped bass, but at the very least you’ll see those wacky manmade pyramids from the road.

For Fillmore Visitors, Geissinger can be found here:

365 Santa Clara Street

Fillmore, CA 93015

Ph.(805) 524-5000

Tasting Room Hours:

Mon – Thu:     11:00am-5:00pm

Fri – Sun:         11:00am-6:30pm

Bennett’s Honey Farm can be found here:

3177 E Telegraph Rd (off Hwy 126)

(805) 521-1375

Mon. – Fri.  8 am – 4:30 pm

Sat. – Sun. 9 am – 6:00 pm

For train info:

Click here to find out more about the Pumpkinliners tour we’ll be taking in October and to book tickets.

Tags: california, fillmore, food tasting, road trip, valencia, wine tasting

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 10th, 2009 at 5:40 pm and is filed under Angela's Foodie Obsession, Travel. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.