Category: Care For A Drink?

An abundance of local, craft beer, local and worldly wine, local cocktails are all here.

Cocktail of the Week – A Fig Shrub Manhattan – “The Boscobel”

Hudson River Manhattan

My infatuation with shrub cocktails grows

as I taste my latest creation.  I first got turned onto “Shrubs” when I found and tried Hudson Standard Apple Coriander Maple Shrub at Cold Spring General Store.

Then I received my friend Warren Bobrow’s new book, Bitters and Shrub Syrup Cocktails: Restorative Vintage Cocktails, Mocktails.

So far I’ve made two of my own shrubs, one with blackberries, and another with figs. This cocktail is made with the later. I call it the “Boscobel Manhattan” after the famous Hudson Valley estate near here. Continue reading Cocktail of the Week – A Fig Shrub Manhattan – “The Boscobel”

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Just One Problem

Domaine Mur-mur-ium Sublime SyrahWith this perfect wine and food pairing

the wine came all the way from the Rhone Valley in France, a fabulous organically produced Syrah that paired so well with our Chinese take out.

The wine I found in nearby Wappinger Falls, Viscount Wines & Liquors. But our Chinese food had to be imported from far away Montclair, NJ, our former home.

Can you help me here? Know any really good Chinese places around here?  Please do share.  Continue reading Just One Problem

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Chatham Brewing Tap Takeover

Cold Spring General Store Taps Chatham Brewingat Cold Spring General Store

I am speaking with a little tongue in cheek, because a Tap Takeover¹ is generally when a particular brewer takes over all or many of a bar or pub’s² taps to showcase many of their beers. But, as Chris Cunningham, General Manager of Chatham Brewing who was serving this night, said “this is the easiest Take Takeover I’ve ever done.”

The  occasion was Cold Spring General Store’s first anniversary party,  the shop is small yet very smartly stocked, two taps were just right to get a worthy sampling of Chatham Brewery’s work, they make over sixteen beers. Continue reading Chatham Brewing Tap Takeover

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Birdsall House, Craft Beer Gastropub, Peekskill NY

Bridsall House

 

Is another bar we really like

for their great beer selection,  delicious food, and friendly atmosphere.  Set in a bar that had been a Peekskill fixture for decades, Tim Reinke co-owner of the Blind Tiger Ale House, a famous beer pub in New York City, and Gleason’s restaurant in Peekskill, modestly renovated, majorly cleaned, and opened this place with John Sharp, also of Gleason’s, in 2010.

They saw an opportunity in the renewal of Peekskill, that is now really starting to take shape, at least as far as the food and drink scene go. Continue reading Birdsall House, Craft Beer Gastropub, Peekskill NY

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A Great Wine Find! Spirits Too!

Great Wines and Spirits from Mid-Valley Wines & Liquor

Mid-Valley Wine and Liquors, Newburgh, Welcomes You Too

You surely know by now that I am very serious wine habitué and cocktail devotee.  And ever since I was so dramatically severed from my many tried and true sources, developed over decades, in New Jersey, it has been a riveted and phrenetic search to find new. Two things have complicated my quest, the frost-bound winter, and the potent Hudson Valley command to be “Locally Centric.”

Today my unrelenting hunt was significantly rewarded upon my passing through the threshold of perhaps one of Hudson Valley finest purveyors of thoughtfully selected wine and spirits. With a special concentration, Mid-Valley Store Manager, Lindy Steele, revealed in our conversation, “we make a great effort to offer New York state products, it is a great market for us.”  Continue reading A Great Wine Find! Spirits Too!

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