Drink
-
Farmers’ Market Find
Tea and Trumpets On a recent sunny Saturday, I visit Mark Bowden, owner and creator of Tea and Trumpets Tea Company, at the Santa Rosa Community Farmers’ Market location on Farmers Lane. I ask if he ever gets tired of the furtive half glances from people who awkwardly pass his stall for another. “Nah,” he…
-
Adventures in Drinking
Bean Bonanza In 1991, a coffeehouse barista and an English instructor fell in love sitting at a small, round, marble table nestled inside the Wolf Coffee shop just off Mendocino Avenue in Santa Rosa. My parents still recall fondly the yummy coffee and pastries of those early dates. Eventually my mom, the barista, joined the…
-
Making Garage Wine
Drinking your hoard of booze in lock-down got old fast? Maybe it’s time to start a new, more rewarding hobby. Here in Sonoma County, it’s grape harvest season, the ideal time to start making wine at home. Here’s a starter compendium of the ups and downs of home wine-making in 2020, with lessons learned from…
-
Dwindling Dairies
How local farms adapt and persevere during tough times Nestled in a valley where vineyards and redwoods give way to green rolling hills is the tiny town of Freestone. While the world may know Sonoma County as “wine country,” out here, grass reigns supreme. Most mornings, a thick fog descends, replaced in the afternoon by…
-
Drink Deliveries in the Time of Revolution
In “The Before,” one of the things I most looked forward to was a weekly (or twice-weekly) happy hour meet-up with my friends. Since shelter-in-place went into effect in mid-March my friends and I started meeting on Zoom, which is great for folks who want to drink without putting on a pesky pair of pants.…
-
Curbside Cocktails from Wishbone
Different parts of the body have different lifespans (bear with me here). The general knowledge is that all of your cells turn over and you’re essentially a “new you” every seven to ten years. Being stuck in the house for the duration of our current health crisis, I’ve had a lot of time to think.…
-
ACE Cider Keeps on Truckin’
What was once primarily a small, tight-knit community of mostly farmers and hippies nestled in a quaint downtown, Sebastopol has exploded into a scene of trendy bars and restaurants, rising rents and vineyards replacing the idyllic apple orchards of days gone by. Jeffrey House, founder of ACE Cider, the longest-running cidery in the region, has…
-
Adventures in Drinking – Old Possum Brewing Co.
Like all the very best gastropubs, Old Possum Brewing Co. promises locally sourced food that closes the loop from brewer to farmer and back again in holistic harmony, with the added benny of getting a buzz from a juicy double IPA. Likely story. Then you look around the back, and the Sysco truck is pulling…
-
Listening to the Spirit Coming Off of the Still
Sonoma Distilling Company steadily barrels towards becoming California’s whiskey. On a warm September morning in 2008, Adam Spiegel sat in his car in the parking lot of a financial sales firm where he, along with a third of the workforce, had just been laid off. He was 24 and thought he’d like to be his…
-
Adventures in Drinking: Breathless Wines
Breathless brut sabered at Sunday brunch! That’s not an overblown headline ripped from the front page of a tabloid. That’s part of the experience of going to Breathless Wines in downtown Healdsburg. Well, not quite downtown. Breathless is in Healdsburg’s light industrial district, all but hidden behind landscaping between the warehouses. The short urban hike…