The Beers Girls Try To Talk Design

Happy Tuesday, You + Me* Readers! We apologize but this post is going to be really short, because we're in the middle of preparing to open -- really open! It's been a long time coming and we're trying tie up all the loose ends, so time is in short supply. We know we normally post about lovely alcohol, but we wanted to switch it up and post about design... We're crossing our fingers Miya and Elisabeth don't get too mad!

One of the final things we're doing this week is getting our tables set. An amazing carpenter built the tables out of reclaimed wood from a barn in Knoxville dating from the 1800s. They're beautiful, but we thought there was a way to make them even better. We were inspired by this "Before and After" featured on Design Sponge. Check out this poem that someone hammered into this coffee table!

Now, take away the inspiring poem and replace it with quotes about beer and the Golden Girls theme song, and that's what our tables will be like!

Have a great week Readers!

A Toast to Old Fashioned

It’s time for full disclosure, Miya is my sister-in-law, so nepotism could very well have played a part in hooking Jackalope up with the You+Me* blogging gig. I tell you this, because this past weekend, my entire immediate family came down to Nashville to check out the progress on the brewery, so Miya and I got to hang out. One night I took Miya and my brother out on the town and brought them to a bar we have here called Patterson House. Patterson House is supposed to have a speak easy type vibe, they make amazing drinks. They also have an ice maker that apparently cost $25,000 and makes giant spherical ice cubes (and other cool ice makers too). It’s pretty cool. I got a Moscow Mule (the ice was one giant rectangular ice cube!) Jordan got some sort of whiskey mojito thing (a giant spherical ice cube!), Miya got some campari drink (another spherical cube! --- can you tell I’m mildly obsessed with the ice machine?) and Bailey got something with vodka and elderflower which sadly had regular shaped ice cubes. Very disappointing, but she didn't seem to mind. While we were all enjoying our drinks, Jordan mentioned that places like Patterson House made him wish he knew how to make some of the more classic cocktails, like an Old Fashioned.

This conversation popped right into my mind the second Miya sent me this week’s glassware assignment.

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They scream Mad Men to me and I love them. I want to wear a Joan Holloway dress, do my hair up all fancy and sip something classic out of these glasses. Like my brother, I had no idea what goes into an Old Fashioned, so I figured we Virballs can’t be the only ones lacking this knowledge and maybe I’d look it up and share it with you all.

You’re welcome.

Old Fashioned (from Esquire Magazine)

1 Sugar Cube

3 Dashes of Angostura Bitters

Club Soda

2 ounces of Rye Whiskey

Place the sugar cube in the glass, add the bitters and a splash of club soda. Muddle it all together. Swish the glass around so the sugar/bitters/club soda mixture coats the sides. Put in an ice cube and the whiskey and enjoy.

There, now don’t we all feel a little bit smarter and a little bit cooler?

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Back to the Soda Fountain

Yesterday Miya wrote that February and March are tough months. I wholeheartedly agree; it seems like when winter first rolls around you’re all excited about the holidays, and then it’s January and the snow is a novelty and then it keeps coming and you start to slowly go crazy. Finally you make it to February, it’s the shortest month of the year, yet somehow manages to go on forever. March has such possibilities, all of us remember a March from when were younger where there were a streak of 70 degree days… we’re sure of it, but we all also remember those terrible late March snow storms… Ah March, you are a fickle month! It’s enough to make even the most optimistic among us see the glass as half empty, which makes this glassware posting particularly on point.

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I’m a big fan of this glass for a couple of reasons. Yes, the whole half full thing, but I also think it’s great for this time of year for another reason: creamy drinks. Milk based drinks are so yummy, and yet I find when I order one they’re huge, and too rich for me to finish. This glass is a perfect solution to that problem. Another reason for suggesting a milk-based drink – in these dark and dreary months, that vitamin D is going to help combat SAD. Thinking even more about your health, I’m recommending that you make an Egg Cream in this glass. It’s got the dairy AND chocolate, another proven mood elevator (for the record, we at Jackalope solidly believe the “chocolate is good for you” hype).

Egg Cream (recipe from Bonni Lee Brown):

Approximately ½ cup of whole milk (it has to be whole or it won’t foam!)

1 cup of seltzer

2 tablespoons of chocolate syrup

Pour 1/2 inch of cold milk into a tall soda glass. Add seltzer or club soda to within 1 inch of the top of the glass; stir vigorously with a long spoon (this will cause it to become white and bubbly with a good head of foam).

Very gently pour 2 tablespoons of chocolate syrup slowly down the inside of the glass; briskly stir with a long spoon only at the bottom of the glass where the chocolate sits. The resulting drink should have a dark brown bottom and a 1-inch high pure white foam top (if you mix it too much, the foam disappears).

Now, if your mood needs a little more assistance to get elevated, you can add Bailey’s, Kahlua or anything else (within reason…don’t add citrus just to test me) you think could be yummy.

So sit back and enjoy, and try to start thinking positively… April will be here soon!

Have a Drink In Honor of Our Founding Fathers

We here at Jackalope are all about educating people, which is why we present to all you You +Me* Readers, this fun fact: Our founding fathers were all about cider. Not plain apple cider (although that’s lovely, don’t get me wrong) but the hard stuff. Indeed, hard cider is thought to be the most popular beverage in in colonial America. George Washington included cider in his campaign expenses and John Adams used to drink a tankard of it everyday to alleviate indigestion. With President’s Day just around the corner, we encourage you to celebrate George and Abe’s birthday by toasting with many of the yummy ciders out there.

One of the great cidermakers is Woodchuck, from Middlebury, Vermont, and their wares are widely available. I personally really enjoy their Granny Smith, with its tart finish. Farnum Hill’s orchard, based in New Hampshire, makes delicious dry, effervescent ciders that can even step in for champagnes, if you’re feeling adventurous. If you’re on the west coast, try the Fox Barrel Cider Company. Based in Colfax, CA, you can tour and taste at their cidery (cidery? Is that a word?). The Wandering Aengus Ciderworks out of Oregon not only has the best name of any cidery (I’m just going with it), but also has particularly delicious creations (if you’re not from one of the few states they distribute too, you can order it online if your state has accommodating wine shipment laws).

Another great thing about cider, most of them are gluten free. In this day and age it seems like everyone has a friend who has a sensitivity to gluten so having some cider in your house is a great alternative to beer. Jackalope has an amazing friend doesn’t do well with gluten so last year we attempted to make a cider for her…. It didn’t work out. Below is a photo of what happened when one of our ciders was opened.

Have no fear though, that will not happen with any of the ciders we mentioned above. On the plus side for us though, our cider rockets can be used like fireworks to celebrate Presidents Day. That’s right, cider for fireworks; we’re expert problem solvers.

The Fastest Way To Warm Up

Whenever we write these glassware columns, either Miya or Elisabeth usually sends us a specific piece and we go from there, but this week they sent us a whole selections of things and told us to pick.  They made the crucial mistake of giving us choices.  We’re like two years olds, you should only present us two options: “do you want to wear your blue pants or your purple skirt?” “do you want an apple or an orange for snack?” “do you want to write about a martini glass or a champagne flute?”   

Give me all of these options and I get flustered and want to pick everything!  I pick the absinthe spoon!  Wait, then I can really only write about absinthe and that may cause me to have flash backs to my time in Prague when I drank some and then tried to put my pajamas on by putting my head through the sleeve and getting really confused…. Well, maybe I’ll write about these Cairo Beverage Dispensers, I once had an amazing Aqua Fresca out of a similar dispenser so seeing one makes me think of that…. BUT WAIT!   

Absinthe Spoon and Cairo Beverage Dispenser from Velocity Home

Then I see it, and I know.  THIS is what I’m supposed to writing about.  “Really?” you’re thinking, “Of everything you pick a tea pot?”  Yes, I do, but stick with me, because I have a really good reason.  About a month ago the Snowpocalypse came to Nashville (which means 2 inches of snow), so a bunch of us ventured through the snowstorm to Burger Up, the delicious neighborhood burger place.  On this particular evening, the bartender had concocted a whiskey winter warmer.  Everyone else ordered it, but I’m not that into whiskey usually, so I stuck with my wine order.  After taking a sip of one of their drinks I pushed my wine aside and ordered my own winter warmer (have no fear, I still drank the wine, I just saved it for dinner!).   

Readers, I cannot emphasize how good this drink was, it was just so warm and lovely and just what you want on a cold snowy evening (which I know you New Yorkers are having plenty of this winter)... And it involves a teapot, thus my choice this week.  I don’t have the exact recipe, and I can’t even give proper credit (bartender at Burger Up just doesn’t seem like enough) so you may have to tinker with the proportions of this, but it will be worth it.

Roost Branch Tea Pot

Winter Warmer

Five Spice Simple Syrup*

Whiskey

Lemon Ginger Tea

Ginger Beer

Put  an ounce to an ounce and half of whiskey and a half an ounce of the simple syrup in a mug, pour in the hot lemon ginger tea from your adorable tea pot, add ginger beer to taste (I asked for extra ginger beer in mind since I LOVE ginger).  Sit back and enjoy while telling yourself that spring will be here soon.

*Five Simple Syrup is, surprise, simple to make.  Bring one cup of water, one cup of sugar and a tablespoon of five spice (use a lot in Chinese cooking, so you should be able to find it) to a boil.  Let simmer until all of the sugar is dissolved.  Let it cool and then strain it through a tea towel.  You can store it in a sealable container in the fridge!

The Most Wonderful Day of the Year!

A very special day is upon us, You + Me* Readers – Robbie Burns Day! I’m assuming most of you are thinking “What?” “Who?” or “Cool…do I get that day off from work?” This fine holiday celebrates the birth of Robert Burns, the National Bard of Scotland (he wrote Auld Lang Syne!), and to answer your question, not even Scottish people get the day off from work for it, but they sure get to celebrate anyway. Robbie Burns Day is officially January 25^th but it’s usually celebrated with a big supper on the weekend before or after the 25^th.

The supper is something to be seen, it involves a Scottish feast, with plenty of haggis (yum….?), poetry readings (…yay?) and -- stay with me here—lots and lots of whisky (yum and yay!). ** If you haven’t figured it out, the whisky is what makes the poetry readings particularly marvelous. Every year, Jackalope throws a Robbie Burns Supper, but it’s morphed from what the Scots traditionally do into something….different. Our celebration usually includes vegetarian haggis (because cooking sheep innards is not one of my favorite past times); the recitations range from Burns originals to sonnets made up on the spot to Hamlet, and finally, we have a piñata. Why? Because everyone loves a piñata. Duh.

Let’s move on to the real reason we’re telling you all this: the whisky. Whisky appears in two forms at Jackalope’s Robbie Burns Supper: the golden drink itself and in our own brew, the Harry Highlander, which we age in a Jack Daniel’s Whisk(e)y Barrel. We wish we could send you all Harry Highlander to celebrate with, but as that might cause a revolt by some of our party-goers, we’ll suggest some other barrel-aged brews that would do the Bard proud:

The Bourbon Barrel Stout, by the Bluegrass Brewing Company shows off the sweetness of the bourbon in it’s aroma, but still has a nice roasty flavor. Allagash’s Curieux, is a Belgian style Tripel that is then aged in Jim Beam barrels to create a curious array of flavors and aromas. And last but certainly not least, Scotland’s own BrewDog has a whisky cask aged imperial stout by the name of Paradox that you’d be extremely lucky to get your hands on.

There are quite a few barrel-aged brews starting to make their way into the craft brew world, but these three are some of our favorites. So however you choose to celebrate your Robbie Burns Day, we think these brews will start you off in the right direction (and if you can’t find the beer, you can always just drink the scotch followed by a beer chaser – nothing wrong with that!). And don’t forget to pour a little out for Robbie…it is his birthday, after all.

** For those of you wondering why I can’t spell, Scotch “whisky” doesn’t have an “e” in the spelling. That’s how you know its’ the real thing.

Please Welcome Jackalope Brewing Company!

Happy Tuesday, Friends! I would like you to give a warm welcome to our newest contributors, Jackalope Brewing Company! These fine ladies are keeping themselves busy down in Nashville getting their new brewery up and running, but have been gracious enough to stop by here every other week to cook up some adult beverage inspiration for you. We love, love, love them, and we just know you will, too.

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Hi You + Me* Readers!  Please allow us to introduce ourselves; we’re Bailey and Robyn, the ladies of Jackalope Brewing Company, a brand spanking new craft brewery in Nashville, Tennessee.  We love You + Me* for all of their helpful hints in gifting, cooking, and general amazingness -- in fact, we’d like to take this space to formally ask Miya and Elisabeth to be the creative directors of our lives.  We could use the help. So now I’m sure you’re wondering: what are you going to bring to the game, Jackalope?  The answer:  Alcohol. Every couple of weeks, we’re going to let you all know about what’s new and exciting in the land of adult beverages, make some suggestions of festive concoctions, or let you know about one of favorite things: food and drink pairings!  Now let’s get this ball rolling!  Thanksgiving is just around the corner, which makes us at Jackalope very excited, mostly because we love stuffing and pie.  We know that a lot of people think of wine when they’re breaking bread with their family, but we’d like to propose another option.

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Beer!  Yes, we’re biased because of the whole owning a brewery thing, but hear us out.  Beer has gotten a bad rap over the years (thanks a lot, Bud Light Lime), but there are more varieties of beer than there are of wine, and so much room for creativity that beer is becoming a real contender for the ultimate beverage to pair with food.  So let us present you with some brew suggestions for your Turkey Day festivities.

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We know that before the Thanksgiving meal comes the Thanksgiving cooking.  If you’re like us, you believe there is some particular magic about having something festive to sip on while in a kitchen full of ingredients.  To get in the holiday mood, we are partial to pumpkin ales (in fact, we’ve brewed Jackalope’s very first pumpkin ale, which debuted this weekend at Robyn’s birthday party), and there are some great ones out there:  Dogfish Head Punkin Ale, Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale, and Elysian Brewing Company’s The Great Pumpkin, to name a few. 

Pumpkin beer is the easy festive answer for a pre-dinner brew, but what to drink during the meal itself?  To make a Thanksgiving feast truly special, try having different beers on hand to go with the different courses. Let’s start with a good rule to live by: dessert first.  Pie can be just as important as turkey on Thanksgiving, and if you’re a pecan type, I would suggest a creamy, toasty, stout such as Samuel Smith’s Oatmeal Stout, Young’s Double Chocolate Stout, or if you really want to go big, Brooklyn Brewery’s Black Chocolate Stout (watch out on this one, at 10% ABV it might make that post-dinner touch-football game a clumsy one). Stick to the sweeter stouts, rather than those with a strong hops profile, as the bitterness could overpower the flavor of the pie, and that would be a very, very big shame. For pumpkin pie, a winter warmer, such as Highland Brewing’s Highland Cold Mountain Winter Ale or the Jubelale from the Deschutes Brewery can bring out the pie’s spicy goodness while making you feel all warm and cozy inside.  

Next up, the main course.  For the traditional stuffed roast turkey, I would go one of two routes.  Either a crisp, refreshing pilsner such as Victory Brewing Company’s Prima Pils, with an effervescence that will enhance the turkey flavors, or a robust brown ale, such as Goose Island’s Naughty Goose, or Dogfish Head’s Indian Brown Ale, which would highlight the heartiness of the meal.

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Now, understanding the importance of stretching your stomach out before the getting to the main event, you may have a cheese and hors d’oeuvres course to get the whole thing started.  While there are enough cheese and beer pairings to literally write an entire book about, if you want to get the celebration off on the right foot, start with a Bière de Champagne (aka Bière Brute).  When this Belgian beer is brewed, it goes through the same finishing method that Champagne does, where the bottle is racked upside down for many weeks, the neck of the bottle is frozen, and the yeast is collected, leaving the brew crystal clear and sparkling.  While Bière de Champagne can be harder to come by than other beers, try Deus (Brut Des Flandres) from Brouwerij Bosteels or Malheur Bière Brut (Brut Reserve) from Brouwerij De Landtsheer. 

So there you have it, Jackalope’s guide to Thanksgiving beer.  These are our suggestions, but this is holiday beer drinking, not calculus, so go ahead and try some of your own experiments.  As a good rule of thumb, you want to match your beer and food flavor strengths so that one doesn’t overpower the other.  The other most important rule – have fun!

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We hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and thanks again to You +Me* for giving us a platform to talk endlessly about our favorite drinks!

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Alright, friends, that concludes our little beer lesson from Robyn and Bailey (they're so great, right?); we'll see you right back here tomorrow. Oh, and speaking of Thanksgiving, we would be tickled if you would share what you're grateful for in our first annual Thanksgiving Slideshow! And not to rush you, but time is running out to sign up for our Spread the Cheer gift exchange!