Showing posts with label cider. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cider. Show all posts

Saturday, February 25, 2017

Cider and Girl Scout Cookies with Buskey!




Do you guys remember that time last year when I did a wine and Girl Scout cookie pairing party? It was awesome. It was also just a really great excuse to eat Girl Scout cookies. “We are PAIRING the cookies with wine. It’s fancy”.

Well, when I saw that Buskey Cider was hosting an evening where they paired their delicious ciders with Girl Scout cookies, I knew that I wanted in on the action.

Buskey Cider opened in April of 2016 in historic Scott’s Addition in Richmond. It’s ridiculously close to where I live and I was ridiculously excited to hear that FINALLY a cidery was opening in the same neighborhood that is home to quite a few craft breweries.



When the hubs and I showed up for the event, we got to spend a little bit of time with Will, the owner. It was really cool to get to hear him tell a bit about his story and why he loves what he does. Richmond itself is rich with history and Scott’s Addition is no different. Buskey laid down its roots in a cool old train car building. When speaking to Will, his desire for both preserving and highlighting that history while at the same time making something new was apparent.

Of course, I had to find out a little something about the name “Buskey”. It’s obviously a name with a story behind it. Much like Richmond, Buskey comes with a bit of history. Apparently back in the days of Ben Franklin, he and his friends used the term “buskey” to describe the tipsy feeling you get after drinking a few too many pints of – you guessed it – hard cider. How can you not love this?!



The cider tasting with the cookies was fun but I learned some stuff too! I had no idea that the cider making process was so similar to the wine making process. I feel like this is absolutely the reason why I love both wine and cider. Cider is a really cool sort of hybrid between beer and wine and makes itself a nice little home in the middle. Buskey does some fun things with their ciders. They aim for a semisweet to dry cider but love experimenting with different flavor combinations and techniques, like Randalling.

JUST GET TO THE CIDER AND COOKIES ALREADY WILL YOU?!

I hear you. Now that you’ve gotten your education – let’s talk delicious pairings.

First – let me give a shout out to Troop 4905 for providing the cookies for the event. FANTASTIC collaboration here y’all!





Thin Mints with Nitro Coffee Cider



I love me a Thin Mint cookie. I mean, who doesn’t really? They paired this with their Nitro Coffee Cider which is literally exactly what it sounds like. It’s a cider that tastes like coffee. I’m going to be honest here, this one threw me for a loop. Don’t get me wrong – the cider was not bad. It just played tricks with my mind. I tasted coffee but it was cider at the same time. The cookie was good with it too but I had a hard time moving past the brain games on this one.

Peanut Butter Patties with Cascade Hopped Cider



Next up – my favorite cookie! God I love peanut butter and chocolate. Because I don’t like beer, I typically shy away from anything that says “hopped”. This cider was delicious though. You got all the sweetness from the hops and none of the bitterness that you get in a beer. Peanut butter is usually pretty hard to pair up too but this worked very nicely.

Caramel Delights with Belgian Candi Cider



What about this pairing does not scream AMAZING? Just the words alone are awesome. This did not disappoint. The cider was semisweet and just rich and full of flavor. When you paired the caramel delight with this one – match made in heaven y’all. I could have eaten a whole box with a pint or two of this cider.

Lemonades with RVA Cider



OK, first of all, this was a new cookie for me and holy crap. It was so good. They paired this one up with Buskey’s traditional RVA Cider. I love this cider because it’s not fussy or fancy. It’s just a great, refreshing cider. It can literally quench your thirst. Paired up with this cookie was sweet, perfect harmony and possibly my favorite pairing of the evening. Jury is still out because I loved that Belgian too so I may have to go back for round 2 – just to be sure.

Shortbreads with Cranberry Basil Cider



The shortbread cookie is such a clean classic and Buskey had just the cider to pair with it. The Cranberry Basil is a great example of how they like to play with fun flavor combinations. The cranberry and basil flavors really shone through but weren’t too overpowering. The perfect balance. You could seriously serve this cider with Thanksgiving dinner and it would be a perfect match. Much like the shortbread cookie was!



As you can tell, I had a really hard time deciding which was my favorite. I walked around the event and polled some of the other attendees and the results were pretty unanimous. Everyone really loved the Caramel Delight with the Belgian Candi but an equal amount of people were super passionate about the Lemonades with the RVA Cider. These people all had great taste, obviously!




There’s nothing left to do but go grab some boxes of cookies and head back to Buskey for a final determination! Or maybe that’s just an excuse to go back for some great cider.








Saturday, November 19, 2016

RVA Brewery Crawl





Over the past few years, Richmond has become a hot spot for craft breweries. There seems to be one on just about every corner. There’s one area in particular near my house called Scott’s Addition where these little places have popped up like crazy.

Some friends were in town last weekend so we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to do a little brewery crawl through Scott’s Addition. All of the places we went were within walking distance of each other and it ended up being a gorgeous, sunny day!

Since my girlfriend had just run the Richmond Marathon the previous day, she wanted a burger. I don’t blame her. If I ran 26.2 miles (and was still alive) I would want to eat ALL OF THE BURGERS. So, we hit up this fun little place called Boulevard Burgers and Brews which kicked off our day of drinking perfectly.



One of the things that I am super into right now is hard cider. It’s the perfect beer alternative for someone who doesn’t like beer. There is a new cidery that opened recently called Buskey that I’ve been dying to try out. So, that was our first stop. And let me tell you – they did not disappoint! They had an awesome selection of ciders ranging from traditional to crazy flavor infusions like coffee and jalapeno lime. My favorite was the newly released Pink Lady which was smooth and tart.




Our next stop was another recently opened cidery called Blue Bee. I was familiar with their ciders but this location in Richmond was brand new. The atmosphere there was very cool with a huge outdoor patio area to hang out. Unfortunately, their ciders completely disappointed us. None of them were really very good. My chemist husband said it seemed like they had been contaminated with Bret (which makes them sour). So, it could have just been a bad batch. We’ll probably give them one more shot maybe in the spring.




Our last stop of the day was at Isley Brewing Company. This was a cool place because they really had a wide variety of beers to choose from like Belgian White, Pale Ale, Brown Ale, Porter and IPA’s. The whole group went for their Plain Jane Blueberry Belgian White which was a huge hit. 



This would be a great place to go with a group of people who have varied tastes in beer. They also do a ton of Trivia Nights – you can’t go wrong!



Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Winery Wednesday - Blue Toad Cidery



Before you say anything, I know this says Winery Wednesday and I KNOW that this place is not a winery. We are just all going to be OK with this post being a Winery Wednesday feature because, let’s face it, none of the days of the week start with a “C” and alliteration just sounds better.

Now that we’ve addressed the elephant in the room – let’s move on to the good stuff. Cider! A couple of weeks ago, we were on one of our many trips to Carter Mountain and we needed a place to stop for lunch. My first choice was Pippin Hill Winery but let me tell you guys a little secret…apparently EVERY WINERY IN VIRGINIA is closed on Mondays! Not cool.

We ended up at this little pizza joint right across the street from Pippin Hill called Dr. Ho’s Humble Pie. It was DELICIOUS y’all. Since it was my day off from work, I figured that I deserved to have a drink with lunch. I spied a local hard cider on their menu that I had never heard of before called Blue Toad. They had a seasonal on hand called Festy that is a fall blend with cinnamon and cloves. Yes, please!



This cider did not disappoint. Thanks to modern technology and Google, I was able to look them up while we ate lunch. Guess what? They had a tasting room about 20 minutes up the road from where we were at! Of course I said we had to go. So we went.

Upon further investigation, it turns out this place is based out of New York and has just recently opened this location in Virginia. It was a cute little place all rustic and comfy. The location we were at also partnered up with a local winery called Well Hung (yep…you read that right) so it’s the best of both worlds. Cider and wine all in one place!



We got a couple of flights so we could try all their different varities. I had their Peach, Caramel Apple, Black Cherry and their Irish Dry. The Festy and the Black Cherry were hands down my favorites. I was excited about the prospect of caramel apple but it was just WAY too sweet for my taste. It was literally like I was drinking carbonated caramel. The Irish Dry was also really good. It’s made with all Granny Smith apples so it’s super tart.




If you get the chance, go check them out. And if you can’t make it to their tasting room, you can find their cider at your local Wegman’s. Now, excuse me while I go stock up on the Festy Harvest blend before it’s gone!





Thursday, October 27, 2016

Carter Mountain and Bold Rock Cider



One of my favorite fall activities is to head out to the mountains and pick apples. We have this great orchard that’s only an hour from our house that we go to every year – Carter Mountain Orchard. This year has been really awesome, we’ve made 3 trips up there!



The views from the top of the mountain are simply fabulous and you really can’t beat fresh picked apples right off the tree. We bought a ton of apples this year so that I can make all of the apple recipes that I pinned to my Pinterest board. Apple bread, apple muffins, apple crisp, apple snickerdoodles and applesauce. Whew!





Besides the apples, the absolute BEST reason to go visit Carter Mountain is for their apple cider donuts. I seriously cannot even express to you in words how amazing these donuts are. They are made on site and you get them hot and fresh. It’s ridiculously easy to eat an entire dozen. I tell myself this is OK because the holidays are coming soon and I might as well just start the unhealthy eating habits now. Pair these donuts with a cup of their hot cider and you may never want to leave.



My other favorite part of Carter Mountain (which is relatively new) is the Bold Rock Cider tasting room. It’s this cool cellar where you can get a tasting of all the different hard ciders that Bold Rock has to offer.  They are a local cidery which is cool and they always have new seasonal flavors. It’s fun to grab a pint and hang out at the picnic tables with lunch and just enjoy the views.




If you get the chance to go visit them – take it. I know you’ll love it!






Monday, October 17, 2016

Urban Tree Cidery





OK, so obviously everyone who stops here to read my posts knows that wine is my first true love beverage of choice. However, there is a new trend sweeping the nation that has me completely hooked – hard cider.

Since I literally cannot stomach beer (I know – take a deep breath beer lovers), I have often found myself in the awkward position of being THAT girl at a sporting event, party or out at a bar “enjoying” a perfectly terrible $10 glass of some cheap wine while everyone else has their perfectly normal beers. If the wine was good, I wouldn’t mind it so much but it never is. Do you know how hard it is to play flip cup or beer pong with wine? IT’S HARD. Trust me – I’ve done it.

So when I discovered this new world of hard cider, I felt like all my problems were solved! I can now safely attend a local baseball game or head out to a bar and avoid the ridicule with my beer look-a-like beverage. With the craft beer craze taking over Richmond, there have been a few glorious little cideries that have popped up along the way. More to come on that later.

Recently, we took our annual trip down to Atlanta to visit some friends and I was so excited that our itinerary included a trip to a new cidery that opened up near them called Urban Tree Cidery. This place definitely did not disappoint!



They had 2 different flights to choose from so of course my husband and I each got a different one so that we could sample everything. This is just smart economics, right?

The offerings in the flights were delightfully diverse and really had something for everyone. Their original was dry, crisp and classic. For the beer lover, they had the Triple H which was very hop forward (not my favorite but my beer loving husband enjoyed it!) Their seasonal flight included a peach cider which was light and sweet.



Hands down though, my two favorites were the Rum Barrel Aged and the Sweet Heat. The Rum Barrel Aged was smooth and tasted like caramel. It was just everything that I want in a cider. The Sweet Heat was a delicious surprise. This one was a ginger infused cider with hints of habanero. SO. GOOD.

I knew I wanted to take home a bottle of each of these and was so disappointed when I saw that they did not have the Sweet Heat bottled and ready to go. I didn’t know it at the time, but the lady behind the bar helping me out was the owner. I asked her if she had any of the Sweet Heat stashed away that she could sell me. I told her I was from Virginia and needed to take some home with me. She was amazing and ended up bottling some of it right from their tap for me on the spot! This is how you do customer service y’all.


I left an incredibly happy customer who is even happier to spread the word of this lovely little urban cider oasis in downtown Atlanta. Go check them out!