As expected, Chef Jon Holzer and The Hartwood Restaurant did a phenomenal job once again at Tuesday’s dinner. Turnout was solid, the food was fantastic, everyone in attendance responded extremely positively, and we came equipped with sexy new brochures (printed neither on the CMU printers nor on the morning of the event).
One interesting side note was the inclusion of a beer cocktail made with Boyd & Blair Vodka, lemon juice, and White Sky. Both of us currently also work at upscale restaurants with interesting and well-developed cocktail programs, and cocktails are another type of craft that we’re beginning to become more interested and involved in. Of course beer is our main focus, but cocktails are an interesting and related extra-curricular. So tasting a beer cocktail made with our own beer for the first time was both a.) a rather cool experience, and b.) a springboard for our overactive imaginations to start developing other ideas. We’ve been infusing a bottle of Wigle Rye with chai spices (the same mix that we put in our White Sky) for celebratory consumption upon the sale of our first keg, but it smells beyond freaking delicious and it’s getting extremely difficult not to break into it early and start experimenting with more White Sky cocktails. It may be a pipe dream, but it’d be cool if we could offer a small but well-crafted beer cocktail menu in our taproom alongside the beer. Time to buy a few books.
