We left the Sunday rain behind us and took the interstate highways to Quechee Gorge and then country roads to VT100 so we could explore that fine road through the middle part of the state as far as the Mad River Valley and Rte 89, and to see Montpelier. One of the most exciting things I saw was before we ever left Quechee.
There is a big complex at Quechee that includes a Cabot store, a huge antiques coop, a winery, and some other shops. Now there is a brand new building there: the new distillery for Vermont Spirits, makers of Vermont Gold and Vermont White vodkas. In the middle of the photo you can see the still with the tall, tall column.
I am not a big vodka fan. I buy it sometimes to make vanilla extract, but I don't keep it in my liquor cabinet. So why get excited about the vodka distillery? Against the far wall was a big rick filled with oak aging barrels. Vodka doesn't get aged, so what's the story? I discovered that Vermont Spirits is aging a new apple brandy product! But it won't be ready for a year, so we had to find our Best of Show elsewhere.
The Mad River Valley is home to some top-shelf cheesemakers and brewers, including two of the most highly-regarded brewers in all of New England: Lawson's Finest Liquids in Warren and The Alchemist in Waterbury, each of which won a silver medal at the highly competitive World Beer Cup.
The Mad River Valley is a great place to be a foodie, if the shelves in the cheese section of the local supermarket are any indication! The grocery stores also sell beer, wine, and spirits, including Barr Hill Gin and Green Mountain Organic Gin.
A little to the east of the northern end of this foodie paradise is Montpelier, home of the excellent Hunger Mountain Coop. I had hoped to find some of the beers from those legendary Mad River brewers, but they were (not surprisingly) sold out. Those beers don't last long on the shelves. I was a bit dejected, until I remembered that man does not live on beer alone.
In the cheese case I got two von Trapp Farmstead cheeses, including their highly-regarded Oma, aged at the Cellars at Jasper Hill. But then I found something even better!
When Lorna was a girl, her grandfather grew apples in Hopkinton, MA. The first of the season were the beautiful, tart, and fragile Yellow Transparents. Lorna's mother made the first apple pies of the year in August with her dad's Yellow Transparents.
These apples aren't grown much anymore. They are not good keepers, and they come out early in the season, often in July, before anyone is thinking of apples and apple pie. Every year I try to find them, often discovering they have already come and gone, or that the crop was small and they are all bought and gone. I have never found enough to make a pie...until now!
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