Welcome to Cork’s weekly newsletter. Finally it looks like the rain is behind us and we have a nice stretch of summer weather ahead of us. We have a lot going on here at Cork’s as we have a beer tasting tonight, a customer wine tasting Friday night, and a liquor tasting Saturday night. We’ve got the Pats home tonight in the only pre-season game worth watching. And the Sox look to hang in the race with a weekend trip to Tampa Bay. We also have 2 tastings next week with tickets, hats, and t-shirts to get you ready for the Deutsche Bank golf tournament.
Tonight’s tasting (Thursday) from 4:30 to 7 PM features a brand new beer to the Mass market called Lake Placid. It is made by Saranac up in Utica, NY and I just got back from visiting them last week. Our friend Jean Marc (who used to work for Newport Storm) will be making his Saranac debut tonight. He will have Lake Placid Honey Rye, India Pale Ale, and Ubu Ale. The Ubu Ale is an English Strong Ale and on tap was 1 of the best beers I’ve ever tasted! He will also have a couple Saranac brews as well as we feature the Summer Variety pack.
Friday night from 4:30 to 7 we have one of my good wine customers Mike and his wife Kat (no…not that Kat) here for a customer wine tasting. Mike is always traveling around the world with his job, and he often brings us wines to sample from his treks. He has picked out a great lineup starting with Gloria Ferrer Blanc de Noir Sparkling Wine. Off to Portugal for Arintho Vinho Blanco, a very refreshing, inexpensive summer white wine. Back to the US, and to Washington State to sample Chateau Ste Michelle Gewurztraminer. Traveling down the west coast we arrive at one of the best Central Coast wineries to try the delicious Cambria Pinot Noir. We go back across the Atlantic to France for La Chasse Cotes Du Rhone. The whirlwind tasting ends in Chile with Valdivieso Single Vineyard Reserva Cabernet Franc. I think he said his wife was going to whip up some yummy dishes to pair with the wines so be sure to stop by and check it out.
Last but not least we have a tasting of Double Cross Luxury Vodka on Saturday night from 5 to 7 PM. This premium vodka comes from Slovakia and has been getting some great press. It comes in a cool rectangular bottle and we will take 10 % off the night of the tasting.
Before we go I have a favor to ask all of you. Most of you know my sister Marianne who works Saturday mornings and does the Cork’s website. She also does a ton of other stuff including writing a program for high school kids that she taught for many years. She has entered into a contest with Pepsi to help stop bullying in our schools. She has a curriculum she wrote, and even has a play with Kaleidoscope Theater that they perform at schools. She needs your help to win the contest to support these great causes. You can vote online, and text once a day for the month of August. Here is a link to the page to vote…. www.refresheverything.com/helpstopbullyinginamerica…
And if you can add it to your facebook page, and spread the word to your friends and family that would be great. This is an amazing program that should be in every school in the country. Please help her out if you can.
Thanks,
Robert
PS…don’t forget to say happy 50th Birthday to Megan when you come in!!
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Wine and beer travels with Robert
Things are ramping up here at Cork’s as we plan our 6th Annual Kick-Off Beer Tasting which is on Saturday September 11th from 2:30 to 5 PM. We have a bunch of Oktoberfest beers in house already, and more arriving daily. We have 2 Tom Petty concerts - tonight and Saturday night….the Pats with pre-season game # 2 tonight in Atlanta….and the Sox still hanging around the playoff hunt despite all their injuries.
We don’t hav
e any tastings lined up for this week as I just got back from my mini-vacation in the Finger Lakes and Cooperstown areas of New York. I did visit some great wineries out there and would highly recommend a visit out there. Let me preface this by saying the reds are on the light side and the whites can be sweet, but that is what you get in cool climate areas like the Finger Lakes. Bully Hill is a real fun winery to visit and they have over 50 wines to try from bone dry to sickening sweet. The owner, Walter Taylor, was an artist and quite eccentric. They even have an art gallery of his work and an excellent restaurant that I highly recommend if you visit. Dr. Konstantin Frank is regarded as the leader in the area for world class wines from delicious Champagnes to an amazing late harvest, botrytis style ice wine, and everything in between. This, too, is a must if you visit the area. If you’re around on Friday night I could be easily convinced to pop open a Dr. Frank Riesling and a Bully Hill wine for you to sample.
Of course, I had to hit some breweries in the area as well. So on our way to the baseball hall of fame, we had a tour at Ommegang Brewery in Cooperstown. This Belgian style brewery has amazing beers and a nice rustic barn/farm style brewery. We had a sub-par tour (hey...they can’t all be gems) and a nice tasting before and after the tour. As a special treat, if you’ve made it this far in the newsletter, after I told you we had no tastings this week, I have a special treat for you. I have 2 growlers of Ommegang (Witte and Hennepin) that come in these really cool steins with handles and flip top canning jar closures. We bought the empty growlers as souvenirs and they were nice enough to fill them for us. So if you come between …lets say 4 and 6 I’d be happy to share a bit with you.
We don’t hav
e any tastings lined up for this week as I just got back from my mini-vacation in the Finger Lakes and Cooperstown areas of New York. I did visit some great wineries out there and would highly recommend a visit out there. Let me preface this by saying the reds are on the light side and the whites can be sweet, but that is what you get in cool climate areas like the Finger Lakes. Bully Hill is a real fun winery to visit and they have over 50 wines to try from bone dry to sickening sweet. The owner, Walter Taylor, was an artist and quite eccentric. They even have an art gallery of his work and an excellent restaurant that I highly recommend if you visit. Dr. Konstantin Frank is regarded as the leader in the area for world class wines from delicious Champagnes to an amazing late harvest, botrytis style ice wine, and everything in between. This, too, is a must if you visit the area. If you’re around on Friday night I could be easily convinced to pop open a Dr. Frank Riesling and a Bully Hill wine for you to sample.Of course, I had to hit some breweries in the area as well. So on our way to the baseball hall of fame, we had a tour at Ommegang Brewery in Cooperstown. This Belgian style brewery has amazing beers and a nice rustic barn/farm style brewery. We had a sub-par tour (hey...they can’t all be gems) and a nice tasting before and after the tour. As a special treat, if you’ve made it this far in the newsletter, after I told you we had no tastings this week, I have a special treat for you. I have 2 growlers of Ommegang (Witte and Hennepin) that come in these really cool steins with handles and flip top canning jar closures. We bought the empty growlers as souvenirs and they were nice enough to fill them for us. So if you come between …lets say 4 and 6 I’d be happy to share a bit with you.
We closed the adventure with a visit to Saranac Brewery in Utica, NY. This brewery is from the 1800’s and smack dab in the middle of a sketchy, rundown neighborhood. Once inside the brewery you will be amazed at how beautiful it is inside, and how huge it is as well. In addition to Saranac, they do Lake Placid beers that we will sample next week, Brooklyn beers, and a ton of other contract brewing. They do concerts out in the parking lot and the people there were amazing and very accommodating. If you’re ever in the upstate NY area I strongly recommend you check these guys out.
Robert
Robert
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Thanks for attending our 4th Customer Appreciation Day!
Welcome to Cork’s weekly newsletter. I hope you all had a good time at our 4th Annual Customer Appreciation Day on Saturday. The weather was picture perfect and I think we had a good mix of beer, wine, and liquors to taste. The raffle went off pretty well, although we couldn’t trick my sister into saying any naughty names like Erin usually does. The only thing I think we will change next year is to do the raffle right in the middle at 2:30. The day started off pretty slow as I think most of you wanted to be here for the raffle at 3. If we move it up a ½ hour you can either come for the cookout and tasting before the raffle or after. If anybody has any other ideas, comments, criticisms, or compliments please feel free to let us know.
We don’t have a beer tasting lined up for this week, but my cousin Vinny will be here next week to sample you on some of his craft beers. We do have a double tasting lined up for this Friday. The time will be a ½ hour later from 5 to 8 PM. We will have a representative (I’m tired of writing supermodels only to be disappointed by the “dudes” the tasting companies send me) from Rum Jumbie here to sample you on their deliciously fruity rums. They will have the Pineapple, Mango, Vanilla, Coconut, and even the crazy Orange Liquor in the Mr. Buderworth bottle with the straw hat for you to try. As an added bonus we have our own Cork’s supermodel Kat here to taste you on the House Jam Wines. She will have the Chillen White and the Smooth Red. These are fun, refreshing summer wines and only 2 for $16. She’s even going to mix up Rum Jumbie with the Chillen White and make a delicious White Sangria for you as well.
We have some interesting stuff lined up for you this fall. We are currently reviewing a couple of different plan-o-grams and will be re-doing the entire beer cooler. We will be taking the 30-packs and large 24 pk bottle cases out of the cooler and have them stacked in the WALK-IN cooler for you. This will allow us to keep even more of the craft beers cold and increase our total number of beers in the cooler. We will be starting a liquor-mixology night every month with former bartenders Mark and Dani. Starting in September we will have our Johnson & Wales trained cook Leah, doing a cooking demonstration as I pair wines to go with these delicious dishes. So there is a whole bunch of stuff we have planned for the Fall Season and beyond here at Cork’s. One last reminder…if you are a fan of any of the “Summer” beers we’ve had this season you have a limited time to come scoop them up, because Oktoberfest and Autumn beers will be hitting next week!.....mmmmm….my favorite beer season!
Robert
We don’t have a beer tasting lined up for this week, but my cousin Vinny will be here next week to sample you on some of his craft beers. We do have a double tasting lined up for this Friday. The time will be a ½ hour later from 5 to 8 PM. We will have a representative (I’m tired of writing supermodels only to be disappointed by the “dudes” the tasting companies send me) from Rum Jumbie here to sample you on their deliciously fruity rums. They will have the Pineapple, Mango, Vanilla, Coconut, and even the crazy Orange Liquor in the Mr. Buderworth bottle with the straw hat for you to try. As an added bonus we have our own Cork’s supermodel Kat here to taste you on the House Jam Wines. She will have the Chillen White and the Smooth Red. These are fun, refreshing summer wines and only 2 for $16. She’s even going to mix up Rum Jumbie with the Chillen White and make a delicious White Sangria for you as well.
We have some interesting stuff lined up for you this fall. We are currently reviewing a couple of different plan-o-grams and will be re-doing the entire beer cooler. We will be taking the 30-packs and large 24 pk bottle cases out of the cooler and have them stacked in the WALK-IN cooler for you. This will allow us to keep even more of the craft beers cold and increase our total number of beers in the cooler. We will be starting a liquor-mixology night every month with former bartenders Mark and Dani. Starting in September we will have our Johnson & Wales trained cook Leah, doing a cooking demonstration as I pair wines to go with these delicious dishes. So there is a whole bunch of stuff we have planned for the Fall Season and beyond here at Cork’s. One last reminder…if you are a fan of any of the “Summer” beers we’ve had this season you have a limited time to come scoop them up, because Oktoberfest and Autumn beers will be hitting next week!.....mmmmm….my favorite beer season!
Robert
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)