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 have 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

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