Sips on the Road: Nani Moon Mead - Kapa'a, Kaua'i, Hawai'i

For the most exotic edition yet of “Sips on the Road”, I visited Nani Moon Mead (@nanimoon) located in Kapa'a on the beautiful island of Kaua'i, Hawai'i during a vacation back in February. Now mead hasn’t always been a go-to for me, the varieties of it that I’ve tried in WA have been too sweet for my taste. Well I will shun it no more! At this visit, I learned a great deal about mead and Nani Moon’s dedication to being a locally sourced operation. Owner and “Queen Bee” Nina Krieger took us through her operation, the meads, and the history of mead during our wonderful visit to the tasting room.

Reverend Nat's Cider conquers Portland looks to Seattle

Wedding bells and “highly quaffable” ciders…not likely something many people would pair together, but with Reverend Nat’s hard cider that’s the point.

Eight years ago Nat started making cider in his basement with the help of a friend’s apple tree which at the time produced as much as they needed for their hobby.  Skip ahead to just two and a half years ago and that hobby has found a new production home, success around Portland, OR and now in 2013 Nat hopes to find success with his passion in Seattle.  Using a handshake to obtain his apples from PNW growers Nat has moved to a 3,500 square foot production facility where he can produce 24,000 cases a year of their dry to off-dry ciders.  Additionally as the cidery name might indicate Nat is an ordained minister and will be able to perform weddings in his new facility.

31 Days of Washington Wine in 140 Characters or Less

To celebrate Washington Wine Month, held each year in March, I thought it might be fun (and educational) to tweet #WAwinefacts each and every day of March. This was a really fun project and I learned so much more about Washington wine in the process. There were a few days I messed up (i.e. posted the one for the 3rd after midnight so it was technically the 4th. But hey, I hadn't gone to bed yet, so it was totally still the 3rd. Also missed the 8th because I was out of town and ended up posting a 2 for 1 on the 9th), but overall I achieved my goal! 31 days of March and 31 different #WAwinefacts! I compiled them all here so you could have a quick educational lesson on how the juice in our fine state has come to be.

The New and Notable of Taste Washington 2013

Well another wonderful Taste Washington has come and gone, and I came away with some AWESOME new finds in both the wine and restaurant arenas. This year, I walked in with a plan of attack. I’ve been to a lot of wine events, and often times I find myself drawn to the wineries I have had and enjoyed previously. So this time around I decided that I was going to visit just a few of those never fail wineries (mostly the ones that really don’t ever pour at events either) and make my focus on trying wines from wineries that I had never even heard of. What a success it was! I also found some great bites from some restaurants that I will be making visits to ASAP. We started at one side of the room in A and basically worked our way across the room to Z all afternoon. We had some great finds to show for it