Over the weekend we had a very busy time at the Winery. Saturday night was the culmination of a month of work by several dozen people from the area who entered in our Gingerbread House competition for charity. We have had several classes a week on how to make and decorate gingerbread houses and ended up with almost thirty contestants. There were five categories: Professional, Under 17, Traditional, Historical, and Fantasy. There were some absolutely wonderful creations, and I was surprised at the quality of all the entries, especially the fact that some of the best were by people who had never done this before.

Sunday night I went to a Sunday Night Cocktail event hosted by my friend and award winning mixologist, Lydia Reismueller, formerly of the speakeasy style cocktail bar PDT and restaurant/cocktail bar Elettaria in NYC. Lydia has been having these Sunday events for the past two months at the Westcot Forge restaurant in Blue Hill, ME and they have been a big success. I tried a few of her new creations and said my good-bye's for the season, as she heads off to travel the world until March with her chef boyfriend. I'm already looking forward to when she starts up the Cocktail Sundays again next Spring when she comes back to manage one of the excellent, local, organic farms.


My supposed days off, Sunday and Monday, were filled with working on distilling and brewing research, writing, and consulting. Having three or four careers at the same time is getting exhausting. Tuesday we were back at the brewery, putting in some of the final touches. We still have a few more things to wrap up, but are now able to brew beer. Wednesday I got a delivery of another two tons of peach puree to make into brandy when we put the distillery online. Later in the day we did a wet run on the system, boiling water and testing how well everything works. So we're going to brew our Old Factory Whistle Red Scottish Ale...and now it's time for me to move on to brewing and distilling full time. Stop by our Winterport Winery, and our Restaurant and Culinary School, Pairings, as well as our new brewery and distillery to try our products. Keep your eyes open for premium spirits from Penobscot Bay Distillery starting in Spring 2009. Tune in to Diary of a Distiller here for more of the story in the coming months. Cheers! -Jonathan-