From Saturday, May 1, through Wednesday, May 5, actor Dwayne Johnson, commonly known as The Rock, has big plans involving you, guacamole and Teremana tequila cocktails. While you have to pay for the libation, Johnson will buy your guacamole.
“No better way to celebrate my 397th birthday, than with all of us helping our favorite local restaurants get back on their feet, all while drinking some Teremana and enjoying our favorite guacamole, says Johnson via press release (we tried to contact him directly, but he wasn t taking our calls). These people need our help and support to get back in business, so let’s go help them out, enjoy some amazing drinks and food and say thank you for all they do.
Just over a year ago, Gerry Kim and Josh Gertzen, the owners of the duo of Frozen Matter ice cream shops in Uptown and Washington Park, purchased Sweet Action, an established Denver brand with its own loyal following at 52 Broadway. While the pandemic postponed Kim and Gertzen s plans for merging the two brands, they ve recently been putting those plans in motion. We spent six months just thinking about what we wanted the future to look like, Gertzen says.
But after giving it much thought, the couple made a decision as difficult as it was bold: They re phasing out the name Frozen Matter in favor of Sweet Action. At first, the primary focus was just getting all the stores through the pandemic, Kim adds. March is when we usually get a big upswing coming out of winter, but not last year. Most of our ice cream was being sold in groceries.
Stranahan s classic bottle of small-batch American single is getting old. To celebrate the fifteen-year anniversary of the first bottling of Stranahan s, the distillery is releasing its original expression with new labels and an older spirit in the bottle. The new release will bear the word Original on the label, giving whiskey drinkers a chance to get a taste of the distillery s seventeen-year history. We decided it was a great time to elevate that original recipe, and we are now delivering this well-made,] aged whiskey that contains the same DNA of our past original and maintains the same profile that everyone knows, says Stranahan s head distiller, Owen Martin, who is launching the new product to commemorate the first bottles that were filled way back in 2006. I think longtime fans will be happy, and those who haven t had Stranahan s in a long time, well, it s a reason to check it out again.
Last year was hard for Ela Family Farms in Hotchkiss after a frost took out many of its fruit buds in the spring. And it looks like 2021 could be even more difficult because of another storm that came through in October 2020 and killed about 15 percent of the fruit trees. We will know more when things leaf out or don t leaf out, says Steve Ela, a fourth-generation farmer and owner of the orchard. So far, 15 percent of our acreage appears to be dead, and there are some that are injured. We ll see how it goes.
The loss of trees has already proven extensive enough that Ela decided to suspend the farm s 2021 CSA program, which in normal years sells apples, pears, peaches, cherries and other fruit directly to subscribers. The truth, he says, is that with around 5,000 trees gone, he doesn t know if he will have enough fruit to fulfill the pre-orders a CSA demands, and it seemed better for the farm, his family and the customers to suspend it until he knows the extent of the tree dama
Whiskey made in single-pot stills isn t common in the U.S., but it s an old and honorable way of making Irish whiskey that dates back to the late 1700s, according to Patrick and Meagan Miller, the owners of Talnua Distillery in Arvada. In fact, the method was the only way they wanted to produce spirits once they decided to open Talnua.
True Irish single-pot still whiskey must meet several criteria: It must contain at least 30 percent each of malted and un-malted barley, it must be made in a traditional copper pot still, and it must be distilled in Ireland. The Millers obviously couldn t fulfill that last requirement in Arvada, but that s okay with them.