Category: Cover Stories

From semiquincentennial to superheroes, a guide to regional museums

One of the great advantages of living in New Hampshire is a sense of history. Everywhere, there are reminders of the state’s heritage, from colonial days to the first in the nation primary and beyond. Is it any wonder America’s leading documentary filmmaker hails from the Granite State?

As the Declaration of Independence’s 250th anniversary nears, it’s a great time to visit a museum. There are many choices, such as local historical societies, places dedicated to New Hampshire’s rich industrial past like the Millyard Museum and Belknap Mill, and a quirky telephone museum in Warner.

For something off history’s path, Manchester’s Currier Museum of Art’s “Summer of Photography” has works from “Danny Lyon: The Bikeriders,” shown beside a pair of Harley-Davidson motorcycles, and “Together, Apart, and Away: Snapshots from the Peter J. Cohen Collection.”

Together, Currier Director of Marketing and Communications Ali Goldstein noted recently, they tell distinct stories about shared human experiences. “Sweeping and personal, nostalgic and timely,” she said, they “herald the beginning of a season of road trips, family adventures, and the making of new memories.”

With that in mind, here’s a guide to exploring regional museums, with information from the location’s websites and social media pages (call to double check times and other details before setting forth).

America’s Stonehenge

105 Haverhill Road, North Salem (893-8300, stonehengeusa.com)

Hours: Daily 9 a.m.-5 p.m. (last admission 4 p.m.), open year-round (closed Thanksgiving and Christmas)

Admission: $19

Description: Complex of man-made stone chambers, walls, and standing stones, it’s potentially the oldest constructed site in the United States. Like Stonehenge in England, it appears to have served as an accurate astronomical calendar.

Don’t miss: The Oracle Chamber — a subterranean stone passage with acoustic properties that are still not fully understood — and witnessing the summer solstice sunrise alignment at dawn from the main site.

American Independence Museum

1 Governors Lane, Exeter (772-2622, independencemuseum.org)

Hours: Thursday-Saturday 10 a.m.-4 p.m., open May-November

Admission: $8 (NH Museum Trail Member)

Description: During the American Revolution, this building served as the state treasury, where the Gilman family stored New Hampshire’s wartime finances. Today the museum’s permanent collection of founding documents includes an original Dunlap Broadside printing of the Declaration of Independence, early drafts of the U.S. Constitution with editorial annotations, and a wealth of Revolutionary-era correspondence and artifacts.

Don’t miss: A rare surviving copy of the first printed announcement of America’s independence, the Dunlap Broadside printing of the Declaration of Independence.

Andres Institute of Art

106 Route 13, Brookline (732-0216, andresinstitute.org)

Hours: daylight hours, open year-round

Admission: Free

Description: Founded in 1996, the Institute creates a thought-provoking dialogue between art and nature in its 140-acre outdoor sculpture park, with more than 100 large-scale works on wooded trails. Allow two or three hours for exploring, and bring sturdy shoes. The Institute also hosts regular concerts.

Don’t miss: The main sculpture trail at golden hour offers a magical atmosphere, as low, warm light hits the stone and metal works, highlighting their features.

Aviation Museum of New Hampshire

27 Navigator Road, Londonderry (669-4820, aviationmuseumofnh.org)

Hours: Wednesday-Saturday 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Sunday 1-4 p.m., open year-round

Admission: $15 for ages 13-64, others $7.50 (NH Museum Trail member)

Description: Housed in a restored 1937 Art Deco terminal and control tower at the edge of the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport, the museum preserves and celebrates New Hampshire’s rich aviation heritage, from early barnstormers to World War II aces to modern aerospace pioneers.

Don’t miss: A display honoring the first American in space, New Hampshire’s own Alan Shepard. Saturdays from 1 to 4 p.m., try the hands-on Elite Flight Simulator, a realistic, all-ages flight experience.

Belknap Mill Museum

25 Beacon St. East, Laconia (524-8813, belknapmill.org)

Hours: Thursday-Saturday 10 a.m.-4 p.m., open year-round

Admission: $10 for adults (NH Museum Trail member)

Description: Built in 1823, the country’s oldest unaltered brick textile mill is a designated National Historic Landmark. Originally a weaving mill, it switched to knitting during the Civil War and operated as a hosiery mill until 1969. Along with exhibits, the Mill regularly holds outdoor concerts from early June to Labor Day.

Don’t miss: The Knitting Room, with historic hosiery knitting machines that show how the building functioned as a 19th-century textile factory, and the Powerhouse exhibit, showcasing 200 years of hydro-power history.

Canterbury Shaker Village

288 Shaker Road, Canterbury (783-9511, shakers.org)

Hours: Daily 10 a.m.-4 p.m. (May-October); weekends only November; grounds open year-round

Admission: $25 (NH Museum Trail member)

Description: One of the finest and most intact surviving Shaker community sites in the world. At its peak around 1850, approximately 300 Shakers lived and worked here in 100 buildings. The last Canterbury sister, Ethel Hudson, died in 1992, after which the site transitioned fully into a museum.

Don’t miss: The Dwelling House displays the spare, functional beauty of Shaker furniture and architecture and how it embodies a design philosophy that was nearly 150 years ahead of its time.

Castle in the Clouds (Lucknow Estate)

586 Ossipee Park Road, Moultonborough (476-5900, castleintheclouds.org)

Hours: Entrance closes 3 p.m.; last trolley to mansion 3:45 p.m., Open late May-early October

Admission: $23 (NH Museum Trail member)

Description: The 1913-1914 Craftsman mansion sits above Lake Winnipesaukee, a National Historic Landmark with 5,500 acres of trails. Officially the Lucknow Estate, it was built by millionaire shoe manufacturer Thomas Gustave Plant and his wife Olive.

Don’t miss: The behind-the-scenes basement tour, which reveals the mansion’s innovative (for the early 20th century) mechanical systems. Same-day tour tickets are available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Children’s Museum of New Hampshire

6 Washington St., Dover (742-2002, childrens-museum.org)

Hours: Tuesday 9 a.m.-noon; Wednesday-Saturday 9 a.m.-noon and 1-4 p.m.; Sunday 9 a.m.-noon; closed Monday, open year-round

Admission: $14.50 ($12.50 for seniors)

Description: Two floors of joyful, interactive exhibits for children from newborn through middle school. The museum’s approach is rooted in a conviction that children learn best through play, exploration and hands-on discovery. Timed sessions keep things manageable.

Don’t miss: The STEAM Innovation Lab, where children design, build and test their own inventions. It’s a transformative experience that gives youngsters an early opportunity to think like an engineer.

Clark House Museum Complex

233 S. Main St., Wolfeboro (569-4997, wolfeborohistoricalsociety.org)

Hours: Wednesday-Friday 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Saturday 10 a.m.-2 p.m., open July 1 – Labor Day

Admission: $4

Description: Captures the layered colonial and 19th-century heritage of the town billed as America’s Oldest Summer Resort, with the 1778 Clark House, an 1805 schoolhouse, a replica firehouse and an 1820s barn. Another worthwhile attraction is the Wolfeboro Historical Society’s strong genealogy and research library.

Don’t miss: The restored 1875 Amoskeag Steam Fire Engine in the Firehouse Museum, one of the finest surviving examples of 19th-century firefighting technology.

Currier Museum of Art

150 Ash St., Manchester (669-6144, www.currier.org)

Hours: Wednesday-Sunday 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; closed Monday-Tuesday, open year-round

Admission: $15

Description: One of New England’s finest art museums and a jewel of Manchester’s cultural life, with a permanent collection of more than 11,000 objects spanning European and American art from the 12th century to the present. Beyond that, the Currier owns and maintains two Frank Lloyd Wright-designed houses.

Don’t miss: The intimate tour of Wright’s Zimmerman House and its beautifully preserved Usonian interior. Reserve well in advance, as this deeply personal encounter with the architectural genius sells out quickly.

Exeter Historical Society

47 Front St., Exeter (778-2335, exeterhistory.org)

Hours: Tuesday and Thursday 2-4:30 p.m.; Saturday 9:30 a.m.-noon, open year-round

Admission: Free (donation suggested)

Description: Founded in 1964, the Society has an impressive collection of artifacts, photographs, maps, documents and research materials spanning nearly four centuries of Exeter history, from its founding in 1638 and its pivotal role in the Revolution (it was briefly the state capital) to the growth of Phillips Exeter Academy.

Don’t miss: Check out the many Native American artifacts along with pieces from President Lincoln’s visit to the town as part of his Cooper Union speech tour in 1860.

John Hay Estate at The Fells

456 Route 103A, Newbury (763-4789, thefells.org)

Hours: Wednesdays-Sundays June 17-Sept. 12, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., opens May 23

Admission: $15 (NH Museum Trail member)

Description: The lakeside retreat of American statesman John Milton Hay and his wife Clara was built in 1891 and refined in the early 20th century under the direction of prominent New York architect and landscape designer Prentice Sanger. Docent-led guided tours are conducted at 1 p.m., when the Main House is open.

Don’t miss: “Gardening in Granite,” an exhibit that draws on the reflections of John Hay’s son Clarence Hay regarding the ingenuity and perseverance required to garden in the rocky terrain of The Fells.

John Paul Jones House

43 Middle St., Portsmouth (436-8433, portsmouthhistory.org)

Hours: Thursday-Monday 10 a.m.-4 p.m., open Memorial Day-October

Admission: $6 (NH Museum Trail member)

Description: Run by the Portsmouth Historical Society, which also runs the Discover Portsmouth Center at 10 Middle St., this is a 1758 Georgian boarding house where John Paul Jones stayed.

Don’t miss: The museum’s collection of 18th- and 19th-century Portsmouth silverware, paintings, and household objects that illuminate the refined domestic life of a prosperous colonial seaport.

L. L. Lee Scouting Museum

395 Blondin Road, Manchester (867-2501, scoutingmuseum.nhscouting.org)

Hours: Wednesday 10 a.m.-4 p.m., select Saturdays 10 a.m.-3 p.m., open year-round

Admission: Free (donation suggested) (NH Museum Trail member)

Description: Contains colorful and historic exhibits on the history of scouting, including original paintings of Boy’s Life covers, a flag taken to the moon by astronaut and Scout Alan Shepard, plus a display of sketches, letters, and Boer War memorabilia belonging to Scouting’s founder, Robert Baden-Powell.

Don’t miss: The large collection of “sealed samples” — one-of-a-kind prototypes of new uniforms, patches, awards and gear, some going back to the beginnings of Scouting In America, with items like a uniform dating back to 1920 signed by the first National Scout Executive, James E. West.

Laconia Historical & Museum Society

695 N. Main St. (Laconia Public Library), Laconia (527-1278, laconiahistory.com)

Hours: Monday-Saturday 9 a.m.-4 p.m., open year-round

Admission: Free

Description: Set inside the Laconia Public Library, it has regular programs on Lakes Region history. Exhibits highlight its heritage in boatbuilding and knitting mills, along with a focus on Scott & Williams Machinery, a company that was once the world’s leading supplier of circular knitting machinery.

Don’t miss: “Then & Now: The Weirs,” a collection of historical photographs tracing the property’s evolution from an Indigenous gathering place to a 19th-century resort and the NH Veterans Association encampment.

Lake Winnipesaukee Museum

503 Endicott St. North (Route 3), Laconia (366-5950, lwhs.us)

Hours: Wednesday-Saturday 10 a.m.-4 p.m., open mid-June-Columbus Day

Admission: Free (NH Museum Trail member)

Description: The volunteer-run museum’s property is a historic landmark, purchased in 1923 by lifelong resident and long-time state legislator David O’Shan. First run as a poultry farm, it was developed by O’Shan into a cabin colony in the 1930s. The Museum building is his original residence, and the yellow cottages nearby are part of the original cabin colony.

Don’t miss: “The Steamboat Era” includes photographs and artifacts from a variety of old vessels, a working model of the old Mount, and a collection of photographs showing the launching of the new Mount in 1940.

McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center

2 Institute Dr., Concord (271-7827, starhop.com)

Hours: Wednesday-Sunday 10:30 a.m.-4 p.m. (fall/winter/spring); daily summer; open all NH school vacation weeks, open year-round

Admission: $13

Description: New England’s leading air and space museum honors two New Hampshire heroes of the Space Age: Christa McAuliffe, the Concord High School social studies teacher was was selected from more than 11,000 applicants to be NASA’s first Teacher in Space and perished in the Challenger disaster of 1986; and Alan Shepard, who became the first American in space in 1961 and walked on the moon in 1971.

Don’t miss: A planetarium show in the Center’s 10K full-dome theater. It’s one of only three such systems in North America, offering an immersion in space that no home theater or cinema house can replicate.

Meredith Historical Society

45 Main St. and 61 Winona Road, Meredith (279-1190, meredithhistoricalsocietynh.org)

Hours: Main Street, Saturday 12:30-3 p.m.; Farm Museum, contact for hours, open Saturdays

Admission: Free

Description: The compact and charming Main Street Museum is open on Saturdays only and offers visitors a view into the rich history of the region, initially settled in 1748. The Farm Museum, focused on the annual life cycle of a New Hampshire farm, is only open for special events (check website for those).

Don’t miss: The Society’s Farm Museum, displaying the tools and implements used by 19th-century farmers, laid out in sections highlighting the activities during each of the four seasons.

Millyard Museum

200 Bedford St., Suite 103, Manchester (622-7531, manchesterhistoric.org)

Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 10 a.m.-4 p.m., open year-round

Admission: $12 (NH Museum Trail member)

Description: Operated by the Manchester Historic Association, the museum sits in a space that was once home to the world’s largest textile manufacturing complex. Its collection contains more than 600,000 documents and artifacts, from neon shoe store signs and Victorian household objects to massive textile looms.

Don’t miss: “Reflections of the Revolution: The Derryfield Perspective,” celebrating the U.S. semiquincentennial with portraits, artifacts and stories from Manchester residents involved in the fight for independence.

Mt. Kearsarge Indian Museum

18 Highwatch Road, Warner (456-2600, indianmuseum.org)

Hours: Summer, Monday-Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Sunday noon-5 p.m.; winter: Friday-Saturday 10 a.m.-4 p.m. (tours 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.); open year-round

Admission: $15 (NH Museum Trail member)

Description: New Hampshire’s only Native American museum preserves and interprets cultures from across the North American continent, from the prehistoric past through the modern age. Its main gallery contains thousands of Native-made objects, including clothing, baskets, beadwork, ceramics, carvings and tools, all contextualized within the living traditions of the tribal nations who created them.

Don’t miss: The Medicine Woods Trail is an educational walk through plants used by Native Americans for medicine, food and shelter. It reflects a philosophy that understanding Native culture begins with recognizing its deep relationship with the land.

Nashua Historical Society

5 Abbott St., Nashua (883-0015, nashuahistoricalsociety.org)

Hours: Tuesday-Thursday 9 a.m.-4 p.m. (office); house museum tours by appointment, open year-round

Admission: $10

Description: The museum’s galleries present both permanent and rotating exhibitions covering Nashua’s industrial history, its role in the Civil War, the immigrant communities that transformed the city in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the lives of notable Nashua residents.

Don’t miss: Declaring Independence: Then & Now, a live performance happening on June 4, utilizing primary source material to reveal how local colonists engaged with the independence movement in 1776, followed by an annotated reading of the Declaration of Independence.

New Hampshire Boat Museum

130 Whittier Highway (Route 25), Moultonborough (569-4554, nhbm.org)

Hours: Wednesday-Saturday 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Sunday noon-4 p.m., open seasonally

Admission: $5 (NH Museum Trail member)

Description: Founded in 1992 by boating enthusiasts, the sprawling facility has more than 2,500 objects, including vintage motorboats, canoes, race boats, engines, ephemera. The museum is now in the midst of transforming 6,500 square feet of its main floor into a hub for education, exhibits and more.

Don’t miss: A rare 1929 Chris-Craft Closed-Cabin Limousine Sedan, one of only five in existence. Designed to ferry commuters or party guests, it was last used by a doctor and his family at their Lake Sunapee retreat.

New Hampshire Historical Society

30 Park St., Concord (228-6688, nhhistory.org)

Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m., open year-round

Admission: $10 (NH Museum Trail member)

Description: Founded 1823, it’s the oldest and most comprehensive repository of Granite State history, with permanent galleries including a 19th-century Concord Coach, a collection of White Mountain art by masters like Benjamin Champney and Frank Shapleigh, Abenaki artifacts, and a rich array of historical objects.

Don’t miss: The Concord Coach, one of the most famous wheeled vehicles in American history. The stagecoach, manufactured in Concord, carried mail, passengers, and gold across the American West.

New Hampshire Telephone Museum

1 Depot St., Warner (456-2234, nhtelephonemuseum.org)

Hours: Tuesday and Saturday 10 a.m.-4 p.m. (May-October); limited November-December and March-April; closed January-February

Admission: $9

Description: This wonderfully specialized museum traces the evolution of telecommunications from early telephones to the wireless devices of today, with particular attention to the unique history of telephone service in New Hampshire.

Don’t miss: A collection of hand-cranked magneto telephones and early switchboards, along with the story of how the 1938 hurricane hastened the end of the state’s era of local, independent phone companies.

Robert Frost Farm

122 Rockingham Road, Derry (432-3091, robertfrostfarm.org)

Hours: Thursday-Monday 10 a.m.-4 p.m. (last tour 3 p.m.); grounds dawn-dusk year-round, open May 22-Oct. 12

Admission: $5

Description: A National Historic Landmark and State Historic Site preserving the two-story white clapboard farmhouse where the poet and his family lived from 1900 to 1911. They were formative years; the majority of the poems in Frost’s first two books, as well as many poems from his third, were written during that time.

Don’t miss: The kitchen where Frost wrote his early masterpieces by lamplight, as well as the staircase that inspired one of his most wrenching dramatic poems, “Home Burial.”

Sandwich Historical Society

4 Maple St., Center Sandwich (284-6269, sandwichhistorical.org)

Hours: Most Sundays 1-4 p.m., open April-September

Admission: Free

Description: With two facilities, the circa 1850 Eliza Marston House and the Quimby Barn Transportation Museum, the Society’s mission is to “collect and preserve the material culture and historical record … in service to the public through educational experiences and outreach to the community.”

Don’t miss: From June 27 through Sept. 5, celebrate 100 years of the Sandwich Home Industries, a look at the legacy of Mary and J. Randolph Coolidge, how the support of local artisans contributed to the effort, and a display of collected artifacts from a century of retail.

Seacoast Science Center

570 Ocean Blvd. (Odiorne Point State Park), Rye (436-8043, seacoastsciencecenter.org)

Hours: April 16-Oct. 14 open Tuesday-Sunday 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Oct. 15-April 15 open Wednesday-Sunday 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Open year-round.

Admission: $10

Description: Located inside Odiorne Point State Park (separate entry fee), this is the state’s premiere marine science education institution. Its aquariums, indoor touch tanks and interactive exhibits bring the ecology of the Gulf of Maine to life for visitors of all ages.

Don’t miss: The suspended 32-foot humpback whale skeleton that hangs in the main gallery and provides an impressive reminder of the scale of marine life in the nearby waters.

SEE Science Center

200 Bedford St., Manchester (669-0400, see-sciencecenter.org)

Hours: Tuesday-Friday 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; closed Monday, open year-round

Admission: $15

Description: Manchester’s hands-on science discovery center is located in the same mill building as the Millyard Museum. Founded in 1986, SEE engages visitors of all ages in the joys of actively exploring science, technology, engineering, art and math, with a wealth of interactive exhibits spread across multiple floors.

Don’t miss: The Lego Millyard Project, a stunning three-million-brick model capturing Manchester’s industrial past at minifigure scale. This feat of civic artistry is the largest such installation in the world.

Strawbery Banke Museum

14 Hancock St., Portsmouth (433-1100, strawberybanke.org)

Hours: May-June and September-October, weekdays 10 a.m.-4 p.m., weekends 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; July-August daily 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Open May-October (plus winter Candlelight Strolls)

Admission: $25 (NH Museum Trail member)

Description: A wonderfully inspiring outdoor museum and New Hampshire’s first Smithsonian Affiliate, with more than 30 historic buildings, it preserves more than 350 years of history in the Puddle Dock neighborhood of Portsmouth’s South End, where English settlers first established the colony in the 1630s.

Don’t miss: The new Cousins Apartment exhibit, which tells the story of a Black family living in 1930s and 1940s Portsmouth. It’s a moving addition to the museum’s interpretive program.

USS Albacore Museum (Albacore Park)

569 Submarine Way, Portsmouth (436-3680, ussalbacore.org)

Hours: Daily 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m., open February-mid-December

Admission: $14 (NH Museum Trail member)

Description: Built at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and launched in 1953, the USS Albacore was a pioneering research submarine. Its revolutionary teardrop hull design became the template for future subs. The 205-foot vessel now sits in a dry basin surrounded by a memorial garden, maritime museum gallery and gift shop.

Don’t miss: The periscope walk-through in the sub’s control room, along with compelling audio narration by veterans who once served aboard the fastest submarine in the world.

Woodman Institute Museum

182 Central Ave., Dover (742-1038, woodmanmuseum.org)

Hours: April-November, Wednesday-Sunday 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; December-March, Saturday-Sunday 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Open year-round.

Admission: $16 (NH Museum Trail member)

Description: Called “a Victorian cabinet of curiosities” by one writer, this complex encompasses history, natural history, militaria, decorative arts — and sewer-dwelling action heroes. It includes one of the state’s oldest intact garrison houses, a Victorian funeral exhibit with a horse-drawn hearse and a medicinal garden.

Don’t miss: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Collection, added in 2024 in recognition of the made-in-Dover franchise. It includes bronze statues of the comic’s characters, donated by co-creator Kevin Eastman.

Wright Museum of World War II

77 Center St., Wolfeboro (569-1212, wrightmuseum.org)

Hours: Monday-Saturday 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Sunday noon-4 p.m., open May 1-Oct. 31

Admission: $16

Description: Founded in 1994, this 20,000-square-foot institution is dedicated to educating, entertaining and inspiring visitors with the story of WWII-era Americans. Its signature Time Tunnel strolls visitors through American home life during the war years. For America’s 250th, it’s highlighting the contributions of the nearby Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.

Don’t miss: The Military Vehicle Collection, particularly an operational WWII tank that looks to have blasted through an exterior wall. On special Family Day events there’s the chance to ride in one of the vehicles.

21 museums for the price of two : A look at the NH Heritage Museum Trail Passport

A vital tool for diving into the state’s heritage, the NH Heritage Museum Trail Passport provides a year’s worth of access to 21 different museums for just $30. Led by Manchester Historical Association Executive Director Jeff Barraclough, the Museum Trail was created as a collaborative marketing effort.

“It’s an incentive for people to seek out museums that they otherwise might not have visited … we’ve found it’s a great way to help promote one another,” Barraclough said by phone recently. “If someone is going to be visiting two museums in the course of a year, it’s basically worth it.”

From the Aviation Museum in Londonderry, at the fringes of Manchester’s regional airport, to the Millyard Museum (also led by Barraclough) and its rich manufacturing history, along with unique New Hampshire Boat Museum in the Lakes Region and the oddball Woodman Museum in Dover, there’s lots to explore.

“There’s a bunch of different things that folks might not immediately think of, but this is an opportunity for them to consider it,” Barraclough continued, adding that the 250th anniversary of American Independence is another driving force.

“I think there’s a heightened interest in our country’s history,” he said. “At the Millyard Museum, we opened a temporary exhibit on Manchester’s role in the Revolution, talking about John Stark and other key people … and there are watch parties throughout the state relating to Ken Burns’ American Revolution series.”

Starting with a December 2024 event to mark the 1774 raid on Fort William & Mary, NHMT member museums have participated in an ongoing initiative highlighting key people in New Hampshire history, called “25 Stories for 250 Years.” Barraclough noted that it covers a widely diverse field.

“There are stories about the USS Albacore, the fastest submarine in the world; John and Lucy Hale, with John being an important anti-slavery politician in the lead-up to the Civil War and having a really impactful role on public sentiment on slavery at the time; and the Mount Washington cruise ship on Lake Winnipesaukee.”

See the full list at nhmuseumtrail.org/25-stories-for-250-years.

A look at a complex, elegant, comforting and not at all ordinary culinary star

We take vanilla for granted. According to pastry chef Addie Leader-Zavos, we use vanilla as a background flavor in so many things we eat that it’s easy to forget it’s there.

“The special thing about vanilla,” Leader-Zavos said, “is that it adds so many beautiful top notes to whatever we cook with it. You want things that are going to taste good and are going to taste good in your mouth for a long time. And vanilla has so many intricacies that it really helps make other flavors more complex, more interesting. But at the same time, because it has been used for so long and in so many contexts, it’s part of what people expect. But if it’s missing in some context, it can really feel like the flavor of the food is a little flat.”

“You know, there’s no possible way for actual natural vanilla to meet the demands that we have for it,” Leader-Zavos continued. “It only comes from three or four places in the world. And there’s only two or three species that pollinate it. A lot of vanilla is actually hand pollinated. Unless it’s grown in Mexico, there aren’t any natural pollinators.”

There are dozens of flavor compounds in vanilla, but one of the main ones is a chemical called vanillin. It is present in many species of hardwood, Leader-Zavos explained, which is one of the reasons many types of alcohol — most famously bourbon — are aged in oak barrels. “Straight bourbon has to be aged in American oak barrels and also has many of the same scent components as coconut, as cocoa butter, as oddly dill. All oak species have some amount of vanillin in them — the French varieties have the most, followed by American varieties.” This is where artificial vanilla comes from, she said.

Because vanilla extract is usually suspended in an alcohol solution, many high-end pastry chefs use actual vanilla beans, Leader-Zavos said.

“Some people kind of like the flavor of the alcohol that’s with the vanilla. I don’t as much because I think it’s a little bit distracting. I want to taste just the vanilla and not the sort of alcohol. That’s sort of a preference issue.” The alcohol in vanilla extract is one reason many recipes call for adding it after a dish has come off the heat. “The flavor compounds are really volatile in vanilla. And alcohol can carry them away as it cooks off. Generally, you want to add it off the heat, or to use gentle heat, hot enough to take care of the alcohol but not hot enough to break down the vanilla compounds — about 170°F.”

Ashley Savoy is the owner and baker of Savvy Sweets and Treats, a baking business that specializes in French-style macarons. She takes vanilla very seriously. Because people typically eat macarons slowly and focus on their flavors, the vanilla she uses has to be of the highest quality possible, she said.

“We talk a lot about quality ingredients,” Savoy said, “but people tend to forget about vanilla, which can be a mistake. It really is one of those ingredients that you want to spend your time and your money on because good vanilla really can make a big difference. So in my kitchen, in my bakery, I make all of my vanilla [extract] and my vanilla paste from scratch. It’s not bought from a store. I buy high-grade vanilla beans from places that ethically source them. It’s really quite simple to make your own vanilla. People, you know, think it’s quite complicated, but it’s really not. It’s just, it’s simply vanilla beans and vodka. It’s not anything else. You don’t even really want to use a high-end vodka because the high-end vodkas tend to have more of a flavor profile. And that’s not really what you want. You want the flavor of vanilla beans.”

“Really good vanilla has a flavor that can really make a dish go from just kind of a dish to something really special,” Savoy said, “because the vanilla really does have that much of a change based on how good it is. Once you start having real vanilla — the good stuff — you’ll start to notice the difference. You can pick out that imitation vanilla almost immediately. You know that something there isn’t quite right, and you’ll end up getting a taste for it.”

“If you’re looking for more of a pronounced vanilla flavor,” Savoy said, “a lot of times people just fall back on throwing vanilla paste in, but for a pastry cream or anything like that the best thing to really do is to infuse your milk or your cream with the vanilla [beans] before you’re making your pastry, and that’s going to give you the most flavor enhancement and it’s, again, it’s quite simple to do. You just, you heat up your milk or your cream — not to a boil — just until it starts to steam a little, and then you split your vanilla pods in half and throw them in. One is usually enough. Just give it 30 minutes to an hour, and the cream is completely infused and ready to cook with.”

Vanilla pods can be used more than once, Savoy said.

“A lot of bakers who use the vanilla beans — the pods — we save them because they have a lot to give. Even if you scrape all the seeds out, down to just the pod, the pod still can be thrown in vodka and then made into vanilla extract. It still has way more life to give.”

Ice cream

Most Americans associate vanilla with ice cream. According to Jim Richardson, the owner of Richardson’s Farm Ice Cream, there’s a reason for that: Vanilla has an affinity for dairy. The problem, he said, is finding the right vanilla.

“We use an extract,” he said. “We have tried four or five different vanillas over the course of several years, and it took a while to find one that we liked better than the others, a good, clean vanilla. There are a couple that have a sharp, bitter end to them. We’ve tried the Dare [Virginia Dare, a well-regarded brand of vanilla]. It’s expensive, but I don’t like the flavor of it. And we tried a bourbon vanilla two years back, and I wound up putting two ounces of that in a batch of vanilla ice cream just to use it up, and it was vile!”

(“Bourbon” vanilla doesn’t have anything to do with bourbon whiskey; Bourbon vanilla beans are grown in a particular part of Madagascar.)

“Over the years we’ve tried several. The one that has a consistently nice flavor — a good clean vanilla — is Edgar Weber, out of Illinois. We use almost all of their flavors because they make all natural flavors and they won’t sell it to us unless we sample it. If you want a sample to try something, you call them up and they’ll ship us eight ounces … or 12 ounces, depending on what we’re making.”

Richardson said vanilla ice cream is in such a constant high demand that he keeps two tubs of it open in the freezer at all times.

“We use it all the time,” he said. “Sometimes the two look like different colors, because [vanilla ice cream] changes color as it warms up. It also tends to be a little bit softer. With warmer ice cream, the flavor comes through more.”

By the way, when looking for vanilla ice cream you might find both vanilla and French vanilla on the menu. What’s the difference? Eggs. French vanilla uses a custard base made with eggs, which is why it has a deeper, slightly more yellow color than plain vanilla. Ice cream made without eggs is referred to as “Philadelphia-style” ice cream.

Beer

At a completely different end of the food spectrum from ice cream is beer. Brian Parda is the head of sales and marketing for Great North Aleworks, which is known for its vanilla porter.

“Our Robust Vanilla Porter dates all the way back to the beginning of Great North Airworks,” he said. “It was one of our original releases and it goes back even before the brewery. It was one of the original home-brew recipes that the owners, Rob and Lisa [North], would serve when their friends came over. If they didn’t have it on tap at home people would be outraged. And so we’ve been making it for over 10 years now and we make it year-round. As a matter of fact, a couple of summers ago we tried to pause making it for a couple months over the summer because sales will slow a little bit. But we got enough phone calls and emails and messages that we never did that again. So we now make it year-round.”

One of the reasons Great North’s vanilla porter is so popular, Parda said, is that it defies expectations.

“Porter is a darker beer,” he said. “I mean, if you hold it up to the light, it’s more brown than black. Obviously, you eat and drink with your eyes, but I think a lot of people see a dark beer and are intimidated by that. They think it’s going to be heavy and thick and rich and cloying and sweet. The porter that we brew before we add the vanilla is actually a very light drinkable beer. It’s flavorful. It has a lot of those darker flavors — kind of more reminiscent on the chocolate side than on the heavy roast, like a stout would be. It doesn’t really have the heavy coffee roast, but a little bit of coffee. I think the vanilla bridges that gap there where people kind of go from intimidated to, ‘Oh, wow, that’s actually really good.’ We get a lot of that when we’re pouring it for somebody for the first time.”

“I think that vanilla, when people smell it,” Parda continued, “it usually has a positive olfactory memory for people. You smell vanilla and you think of all kinds of great, delicious things. So yeah, maybe it’s being taken for granted or considered ordinary — like ‘plain vanilla’ — that kind of thing. But I think it’s actually kind of the special sauce, if you will, for our porter. I don’t know that it would sell as well if we made it without it.”

“When I’m sampling it, either at a store or at a beer festival,” he said, “if someone comes up to the table and they say, ‘Hey, what’ve you got?’ I’ll tell them about our IPAs [India Pale Ales — light, very hop-forward beers] and they’ll be like, ‘Oh, I don’t want anything too bitter. I don’t want anything too hoppy.’ I’ll say, ‘Why don’t you try my porter?’ and they’re like, ‘I don’t know…,’ and they get all intimidated. It’s funny, because I think the vanilla kind of shocks them and they realize, ‘Oh, maybe I could drink a dark beer.’ I sometimes describe it as like French vanilla iced coffee for people that are trying to understand it. Again, there’s just a touch of that light roast coffee flavor from the darker malt, and then that vanilla, and it’s cold. It blows their minds a little bit.”

To avoid breaking down vanillin and other flavor compounds, the vanilla is added after the actual brewing process, Parda said.

“It’s added what we call ‘on the cold side.’ After the beer’s been fermented and is getting close to being finished as we’re preparing it to be packaged is when we add the vanilla.We use a really high-quality extract. The origin of the beans is Madagascar, if you want to get specific. A couple of years ago there was a hurricane or something in Madagascar and there was a bit of a supply issue, so we explored some other brands and some other products, and none of them worked. We couldn’t change the flavor profile too much, but thankfully we were able to source enough and we continue to be able to source that same brand.”

Scent

Many of the subtle characteristics of vanilla come from its smell, something that is very important to Tamsan Tharin, the owner and chief perfumer of Essense Parfumerie.

“One of the most interesting characteristics of vanilla,” she said, “is that it has the ability to impinge equally on both sense of smell and sense of taste. Vanilla is used in so many products. It’s considered like a comfort food. People find it very, very comforting. It’s the ultimate comfort food like sugar cookies with a slight aroma of vanilla or vanilla cake. But it’s also used in products like baby products or some cleaning products. It’s put in almost all lipsticks. So people just have the sense of comfort with the smell of vanilla. As you say, they don’t necessarily recognize it as vanilla, but they’re getting these comfort feelings from it because nothing affects our feelings and our emotional states more than smell. When you smell something, it goes right to the old part of your brain, the old lizard part of the brain and the brain stem. And so we have immediate reactions.”

“Vanilla is a base note,” Tharin said, “but it plays well with everything. It mixes with everything. You can put vanilla with musks. You can add it to powdery scents like baby powder. You can add it to oriental scents, which is an amber-based, exotic, woodsy scent. It’s comforting. … People consider it sexy and they associate it with love. And again, we’ve got the comfort association as well.”

The vanilla panel
Eden’s Table Farm (240 Stark Highway North, Dunbarton, 774-1811, edenstablefarm.square.site)
Essense Parfumerie (Main Street, Meredith, 409-2799, essense.com)
Great North Aleworks (1050 Holt Ave., No. 14, Manchester, 858-5789, greatnorthaleworks.com)
Richardson’s Farm (170 Water St., Boscawen, 796-2788, richardsonsfarmnh.com)
Savvy Sweets and Treats (Bow, 387-0241, savvysweetsandtreats.com)

Vanilla recipes

Vanilla Cream Pie

This is a vanilla-forward take on an Indiana-style sugar cream pie. It is extremely user-friendly, but during the final bake you need to watch it like a rattlesnake to make sure it doesn’t overcook.

• One pie crust, blind baked — this means prebaked. If you’ve never blind-baked a pie crust before, watch a how-to video. It’s not difficult – you will probably want to crumple up a sheet of parchment paper and weigh it down with dried beans. I like to use chickpeas.
• 1 cup (198 g) sugar
• ¼ cup (28 g) cornstarch
• 2 cups (454 g) whole milk
• ½ cup (1 stick) butter, cubed
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla paste or vanilla extract
• ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375°F.

In a medium saucepan, whisk the sugar and cornstarch into the milk. Over medium heat, bring to a simmer. The mixture will thicken considerably. Keep cooking, stirring or whisking continuously until it is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Remove the sweetened milk mixture from heat, then stir in butter and vanilla.

When everything has incorporated, transfer the mixture to your pre-baked pie shell. Bake until golden brown — after 10 minutes or so, keep a close eye on the pie to make sure it doesn’t get too dark. While delicious, the pie filling is not to be trusted; it will darken suddenly and with almost no warning.

Let the pie cool, then chill in your refrigerator for at least two hours. It is very good served at room temperature, but I prefer it very cold. It is very vanilla-forward and satisfying.

Vanilla-Rum White Russian

• 1 ounce coffee liqueur — Kahlua is the classic base for a white Russian, but coffee-flavored brandy will work well too.
• 1 ounce dark rum — because the focus of the flavors in this drink is vanilla, don’t bother using a top-shelf, expensive, aged, sipping rum for this. I like Myers’s. Yes, it’s a “spiced” rum, but guess what constitutes the spices – mostly vanilla.
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract — probably the best you can find. Artificial vanilla is perfectly fine for many applications, but not this one. Use the real stuff.
• ½ ounce Galliano — this is a vanilla-scented Italian liqueur in a really tall bottle.
• 2½ ounces half and half

In a mixing glass, stir all the ingredients except the cream with ice until it is chilled and combined thoroughly. Strain over fresh ice in a rocks glass.

Place a spoon against the side of the glass, and very gently pour the cream over the back of the spoon. The cream is slightly less dense than the boozy mixture and will float on top of it, making lava-lamp-looking layers. This is a good second-date, make-an-impression drink. It tastes of coffee, cream and, of course, vanilla.

Vanilla Soufflé

• 3 Tablespoons butter, cubed
• 3 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
• Pinch of salt
• 1 cup (227 g) whole milk
• 1 Tablespoon vanilla paste or extract, separated – 1½ teaspoons and 1½ teaspoons
• ½ cup (99 g) sugar
• 4 egg yolks
• 5 egg whites
• Butter and sugar to coat your soufflé dish

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Butter and sugar the inside of a soufflé dish — I like to use a generous amount of butter for this, about a tablespoon.

In a saucepan or small skillet, combine the flour, butter and salt to make a “roux.” This means that you will melt the butter and cook the mixture over medium heat for several minutes, until it darkens slightly to something like the color of a lion. Remove from the heat. Reassure the roux that you will come back to it; make sure it doesn’t feel abandoned.

In a small saucepan, heat the milk and half the vanilla, stirring until it reaches a gentle simmer. Add the roux to the milk mixture, and whisk to combine. Add the sugar, and bring the mixture back to a simmer, whisking constantly. Cook for two to three minutes, until it thickens noticeably.

Remove the mixture from heat and stir in the butter and the rest of the vanilla, combining thoroughly. Temper in the egg yolks. Return to the heat, and bring it back to a simmer, whisking constantly, then transfer the mixture to a mixing bowl, and set it aside to cool slightly. The egg yolks will turn the mixture yellow.

Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. Stir 1/3 of the egg whites into the yellow mixture “to loosen it up.” (This is what most cookbooks say, though in my opinion that sounds a little judgmental. Who are we to tell the mixture that it needs to loosen up?) Gently fold half of the remaining egg whites into the mixture, until it is 95 percent incorporated, then fold in the remaining egg whites.

Transfer the now fluffy egg mixture to your prepped soufflé dish. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until it has puffed up and turned golden brown. When it is ready to take out of the oven, it will still be slightly jiggly in the center.

This is when you’ll want to take a picture of your soufflé. As it cools, it will shrink a little; if you like to post photos of your food to social media, take the picture as soon as it comes out of the oven. This will be a warm, delicate, vanilla-forward dessert that will top off your cooking confidence. Soufflés have a reputation for being temperamental. They really aren’t, but when you manage to achieve soufflé victory, you will know that you are capable of anything.

Vanilla Tapioca Pudding

This is a delicious, very old-fashioned dessert, with a caviar-like texture.

• 2 cups (454 g) whole milk
• 1 cup (227 ) heavy cream
• 1/3 cup (61 g) small-pearl tapioca
• Pinch of salt
• 1 egg yolk, beaten
• 1/3 cup (66 g) sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla paste or extract
• I Tablespoon nonfat dry milk (optional)

Combine the milk, cream, salt and tapioca, then set it aside for 45 minutes or so, to let the tapioca pearls hydrate.

Add the sugar and milk powder, and cook over medium heat until it reaches a simmer. Cook the mixture for 15 to 20 minutes, until it thickens and the tapioca becomes tender.

Remove the mixture from the heat, and whisk in the egg yolk and vanilla. Return the mixture to the heat, and simmer it for two to three minutes, whisking continually, to make sure that the egg yolk has become completely incorporated and there are no egg pockets to turn into scrambled eggs.

Remove the mixture from the heat, and let it cool for 30 to 45 minutes, then transfer it to serving dishes, and chill overnight, or at least two hours. Serve cold with a sprinkle of grated nutmeg.

Native plants support wildlife and offer beauty in your garden

In recent years there has been a real upsurge in the use of native plants in the landscape as a way to support pollinators, birds and other wildlife. This is due, in part, to the fact that native plants are recognized and used by our wildlife, while most foreign species of plants are not. For example, birds generally nest in native trees and shrubs, but avoid those originally from Europe or Asia, and caterpillars rarely are seen on any imported species of plants. Not only that, most natives are hardy and lovely.

Scientists have found that birds depend on the caterpillars of butterflies and moths as the primary food source for baby birds. No caterpillars? No birds nesting. Entomologist Dr. Doug Tallamy found that a clutch of chickadees needs 6,000 to 9,000 caterpillars to survive from hatching to fledging. So let’s take a look at some common native perennials, trees and shrubs that are handsome and easy to grow.

According to Dr. Tallamy, the best perennial for pollinators is goldenrod. There are many species of goldenrod. Some of the wild types are not suitable for garden beds as they spread by root and easily elbow out plants we also want. But there are some nice ones readily found for sale at nurseries and that do not spread like crazy.

My favorite goldenrod is a variety called ‘Fireworks.’ It grows to be 2 to 4 feet tall and stays in a nice clump that does increase in size but is not aggressive. It does best in full sun with damp soil, but will take some shade and dry soil.

The Mt. Cuba Center is a research center in Hockessin, Delaware, that trials and rates native plants. They rate ‘Fireworks’ goldenrod as the very best, a 4.6 out of 5.0. Another one I like is a dainty little goldenrod called blue-stemmed goldenrod (Solidago caesia) that grows well in dry shade, blooming late in the fall. For me it stays about 18 inches tall.

You probably know that monarch butterflies need milkweed for their caterpillars. The milky alkaloids in milkweed are ingested, making the caterpillars distasteful to predators. But common milkweed, the wild one, spreads aggressively by root and seed, making it a problem for most gardeners. The answer? Buy swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata). This comes with pink blossoms (or sometimes white ones) and stays in a nice 3- to 5-foot-tall clump. Other pollinators enjoy the nectar and pollen of this fine plant, too. It does best in moist soil, but will grow in ordinary garden soil. It blooms in early to mid-summer.

One day last September we were visited in our garden by hundreds of migrating monarch butterflies. Just like marathon runners, monarchs need lots of calories before their long trip. These were feeding on nectar from a late-blooming native plant, Joe Pye weed (Eutrochium spp.). I’d not seen so many monarchs all at once in 30 years or more.

There are several species and cultivars of Joe Pye weed. All do best in full sun or partial shade, and consistently moist soil — though I’ve read that they will tolerate ordinary garden soils once well-established. Most Joe Pye weeds are tall — 5 to 8 feet tall — and develop into large clumps. Blossoms are purplish to pink, lasting for several weeks in the fall. Their seeds are eaten by birds in winter if you leave the stalks uncut in the fall.

My favorite Joe Pye is a variety called ‘Gateway.’ It has purple stems and the blossoms look good in a vase longer than the wild ones I also grow. There are two varieties that are claimed to stay short, one called ‘Baby Joe’ and another ‘Little Joe.’ Both are said to grow to just 3 feet, but I haven’t grown either one.

Goldenstar or Green and Gold (Chrysogonum virginianum) is a nice, low native that does well as a groundcover. It blooms with 1-inch bright yellow flowers in early June for me, but also re-blooms off and on throughout the summer. It does fine in shade or part shade with rich, moist soil. If the soil stays moist, it will grow in full sun, though it will go dormant in the heat of summer. Each plant can cover a circle about a foot in diameter. Look for it in better nurseries: It is not a plant you’ll find in a big box store. It is native to Pennsylvania but is hardy in all but the coldest pockets of New England.

All wildflowers are native, and many are called ephemerals because they disappear after an early spring flush of flowers. All are important for native pollinators and beneficial insects because there are few sources of pollen or nectar in a New England spring. A good selection of wildflowers are available at The Garden in the Woods in Framingham, Mass. The Garden in the Woods is a nonprofit garden, education center and plant nursery run by The Native Plant Trust, formerly called the New England Wild Flower Society.

One of my favorite spring ephemerals is Dutchman’s breeches (Dicentra cucularia). This is a low-growing plant with delicate, finely divided leaves and white blossoms that look to me a bit like pairs of white long underwear! Mine is growing under an old apple tree in partial shade and deep, rich soil. It only blooms for a couple of weeks.

If you see a bumblebee at this time of year, it is a queen that has overwintered. They love Dutchman’s breeches and other early wildflowers — they use the pollen to feed their worker bees that are growing into real workers, so the queens can retire to a life of luxury.

Dutchman’s breeches have two relatives that you may know or grow: bleeding heart (Dicentra spectabilis) and wild or fringed bleeding heart (Dicentra eximia). Some books say both are natives, others say Dicentra spectabilis is native to Asia, or native both here and there. It dies back in late summer.

I’ve seen wild bleeding heart (Dicentra eximia) growing in the wilds of Vermont, though it is not common. It is an unusual wildflower because it keeps its foliage all summer and blooms on and off all summer. It is much lower-growing than its bigger cousin and has nice finely divided delicate-looking leaves. Both of these plants are readily available in nurseries.

If you live in suburbia with a big lawn and want to support wildlife, think about giving up some lawn and planting native trees. Trees really are the workhorses of the plant world. They have more leaves and greenery than our annual and perennial plantings, and hence can let moth and butterfly larvae munch their leaves — and you will probably never notice. Before you plant any full-sized tree, do your homework. Learn how big it will get and leave plenty of space for it.

According to Doug Tallamy’s excellent book, Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard, the very best trees to plant to support wildlife are the oaks. There are 90 species of native oaks that grow in the United States, and all are excellent. Of these, the white oak (Quercus alba) is the best. It commonly grows wild in the Northeast and it supports many more species of caterpillars than any other tree. Not only that, it grows to be a huge tree, one that can live for hundreds of years. So the white oak is also great at sequestering large quantities of carbon from the atmosphere, helping to reduce global warming.

If you want to plant a white oak, do not be deterred by how long you think it might take to grow. If you can afford a tree that is already 6 to 8 feet tall, it will be 20 feet tall inside of five years. Or if you are young and patient, you can plant acorns. At this time of year, or soon, you should be able to find and dig up seedlings that are just starting to grow. Oaks send down deep taproots, so digging up bigger plants is more difficult.

The only downside to white oaks, from my perspective, is that deer love to nibble on them when the trees are young — much more so than red oaks, which are also good native trees to grow for wildlife. If you plant a white oak and have deer in your vicinity, the safest way to protect it when young is to surround it with a wire mesh fence.

However, I have planted white oaks where deer are a problem and did not fence them. Instead I relied on a repellent device that clips onto twigs like a clothespin. It is called “Fend Off Deer and Rabbit Repellent” and contains garlic extract in small cylinders. Once you puncture the seal inside the capsule, it emits a strong odor that deer hate. These repellents last for over six months. I’ve seen footprints of deer going right up to white oaks with these garlic oil repellents — and then walking away without taking a bite.

Oaks have very strong limbs and can send out limbs that are almost parallel to the ground, sometimes 20 feet or more in all directions. So do not plant your tree near the house. It is a good “specimen tree” suitable for the middle of your back lawn, or protruding out from the edge of a wooded area. White oaks do not do well in areas that have poor drainage. For such an area, choose a swamp white oak (Quercus bicolor). They also do well in ordinary soil.

We all know and love the sugar maple (Acer saccharum) for its great fall colors and delicious syrup. Unfortunately it is not a perfect choice for suburban landscapes. It is not tolerant of pollution, compacted soils or salt. It does not tolerate long periods of wet soil. It struggles in soils low in calcium. It is better suited for rural areas where it grows wild.

If you want a maple tolerant of soil compaction and suitable for soils from wet to dry, sandy to clay, our native red maple (Acer rubrum) is a good choice. It is relatively fast growing and shows off bright red leaves in the fall. It does not tolerate road salt, so it is not a tree to plant near a paved road. But almost anywhere else? It’s a great tree.

According to the terrific book Essential Native Trees and Shrubs for the Eastern United States by Tony Dove and Ginger Woolridge, the red maple supports 300 kinds of caterpillars as well as providing nectar while blooming in the early spring. Some varieties have male and female trees, but others have flowers of both sexes on the same tree. The seeds on female trees are important for birds and small mammals.

For smaller properties there are many fine native shrubs to choose from. One of my favorites is mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia), the state flower of Connecticut. I grew up with it blooming in hardwood forests with a high canopy — mature oaks in particular. I did a lot of off-trail hiking as a boy and always stopped dead in my tracks when I came upon mountain laurels in bloom. Here I have planted three of them as they are hardy but are not found in the wild near me.

Mountain laurel, I have read, is not an easy shrub to grow, but my own experience is different: I planted my first one on a moist hillside with morning sunshine and acidic soil. It has thrived and blossomed nicely for decades even though I do nothing for it. It is a relatively slow-growing shrub, 6 to 12 inches per year. In the wild they can grow to 10 or 12 feet in height, but they stay smaller in cultivation.

Mountain laurel is in the heath or heather family, so it needs soil that is quite acidic, pH 5.5 or so. When planting, dig a nice wide hole and add sulfur or soil acidifier to the soil. It’s best to use a pH test kit to determine the soil pH, and then add acidifier as directed on the package to bring down the pH. Adding peat moss at planting time will help, too. Mulch with pine needles if you have them.

The mountain laurel has glossy green leaves that are a bit like those of rhododendrons. They look good all year. But then, ka-boom, the buds and flowers appear in June. The blossoms appear in clusters, which open up to small cups, often with a mixture of pink and white inside, though there are some varieties that are deep rose throughout.

Hydrangeas are well-loved shrubs for home gardeners, though many of them are not native. According to the Mt. Cuba Center, the best native is one I grow, a smooth hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens) called Haas’ Halo. This is a relatively new selection with lacecap flowers in mid-summer. The flowers have both fertile and sterile blossoms on flat-topped corymbs 4 to 8 inches across. Bees and other pollinators flock to it when blooming. In the wild, smooth hydrangeas are found in woodlands, and this one will boom well in either sun or shade, and tolerates dry soils well.

The best-known smooth hydrangea is ‘Annabelle,’ which I don’t use because the first time the blossoms get rained on they flop to the ground. Not so with Haas’ Halo. It has sturdy woody stems that hold up its blossoms well. Even after the flowers go by, the dry floret looks good into the fall and winter. Though I have seen reports saying it is not attractive to deer, I have seen deer demolish young Haas’ Halo shrubs. I cut the stems right to the ground in late winter or early spring as they bloom on new growth, and this keeps the shrub from getting too lanky.

My last pick for a handsome native shrub is Common Sweetshrub (Calycanthus florida), which is native to Pennsylvania and south through Florida, but hardy here to Zone 4. It does best in part shade with well-drained rich loam — but will grow in clay soil and survive in full sun if given adequate moisture. I have had it scald in full sun, so I don’t recommend that.

Common Sweetshrub’s claim to fame is the strong fragrance of its wine-red 1- to 2-inch flowers. I suggest you buy one in bloom if fragrance is important to you. I have two specimens, both of which have only a minor fragrance. But the blossoms are delightful to look at, and they are vigorous plants. It provides pollen to bees and the leaves are eaten by caterpillars.

Although statistics vary, most authorities agree that at least 50 percent of Americans do at least a little gardening. If all of us planted a few native plants, it would help our birds and pollinators to thrive. Remember, native plants co-evolved with our native animals over millions of years. They are wired to recognize and use natives. So strive to plant more natives this year!

Henry can be reached by e-mail at henry.homeyer@comcast.net. If you’ve grown some of these plants, feel free to e-mail him and give a report on how yours did.

A look at area food trucks

There have probably been mobile kitchens since before the invention of the wheel. But in recent years there has been a change in the country’s and New Hampshire’s food scene, led by a new generation of food trucks. Area food truck enthusiasts can choose from everything from hot dogs to a themed coffee experience to fire-grilled steaks or salmon.

Nick Provencher is a career chef who has worked in professional kitchens for decades. Currently he runs the Ash Street Inn’s Chef’s Table (118 Ash St., Manchester, 668-9908, ashstreetinn.com). He sees the recent proliferation of food trucks as a reaction to the financial realities of opening a new restaurant.

“There’s a lower capital startup for talented chefs and cooks who aspire to have their own places,” he said. “It’s a great starting point where they can showcase their skills. And to me, honestly, after getting an inside view of the restaurant industry for 15 years, sometimes I’m like, that just might be the best bet ever because you’re not putting a lot on the line. There are minimal variables. You’re not locked into some lease or this and that. You don’t have a ton of employees. With the current state of the economy and the way the restaurant business seems to fluctuate, that kind of seems almost like a pretty good way to be able to sustain yourself for a longer time and a more reliable period. I think it’s brilliant.”

KS LeBlanc is the chef and owner of The Sleazy Vegan Cafe (205 N. State St., Concord, 877-328-7838, thesleazyvegan.com/concord) and The Sleazy Vegan Food Truck. She started in a food truck, then moved to a shared restaurant space and finally, during the past year, has opened a brick-and-mortar restaurant.

“I think in New England, I think we see, especially in New Hampshire, food truckers make the leap, going from ghost kitchen to food truck and into brick-and-mortar [restaurants] just because this is really a hard place to run a food truck,” she said. “New Hampshire’s got some really weird rules and policies, so it’s a hard place to be a food truck. I think that’s why we see it focused here a lot more. Places out west and down south are not quite that way. They do more food truck parks and gastro places where multiple trucks can get together and have like a shared expense of a place really pulling, you know, more people and more crowds together. We don’t see that very much here.”

At the same time, she said, food trucks allow an extremely focused approach to a particular type of food that would be hard to pull off in a conventional restaurant. “There’s an ability to take something that’s really, really special to you or something that you can make really, really special and build a business around that. One tiny slice is where a food truck wins. You can get to business with something small and have that small niche actually be a win and not something that’s limiting — get into some Ethiopian food or run a truck that just does empanadas or trucks that just do tacos but they slay at what they do.”

Here is a look at just a few of the many area food trucks trying to do just that.

Cali Arepa

(202-5845, caliarepa.com)

Owner: Olga Muriel

What type of food does it serve? Colombian street food, especially arepas

Where can customers find it? “I move around. Usually I post where I’m going to be on my Facebook and Instagram pages. I try to be in most of the big events around New Hampshire, but sometimes breweries or private events want to have food on site and they contact me. So I really have a schedule, and I post every month where I’m going to be so people can find me.”

Where can people find it on social media? Instagram and Facebook

What is the most popular dish with customers? “The Arepa Mixta because it has three different meats and the arepas have all of the homemade sauces that we prepare.”

What is Muriel’s favorite dish? “I enjoy all of them. Every single item in our menu, I enjoy because it’s authentic. All of the arepas have a good amount of flavor — an authentic flavor — for someone to try, like authentic Colombian street food. I am a beef person, so I will always go with the beef one.”

“We are from Cali, which is one of the biggest cities in Colombia,” Muriel said. “If you travel to South America, especially Colombia, you will see arepas on the street. Everyone will have a little cart, grilling the arepas on site. Most of them are filled with cheese. Some have beef, so we kind of mixed the whole idea and brought up the whole variety of meat in the arepas, so people like it.”

Muriel said she likes to educate new customers.

“People think that the arepas are kind of like tacos,” she said, “but they’re not, because the arepas are a mixture of mixed up ingredients, bringing the dough in a consistency where it is grilled and crunchy, and it’s tasty. So I want people to understand that the arepa, you can say it is kind of like a sandwich, but it is nothing like a taco!”

Cup of Ambition

(1170 Hooksett Road, Hooksett, 843-591-6146)

Owner: Barbara Devay

What is it? A Dolly Parton-themed mobile coffee bar

What does it serve? Coffee drinks and mini-doughnuts fried to order and named after Dolly Parton songs

Where can customers find it? “At my husband’s shop on Hooksett Road. I’m here most of the time, unless I’m booked for an event, and I’m booked for several already!”

Where can people find it on social media? Instagram and Facebook

What is the most popular with customers? “A medium iced coffee butterscotch with a shot of espresso has been the thing that people love.”

What is Devay’s favorite dish? “My favorite donut is the Islands In the Stream, which is a warm breakfast blend with vanilla and cinnamon sugar. That’s probably my favorite thing on the whole truck”

“I have been a fan of Dolly Parton my entire life,” Devay said. “I am a season pass holder to Dollywood. We lived a lot closer when we were in South Carolina, so we would go quite often. We’re a little further now, so instead of driving we’ll have to fly. I brought this whole mini donut/coffee thing up from South Carolina. It was a combination of two things that I really enjoyed doing. My husband bought me this trailer this past Christmas to kind of make my dream come true. He actually went to South Carolina to pick it up because we were moving our businesses and he made me believe that he was going down there to move some more equipment for his mechanic shop, but then he pulled in the driveway with ‘Santa Claus Is Coming to Town’ on his radio and he had my trailer behind him. It’s red, so it definitely screamed Christmas.”

Teenie Wienies

(403-2336, twprovisions.com)

Owner: Riley O’Loughlin

What type of food does it serve? Sandwiches made from scratch-made sausages

Where can customers find it? Teenie Wienies is at most downtown Concord events, such as First Friday. “We’re based out of Concord although I don’t have a physical location yet. If there’s any event I can do in Concord it’s a priority.”

Where can people find it on social media? Instagram, Facebook, and X

What dish is most popular with customers? “A sandwich we call the Chinese Dumpling. The sausage itself is basically the contents of a dumpling — a pork base with sesame sauce, sesame oil, cabbage, a few Asian spices like ginger, and then we continue to build the sandwich around that with like a Asian -inspired slaw, pickled radishes, red onion, Sriracha aioli, green onion and sesame seeds.”

“We wanted to do hot dogs originally,” O’Loughlin said. “I pivoted to sausages because I make everything from scratch. It’s a lot easier for me to make sausages than a hot dog. With a sausage you have much more texture of the actual meat inside of it. I’m more of a butcher than I am a chef. I don’t feel comfortable calling myself a chef, but I feel much more comfortable calling myself a butcher.”

At any given time, O’Loughlin said, Teenie Wienies offers six to seven house-made sausages and as many sandwiches. “Occasionally, for special events like Oktoberfest we’ll do more like German sausages served on a plate with spetzel, sauerkraut, handmade pretzels, that sort of stuff. But for the most part our core menu is sausage subs.”

The Treat Trolley

(235-9357, treattrolleynh.com)

Co-owner: Eleni Gagnon

What is it? A classic ice cream truck

What does it serve? “We are an ice cream truck, but … in addition to the novelties, we serve scoops, which kind of sets us apart.”

Where can customers find it? “We focus mainly on events. This year we will be at the Hooksett Farmers Market, which is every second Sunday of the month and it runs May through October. And then people will call us to do company outings, birthday parties. We are doing weddings.So we don’t have a set spot, but we are out and about at a lot of different events. We have quite a few weddings actually that have booked us for this coming summer. We’re excited for the warm weather.”

Where can people find it on social media? Instagram and Facebook

What dish is most popular with customers? “The scoops are definitely more of a seller. We do a lot of the basics — nothing too unusual. I feel like the basics are more popular. We’ve tried to throw in some different [flavors] but your vanilla/chocolate/cookies and cream are definitely the more popular ones. I think with something as basic as ice cream, it’s very important to people. It’s foundational.”

What is Gagnon’s favorite dish? “The Strawberry Shortcake is probably my favorite novelty ice cream.”

“Nobody’s ever upset when they’re eating ice cream,” Gagnon said. “So everybody’s always happy to see us, which we love. We did drive some neighborhoods last year, so it was really fun to see grown men chasing the truck because they probably haven’t seen an ice cream truck since they were kids.”

Smokin’ Spanks Barbecue

(smokinspanks.com)

Owner: Kevin Anctil

What type of food does it serve? “I offer a full barbecue menu. Everything I offer is prepared fresh by me from scratch from my own recipes. I use no prepackaged rubs or injections or marinades or sauces. Everything I serve is made by me. My smokers use no propane to smoke my meat. I only use natural hardwood lump charcoal, and wood. I have a battery of six sauces that are always made fresh and they’re always served on the side because the meat stands up on its own and doesn’t need the sauce. The sauce is just there for extra if you like it.”

Where can customers find it? “Right now I’m selling every Sunday in Litchfield at 517 Charles Bancroft Highway — that’s [Route] 3A — a couple minutes south of Manchester. And then once we get going this summer and more into mid-season, I’ll be adding in Friday nights as well. I found that I draw pretty well just on my own. I’ve got a couple gigs, but for the most part I’m not going to events and trying to find places that are providing me with customers. I’m pretty much setting up and drawing people to me for myself and trying to operate that way and then supplementing with the catering work and the parties and such. I get a lot of graduations, birthday parties, a lot of family, backyard type stuff like that.”

Where can people find it on social media? Facebook

What dish is most popular with customers? “It tends to go week by week. Some things are heavier than others. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of rhyme or reason. That just depends on who’s coming in that week, what their favorites are. That said, I sell an awful lot of brisket.”

While smoked meats are the foundation of Anctil’s menu, he said great barbecue requires great side dishes. “I love mac and cheese,” he said. “It’s nice and creamy and soft and smooth and hot. Baked beans are really good — something sweet like that stands up nice with the spiciness and the richness of the barbecue. I do a loaded baked potato salad that I think pairs very nicely. It’s creamy, cold and rich.”

Wicked Tasty Food Truck

(699-5217, wickedtastytrucks.com)

Owner: Jakob Norris

What type of food does it serve? “Our concept is New England classics with a twist. It’s kind of a cultivation of the food that I grew up with in a very approachable comfort food style. We do things like smash burgers, we do some good hot dogs, we have a really great maple bacon onion jam, chicken sandwich with honey Sriracha, and braised short rib poutine. The whole idea is really just to kind of remind everybody where we’re from and kind of kick it up a notch and everybody in the family can enjoy it.”

Where can customers find it? “We are very event-based and mostly privately booked. But you can find us at some of the same major events every year. We always do Concord Market Days. You’ll find us doing the Concord Winter Festival. We do a couple events in Manchester. We have a full calendar on our website. Every week there’s usually at least two or three public spots that we’re open for.”

Where can people find it on social media? Instagram and Facebook

What dish is most popular with customers? “We’re definitely known for our smash burger with our maple bacon onion jam. That is our bread and butter. It has our homemade garlic aioli. It has like four different types of garlic — roasted garlic, granulated garlic, fresh garlic and garlic oil. We really focus on a good handful of homemade items, and those are really what we’re known for. So that smash burger is certainly the top one.”

What is Norris’ favorite dish? “My personal favorite would be our grilled cheeses. We actually have two signature grilled cheese [sandwiches] that we do. One of them has our braised short rib and our maple bacon onion jam on it. But one of the interesting things that we do with our grilled cheeses is we cover the outside with a garlic aioli and press it in shredded cheddar. We put that on the grill so it gets a crispy cheese crust on the outside. and then it’s filled with cheddar and American and bacon jam and short rib on the inside.”

Pours and Petals Mobile Bar and Catering

(205 N. State St., Concord, poursandpetalsevents.com)

Owner: Erin Doonan

What type of food does it serve? “We do primarily drinks. We serve cocktails, but we offer lemonade, iced coffee, hot coffee. And that’s what you’re going to find us selling at public events. We do also offer street tacos as well. However, we only do that for private events.”

Where can customers find it? Mostly at private functions. “We cater a lot of weddings. Honestly, that’s kind of the reason we got into the business is because we wanted to cater weddings. And people do have the typical idea of a food truck. But knowing that we wanted to go into weddings, we really want to make [our truck] a bit prettier for pictures — something that people would want to have in the background, people actually get excited about taking photos with it, and going up to the truck. So I think it adds a really nice, unique touch to weddings.”

What is most popular with customers? “Our lemonade is definitely by far our most popular item. We do a bunch of different flavors like strawberry basil and raspberry lime. Those are our two most popular flavors.”

Where can people find it on social media? Instagram and Facebook

“One of our goals was to have something that looked nice in photographs,” Doonan said. “We want to keep branding pretty minimal, so that way it didn’t feel like we were advertising to people’s wedding guests. We chose colors that kind of go well with weddings. We have a sage green food truck as well as a light yellow food truck, so that usually goes along with wedding colors. And instead of just going with a typical trailer, we also went with true, authentic, vintage, renovated trailers. We have a 1960 and I think the other one is a 1966. They used to be campers and we converted them. I think a lot of food truck owners also kind of prioritize either doing public events or setting up in one spot, and that’s what we’re doing. our model. Rather than having people come to us, we go to the people.”

Sicilian Street Chef

(sicilianstreetchef.com)

Owner: Sal DiMaggio

What type of food does it serve? “The original intention of the truck was to sell Sicilian food, but we do do a lot of Italian things — chicken pesto, prosciutto and mozzarella and that sort of stuff. You have to sell what the people want, so I make my own smash burgers. I make my own hot honey sauce, pesto sauce, and marinara sauce of course. It’s turning into Main Street fair food than anything else.”

Where can customers find it? “Last summer was maybe 50 percent breweries and 50 percent fairs. This year it’s going to be about 90 percent events between town concerts, car shows and private parties.”

Where can people find it on social media? Instagram and Facebook

What dish is most popular with customers? “They love smash burgers.

Motor Pie Co.

(644-2467, ext. 210, motorpieco.com)

Owner: The Chopscotch Hospitality Group, parent company of Hanover Street Chophouse, the Crown Tavern, and the Kitchen on River Road.

What type of food does it serve? Wood-fired pizza and upscale wood-fired dishes

Where can customers find it? Available for private functions only.

Mairin MacDonald handles the booking for the Motor Pie Co. She said the truck itself is one of its selling points. “The truck’s name is Riley Grace,” she said. “She’s a new part of the family. She’s a restored 1950s Ford with a wood pizza oven on the back. Anybody who knows the Crown Tavern’s pizza will find that same sort of style and quality that you would find at the Crown. But we’re not necessarily calling ourselves a pizza truck. We’re more of a mobile kitchen that we’ll be doing catering out of. It will be for private events only.”

In addition to pizza, MacDonald said Riley Grace will cook other dishes — “things like oven-roasted salmon,” she said. “We can do tenderloin, and hors d’oeuvres. So really anything that can be cooked in a regular oven can be cooked in that oven.”

An update on the local comedy scene
plus interviews with Craig Ferguson and Jenny Zigrino

From Adam Sandler to Sarah Silverman and Seth Meyers, many talented comedians have come from the Granite State. New Hampshire continues to be an incubator for standup comedy and also has plenty of showcases, including a sparkling new one opening soon in Manchester.

In the late 2000s and early 2010s the Queen City was a hotbed for a second wave of comedy that included future SNL stars and buzzy joke-tellers who now reign both on social media and in the nation’s comedy clubs. They were drawn to a weekly comedy night at Shaskeen Pub.

Run by three comics, it began as an open mic and stayed that way until 2015.

At that point one partner moved the open mic to Murphy’s Taproom. The Shaskeen switched to a showcase, run by Nick Lavallee and Dave Carter. It welcomed a new breed of comics like Dan Soder, W. Kamau Bell and Sam Jay. It also gave big names and rising stars with weekend shows in Boston an extra New England stop.

Drew Dunn’s first comedy sets came at the Shaskeen’s open mic. He’s now a touring comic, headlining clubs from Foxwoods to San Diego. On March 30 Dunn began a weeklong run in Las Vegas at Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club, atop the bill for three nights and opening for Garrett on the other four.

A few jokes about the sitting president helped win over a tough crowd. “I don’t think Trump is Christ-like, but it’d be funny if Christ was Trump-like,” he said, retelling the loaves and fishes tale in perfect voice. “I could feed a lot of people with this fish, it’s a big fish, it’s a beautiful fish, it’s a Bran-zino, it’s a very delicate fish.”

As his early success grew, Dunn was a regular performer at the Shaskeen. During a sit-down interview in the outside lounge of Garrett’s club following his opening night show, the Nashua native remembered those days with fondness, along with praise for Lavallee.

“It was probably the best show on a Wednesday anywhere in America for a good stint there,” he said. “Nick was a great tastemaker … ahead of the game on picking some of these guys that are huge names now. He was booking Tim Dillon when he had a few thousand followers, but he just saw how great he was.”

Five years ago Dunn moved to New York City, like many comics with their sights set on the next level in the business. When he arrived, the contacts he’d made performing at the Shaskeen were crucial for him getting booked at a very competitive NYC club.

“This is such a business of connections and having people believe in you,” he said. “My recommendations for the Comedy Cellar were Mark Norman, Soder, and Joe List. Two of those guys I had worked with at the Shaskeen Pub, or at least crossed paths with them there.”

While he was booking shows, including more than a few in the basement of his North Side house, Lavallee was also doing standup and making a name for himself. For much of the decade he traveled a path much like Dunn’s, touring the country and doing area shows at clubs like Rob Steen’s Headliners.

Combining doing and booking comedy with a full-time community media job wore on him, and it also clashed with his newfound sobriety, so Lavallee retired from standup. He and Carter closed out their Shaskeen run in 2021 with a series of shows and a sense of hope.

“When Dave and I passed the torch,” he said, “we wanted to see the comedy scene in Manchester grow. We wanted to leave behind a legacy that was like, ‘Hey, you can do this.’ If you put in the work, you can get great talent from New York, L.A., Chicago, anywhere to come to Manchester.”

It then continued in new hands. Initially Ruby Room Comedy took over. It’s now run by Sam Mangano, who also books pop-up Don’t Tell shows in the state, and is doing well. “Wednesday nights have good crowds and comics,” he said recently. “The past few months have been busy, with repeat faces in the crowd.”

Lavallee moved on to music, making pop culture action figures, and boosting his hometown as the Chicken Tender Capital of the World. He still missed the business, though, and with the recent opening of a complex on Canal Street anchored by Harpoon Brewery, he decided to return to comedy, this time strictly as a booker.

In late February Lavallee began teasing a new venue, and shows presented under his Wicked Joyful brand. Located in the Queen City Center, the 130-seat Queen City Center Showroom will open on April 17 with a veteran comic from his Shaskeen days, Jenny Zigrino (tickets $29 at eventbrite.com).

Lavallee also plans to book shows in a 500-seat space known as Studio A, and mentioned that depending on demand there might be a late show on April 17. Zigrino’s comedy star rose in New England, including many Shaskeen shows, which makes her a great choice to debut comedy at Queen City Center.

“My roots in New Hampshire … run pretty deep,” Zigrino said by phone recently. “I worked in Bedford when I was younger, and my mother lived in Manchester briefly. So I am very familiar with the town, and I love it. I’m excited for what Nick is going to be doing with Wicked Joyful, trying to bring in more arts entertainment.”

In mid-March Lavallee walked around the Queen City Center, showing off the two performance spaces along with a Wicked Joyful retail store that will open soon. There, he’ll be selling bespoke action figures, attire and other items in a room with an original booth from Manchester’s Puritan, the birthplace of “tendies.”

He’s looking forward to booking shows, but stressed that he’s no longer interested in doing comedy himself.

“I fell out of love with it,” he said, adding that the realization happened during the pandemic. “When no one was doing it, I had time to look at the things that mattered to me most.”

Comedy, he could see, had become an unhealthy ego-stroking exercise. “Because of sobriety, the person I evolved into wasn’t getting on stage and saying disparaging things about myself that may or may not be true.” With that understanding, he continued, “I could focus all that energy into my creative outlet.”

Returning as a promoter also offers a chance to restore the community that grew during the Shaskeen days. “I don’t mean community of comics, though they’re a part of it … it’s the regulars who’d show up, would tell their friends about it, would go to work talking about it the next day.”

His old partner will be a presence but not operationally involved.

“I want Dave to bask in the community that he built and consistently served for seven years, that truly loved him and the work that we did…. I want him to enjoy it,” Lavallee said. “That’s the best kind of family reunion you could go to, and I think he deserves that.”

The new endeavor has Lavallee energized for exciting things.

“Despite the great work that other rooms are doing, even the one we left behind,” he said, “I think there’s room to build up community and bring culture into Manchester through laughter and positivity. That’s what I’m most excited about.”

It’s helpful to recall that this began with a gaggle of wannabe funny people looking to sharpen their comedy muscles. That energy, along with the successful comics it’s produced (and continues to produce), is still here. In fact, the comedy scene in the region is arguably bigger than it’s ever been.

Manchester’s current longest-lived open mic offers proof that’s it’s both exciting and promising.

On a recent Friday night, a dozen or so comics, some more seasoned than others, gathered in the back room of Strange Brew Tavern to work in front of a crowd of nearly 50 people. Most had a “tight five” — standup code for the abbreviated set all comics must master to move forward in the trade.

All came from the Strange Brew’s Laugh Attic open mic night. Launched five years ago in June, it’s become a hub for aspiring comics and even a few veterans who use it to work on new material. It’s also launched a few to greater success, like Owen Damon, atop the bill that Friday and doing a 10-minute set.

Damon, no relation to the famous actor, is 21, and began coming to Laugh Attic in his teens. His success arc echoes Drew Dunn’s rise from open mics. Damon is now in Chicago, getting work in Midwest clubs with bits like the one about his Fox News-watching grandma who thinks Pilates is a terrorist group.

The Friday crowd laughed at the young comic’s jokes about sharing his Kindle account with his mom, and her shocking taste in racy books, why all service workers should be tipped like strippers (“I’m throwing a dollar at my barista”), and how a person’s milk preference is a clue to their religion — “almond is astrology.”

Danny Pee and Mike Dupont co-hosted, each doing their own five-minute sets. Danny Pee began coming to the Strange Brew when it started, looking to scratch his comedy itch. He did a solid set, landing with funny observations, such as his belief that fast food and smoking are basically the same vice.

Both cigarettes and cheeseburgers make you smell bad and feel ashamed enough to hide the noxious habit from your spouse, he noted. “I keep an extra shirt in the car,” he said. “I change into it after going to McDonald’s, so my wife doesn’t pick up the stink.”

That the open mic began as live entertainment was returning helped him make the leap into standup. “I’d been holed up, watching YouTube videos, thinking, ‘Where can I find that thing under my nose that I’m very interested in right now?’ This was one of those things,” he said. “I went, and never stopped showing up.”

Laugh Attic was launched by Ben Davis, who handed it over to him in 2024. Davis “really brought it up out of nowhere” and looked to him as someone a bit older and thus a dependable choice to keep it going; plus, he wanted it. “I think that he saw in me this desire to be there; I really hadn’t missed one open mic.”

The event has attracted interest from Rob Steen, who’s been doing comedy shows in New Hampshire longer than anyone. He’s showcased a deep lineup of comedy talent, including booking both Dunn and Lavallee early on, by keeping an eye on events like Laugh Attic, along with the recent explosion of open mics.

“Rob’s been through several times,” Danny Pee said. One open mic comic got booked at Chunky’s, a Steen venue, after he mentioned in his set that he worked there. “A light bulb went off for Rob … I don’t know how the set went or anything, but that was something that transpired from one of his most recent visits.”

Even with Steen’s network, large events and small open mic nights seemingly popping up everywhere, there’s room for more in the state’s comedy scene. Lavallee is excited to add another element to the mix with Queen City Center Comedy, with more bookings due to be announced.

“If there’s anything I missed from comedy, it’s producing a killer show,” he said. It’s something he did in both music and comedy for a big chunk of his 15-20 years as an entertainer. “Knowing I had the opportunity to do it again here, I jumped on it because, again, that’s the thing I miss the most.”

He sees his role as restoring the energy he and Carter created, while shining a light on a brand of comedy that he believes is mostly missing in the area. “Rarely do you see cutting edge … someone on their way up, before they do the Wilbur,” he said. “The shows that I produce here are going to fill that void.”

Full circle moment

Comedy at Queen City Center with Jenny Zigrino

Just over a year into her comedy career, Jenny Zigrino came to Manchester for the first of many times to do standup at Shaskeen Pub. She met Nick Lavallee there, and the two bonded over his connections to Zigrino’s home state of Minnesota.

The friendship endured, and Zigrino performed frequently at the Shaskeen over the years, including several times when it switched from open mic to comedy showcase in 2015. She remembers the era with fondness, and is excited to return to Manchester for the first show at Queen City Center on April 17.

“I’m honored to be doing it. I’m excited,” Zigrino said by phone recently. “I have so many starting out roots in New Hampshire. … My first filmed comedy sets were at the Shaskeen, and still on my YouTube.” After several years in L.A., she now lives in New York City, though she’s back in SoCal frequently for work.

One project that will send her back west is a play, co-written with Caleb Zeringue, about an obscure but crucial Revolutionary War figure. Zigrino’s a history fan who once led tours on the Freedom Trail in Boston, and she performs History Tonight shows dressed up as King George III, including one in Cambridge April 15.

The Drill Master is about Friedrich von Steuben, an openly gay Prussian captain who met Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane in Paris. Experienced officers were needed for a disorganized army, so they asked him to join as an unpaid, unranked volunteer. Bored with Europe, von Steuben agreed.

“He comes over, befriends Washington, and people absolutely love him,” Zigrino said. “He basically whips everybody into shape and teaches them how to be an army … we probably don’t win the war without him, and we still use a lot of the training that he brought to America in the army today.”

The play is filled with laughs and a lot of inconvenient historical facts, like Alexander Hamilton’s more than friendly relationship with John Lawrence. “In the National Archives, you can read the letters, it’s crazy,” she said. “Hamilton wrote, ‘You think that me getting a wife is going to make me love you any less?’”

The staged reading, May 3 at L.A.’s Elysian Theatre, will be a star-studded affair.

“We’ve got a … killer cast,” Zigrino said. “Bobcat Goldthwaite is going to be George Washington, we’ve got Gianmarco Soresi, Cameron Esposito, Lady Bushra, Dylan Adler… they’re going to make it so good.”

Zigrino is also writing a romance novel, and she’s convinced that more men should read them.

“They’re literal manuals on what women want. For once, read the instructions,” she says onstage. “It’s not that hard. We just want you to say that you burn for us and to call us a good girl and to be a grumpy cowboy billionaire that also is sometimes a gay hockey player and you’re a werewolf vampire that might kill us.”

She’s also readying a new comedy special. Like Jenny Z, released on Comedy Central’s YouTube channel in 2023, it’s fan-financed on GoFundMe and Zigrino’s quirky, pretty much PG-13 OnlyFans site. “I have pictures of me in lingerie dressed as King George,” she said. “I’m having fun with it.”

The show is about “starting over” after a challenging period in her life that included the death of her sister, a breakup, and health issues that were ultimately resolved with GLP-1. She lost 60 pounds as a result, but emphatically did not lose her commitment to body positivity. She’ll preview the show in Manchester.

“It’s called Afterbirth,” she said. “The idea is that you come into the world, and all this crap is behind you … but it’s not really. You’re covered in blood, and you’re gross, and that’s what happens when you start over. You’re just kind of like a little newborn baby covered in placenta.”

Wicked Joyful Presents: Jenny Zigrino
When: Friday, April 17, 6:30 p.m.
Where: Queen City Center, 215 Canal St., Manchester
Tickets: $28.50 at eventbrite.com

Comedy talk with Craig Ferguson

Years before he took over the Late Late Show or made his name as an actor alongside Drew Carey, Craig Ferguson was a standup comic. Ferguson’s first forays as a funny man were an outgrowth of his hazy days as a musician. He was drafted into the job, primarily because he had the proper mix of brave and crazy to work a punk crowd.

“They’d get me to go up when they were changing the equipment for the acts, or trying to resuscitate their guitarist, or something,” he recalled. “I would do five to 10 minutes between the bands. Then I kind of moved into it, but the very beginning was just being a loudmouth in punk rock bands.”

Ferguson brings his current Pants on Fire tour to Concord’s Capitol Center on April 12. Shortly after leaving late night in 2014, he hosted the game show Celebrity Name Game and won a couple of Daytime Emmys. In 2021 he did the same with ABC’s The Hustler, and last January he began hosting a TV version of Scrabble.

He likes the game show format because its prep requirements are pretty easy. “You learn how the game works and then you just play,” he said. Beyond that, “It’s very improvisational, it’s very engaging, and then there’s the whole thing of you’re giving away somebody else’s money, which is just icing on the cake.”

Is Ferguson a bit nostalgic for his late night days? “No, I don’t miss it really,” he said. “I’ll tell you why. I mean, I did it for a long time, and I’m proud of that show. I’m glad I did it. I think we managed to do something a little off the beaten track, but by the time I was done I was ready to go.”

Ever the good sport, Ferguson agreed to answer seven seminal questions about his career in comedy.

When did you realize that you were funny?

I’m not entirely convinced that I am, to be honest. I guess when they keep asking you back. So maybe in the punk rock days when you go up between the bands and nobody attacks you, you must have something going on. I think that must have been it.

What made you decide to be funny in front of people,beyond the bits between bands?

I never did decide to do that. It was kind of like I would be asked in increments to do things like that. I never really made a decision. It wasn’t a career path for me. I didn’t think, well, here’s my ambition, I’d like to be a stand-up comedian. I didn’t really have that. It was through kind of a series of unfortunate events.

Who were your inspirations, comics and things that you looked at as good examples?

Well, Billy Connolly was like Jackie Robinson for me. He was the first guy I ever heard or saw that sounded like us and was from a similar background. Billy’s about 20 years older than me, but he was becoming famous in Britain in his early 30s. I was in my early teens, so it was just perfect for me because he was the naughty comedian that would say naughty words, and I loved Billy. I still do. I guess in America it was the great American stand-ups of Richard Pryor and Robin Williams and George Carlin and Redd Foxx, and Eddie Murphy as well. Eddie Murphy’s stand-up. Eddie Murphy’s the same age as me, and I would watch. He was young when he was doing stand-ups. This guy’s amazing, and he was the same age as me. He still is amazing, but when he broke through, it was hard to overstate how important he was at that time.

How did your first set go?

You know, I’ll be honest with you. Again, it was in the before time, so I’m not entirely sure I remember my first set. There were a few very bad ones. I remember doing a show at a punk rock club in London. It was a festival of Scottish punk bands, and there was a bunch of Cockneys there. I thought it would be funny if I wore a kilt, but I was very frightened of the audience. They noticed that my knees were knocking. They were literally shaking. I was so nervous. You could see my knees because I was wearing a kilt. They started a chant, this Cockney chant. They were all shouting, His knees are knocking! His knees are knocking! It was an exercise in humiliation. Yeah, I think humiliation.

Was there a moment when you realized you could succeed at it?

Not particularly like that. When I talk to other comedians, they understand this. When it went really bad, like that gig at the Scribner where the audience were chanting, His knees are knocking, and I died on stage. When I came off, it was a weird kind of like, Oh man, I want to do that again. Comedians understand that it’s hard because you’re like, Why would anyone want to do that again? But you kind of do. I don’t know what it is. I want another crack at it. It’s weird.

Was there a time when you felt like giving up?

No, I don’t really think so. I think that it’s all part of the, especially now, I just kind of roll into it. It feels like I belong there. I’m very comfortable doing what I do. I like doing it. It’s relaxing for me in another way to be on stage.

What’s your favorite part about doing stand-up, Craig?

I think the immediacy and the organic nature of it. The fact that it’s not the same show every night. That it is an analog experience. It’s not, you know, I’m a 20th-century boy. I mean, I have a phone and I have a computer, but I like being in the dark with the audience. It is a visceral kind of immediate, authentic feel to me that I’ve never fallen out of love with.

Craig Ferguson
When: Sunday, April 12, at 7 p.m.
Where: Capitol Center for the Arts, 44 S. Main St., Concord
Tickets: $49 and up at ccanh.com

Upcoming comedy events

Small bites and small sips OFFER A big flavor experience

Having a hard time picking just one thing from the menu? Fortunately, there is a tool to make life easier when you’re feeling indecisive: flights. Originally the province of extra-fancy restaurants or vineyards, flights allow a guest to choose several — usually four to six — tasting-sized portions of beer or wine or even pancakes.

Looking to try a bunch of flavors in one sitting? Here are a few places offering flights.

Five beers at Rockingham Brewing Co.

1 Corporate Park Drive, Unit 1, Derry, 216-2324, rockinghambrewing.com, about $7

Microbreweries were some of the first businesses to serve flights, and especially for breweries with large numbers of beer on tap or unusual flavors or styles of beer, flights are a good way to introduce a guest to a range of what a brewery has to offer, said Ali Leleszi, owner of the Rockingham Brewing Co.

“We offer custom flights of five different beers — 4-ounce samples — in our tap room,” she said, “which allows our customers to choose a variety of beers rather than settling on just a full pint. It’s usually first-time visitors who opt for a flight rather than a full pour. We definitely encourage [a flight] if people want to try a little bit of everything.”

Leleszi said many people who order flights come in with a general idea of what style of beer they’d like to try.

“Usually,” she said, “there’s a style that they kind of gravitate toward and we can help them craft a flight that would be toward their preference. Oftentimes we have five different IPAs on [tap], so you could do a full hoppy flight if you’d like, or maybe people will go for a darker flight, but maybe they’ll put a wild card in there for a beer that maybe they wouldn’t have tried otherwise, that’s outside of their comfort zone.” On any given day Rockingham Brewing has 15 beers on tap. “And we have flights of five,” Leleszi said, so they can order about a third of the menu at a time.”

Ordering suggestion: “We’re releasing a dortmunder, which is a traditional German-style lager, towards the end of April, Lelleszi said. “That’s a returning beer for us. It’s a collaboration with Kelsen Brewing. Also, sometimes we offer flight pairings….”

Four iced coffees or milkshakes or martinis at Yolk Grill

116 Bridge St., Pelham, 635-09925, or 6 Elm St., Nashua, 864-0695, theyolkgrill.com; iced coffees are $16.95, milkshakes are $20.95, martinis are $35.95

Emily Kurs from The Yolk in Pelham said a surprising number of Girls’ Breakfasts Out involve drinking a flight of martinis.

“There can be one person who gets it, but ideally we have couples come in, usually two girlfriends going out for breakfast. It makes for a good little Girls’ Day. You can pick three of our martinis that we have on our specials, and customize it however you like, and then we bring it on a little tray. Espresso martinis are always popular, and we have a chocolate bunny martini right now — it’s called a Bad Bunny.”

Kurs said the options for iced coffee flights are changed frequently.

“Usually every two to three weeks we try to change it up,” she said. “We’ll change up the flavors, we’ll change up the topping, basically to just fit the theme of the month. Right now … Easter is right around the corner. We have four different flavors related to Easter themes like Marshmallow Peeps. There’s one that’s carrot cake. It has a little brownie on top,” Each serving of coffee is about 6 ounces, she said. “They come as black coffee topped with a little bit of whipped cream.”

“The milkshakes follow the same theme,” Kurs said, “but they have different toppings, so you won’t be getting the same thing. … The same idea, vanilla, Oreo. We do some cotton candy sometimes. Right now there’s banana on there. We try to change up the flavors pretty often.”

Ordering suggestion: “Honestly, I’m an Oreo girl,” Kurs said, “so I love a nice Oreo milkshake with some vanilla frosting and Oreos on the rim. I’ll put whipped cream on there, too.”

Six flavors of ice cream at Social Club Creamery

138 N. Main St., Concord, 333-2111, socialclubcreamery.com

According to Cole Glaude, owner of Social Club Creamery, ice cream flights are a popular Date Night activity.

“It’s mostly couples in general that want to try a bunch of different flavors,” he said. “In total, [a flight] is a lot of ice cream — I think maybe just a little too much for one person. And if they split a flight, it usually saves them money instead of getting a couple of different scoops of ice cream.”

Social Club’s flights have six half-scoops of ice cream.

“Basically,” Glaude said, “it’s just a sampler of six different flavors and it comes in a six-slot egg carton. I want to say in total it equals about three scoops of ice cream, but you get six different flavors, so it gets you a nice variety. You can try out a good majority of our menu without having to commit to one flavor.”

The ice cream menu at Social Club has two sections — several varieties of familiar flavors that are available year-round, and several monthly flavors that are more unusual and only available for a limited time. Glaude said a flight allows enthusiasts to try all the new flavors at a time.

“A lot of people will try the four monthly specials,” he said, “and then have an additional two, or sometimes they’ll just do six of the classics that they’ve never been in before. Usually the staff will give them recommendations on their favorites, but it’s completely up to the customer.”

Ordering suggestion: “I would probably do at least two seasonals,” Glaude said, “just so they could try out the monthly specials that we have going at the time. And then I would probably do honeycomb, salted caramel, peanut butter brownie, and then probably like maple latte — those aren’t too far out, not like our deep fried pickle ice cream or anything like that.”

Five wines or liquors at Flag Hill Winery and Distillery

297 N. River Road, Lee, 659-2949, flaghill.com, $15

“We are a winery and distillery, so we produce all of our own wines and spirits that we serve,” said David Brustlin, from Flag Hill Winery and Distillery. “The flights in our tasting room are pretty straightforward. We have a wide range of products, and you can taste any five of them, so if you just want to do wines, if you just want to do spirits or you want to mix and match, so you just pick five. For wine we pour an ounce of each, and for spirits we pour a half ounce.”

White wines are a popular category for flights, Brustlin said.

“People really like dry white wines,” he said, “and our Flag Hill whites are very popular, but if people like sweeter whites, our Cayuga White [a fruity wine made from Cayuga grapes] and the La Crescent [a sweet dessert wine] are very well loved. We also have some carbonated wine, a bubbly version of the Cayuga White, which people love. Then we have a wide range of spirits. People tend to want to try our whiskey, because we grow our own corn, rye and wheat on site. We also have a wide range of fruit liquors that appeal to a wide audience. Probably our Maple Bourbon — which is our straight whiskey with maple syrup added to it — is the spirit that almost everybody tries.”

Four margaritas at Raices Authentic Mexican Cuisine

2626 Brown Ave., Manchester, 932-2770, raicesnh.com, $23.99

A flight of margaritas at Raices comes balanced on a model Ferris wheel.

“This is a margarita flight that we call La Rueda de la Fortuna,” said Jose, one of Raices’ bartenders, “and we have four flavors — blackberry, tamarind, mango, and strawberry.” This flight is very popular, he said. “A lot of people order this…. People share it with their friends.

Which one should you grab before your friends get to it? “My favorite is tamarind,” Jose said. Tamarind and mango.”

Four types of pancakes or mimosas at Purple Finch Cafe

124 S. River Road, Bedford, 232-1953, purplefinchcafe.com, pancakes are $25

A pancake flight at the Purple Finch is big, manager Meagan Prudhomme said — shockingly big.

“You get two buttermilk pancakes; those are just plain. You get two chocolate chip pancakes. You get two blueberry pancakes and then two Fruity Pebbles. It comes with fresh fruit on the board, so there’s fresh strawberries, fresh bananas and fresh blueberries. And it comes with whipped cream on it. These are full-sized, 6-inch pancakes. It might be the perfect family meal. Everybody can split it. A lot of people even get it as an appetizer for big parties.”

Prudhomme said that far and away the most popular pancake in the pancake flight is the one made with Fruity Pebbles cereal.

“Everybody is really surprised that the Fruity Pebbles stay crispy,” she said, “because everybody assumes that with it going into the pancake batter that they would become soggy. But no! They’re nice and crispy and delicious.” The cereal doesn’t actually soak in pancake batter, she said. It is sprinkled across the tops of the pancakes before they are flipped, so it doesn’t have a chance to get soggy.

Perhaps the best thing about the pancake flight, Prudhomme said, is “that it goes really well with our mimosa flights. We have a couple — we have one called the Taste of New England, where you get a mimosa from each season. The spring one is a honey-lavender-lemonade mimosa. The summer is a pineapple sunrise. The fall one is apple cider. And the winter one is called the Jack Frost and it’s made with blue curacao and lemonade. We also have a Rainbow Mimosa flight, and that one is orange Aperol and then mango cherry. We have a tropical Midori, which is a green color. And then the last one is the honey lavender lemonade, just like from the New England one.”

Several small pies at Slightly Crooked Pies

1209 Elm St., Manchester, 661-4575, slightlycrookedpies.com, three 5-inch pies or six 3-inch pies are $27

“I have found that a lot of people will look at a menu and they get overwhelmed,” Lauren Cline, owner of Slightly Crooked Pies, said. “And they have a hard time picking — ‘Do I want blueberry or do I want blueberry and lavender? Do I want cherry or cherry coconut crumble?’ And so if you do a pie flight you can try it all. And you can try a little bit of it all. With pies, you’re an attentive audience, you’re in a dedicated area, and you’re trying a dedicated product. And it’s a great way for you to be able to experience something that you might not be willing to commit to, right? So those of us who have food commitment issues, it’s a fantastic way to do that. And if you don’t like it, you didn’t really lose that much; it takes the second guess out of there.”

Five spirits at Manchester Distillery

284 Willow St., Manchester, 978-308-2867, manchesterdistillery.com, $12

Liz Hitchcock, the owner of Manchester Distillery, has opinions about the order in which a flight-orderer should drink her spirits. She suggests moving from light liquors with some subtle flavors to progressively more assertive ones.

“You might start with our vodka [which has a clean, neutral flavor], then move into our gin, which is a crisp, American, citrusy-forward gin that finishes with classic gin flavors like juniper, coriander, and angelica root,” she said.

“We then offer a taste of our barrel-finished gin,” Hitchcock continued, “which sits in a high char, white oak barrel for 90 days and takes on the color of a whiskey and gives it a great new flavor.” Barrel-aging gin is a fairly recent development in the distilling world, and many such gins are lightly sweetened, she said. “That actually gives me a little bit of a headache, so ours isn’t sweetened at all; it’s just finished in the barrel. Then you probably would move into what we consider a ‘contract whiskey.’ It is a typical whiskey that we have contracted from out of state, brought it in and finished in our own special way. We call it ‘Double Bluff’ because it’s a bit of a fun play on the fact that we’re kind of making up things as we go just like you do when you’re doing a bluff. It’s a bourbon whiskey and it’s got sweet corn with an honest rye. It’s smooth — in fact, even our barrel strength, which you can sometimes get in the tasting room, which is 110 proof, people are surprised at how smooth it is. And then finally, we finish usually with our chocolate liqueur called ‘Speedy,’ which is made with cocoa nibs, French vanilla beans, and sugar, which kind of is like the dessert at the end of the tasting.”

Four cupcake-sized cheesecakes at Big Dog Eats, Home of Choo Choo’s Cheesecakes

20 South St., Milford, 249-5008, bigdogeats.com, $22

According to Shanna Allen, owner of Big Dog Eats, what makes her cheesecakes uniformly excellent is that they all start with the same perfect cheesecake base.

“Our cheesecakes are always the same flavor,” she said. “It’s the toppings and the crust that change. You always get that same decadent cheesecake that we have.”

A flight of cheesecakes might vary from season to season, Allen said, but, “they almost always have a plain with a graham crust, then some sort of a fruit compote. That’s a classic. The fruit goes on the side, for the people that don’t want anything. We usually have another flavor which we have all the time — maybe an apple crisp, or a turtle, or a plain cheesecake with a chocolate crust. We make different kinds of fruit creams, fresh fruit sauces and compote, lemon and lime curds. That all depends on the season…. Right now, for the end of March, we’ve done pistachio and then for April and for Mother’s Day we’re doing a blueberry-lemon, which has our lemon curd topped with our blueberry compote. Our cheesecakes aren’t inherently too sweet, so it really complements the sauces and toppings.They’re normally garnished with edible flowers.”

While you might think most of these four-packs of cheesecake are bought as gifts, Allen said that isn’t the case.

“We have some people come in twice a week,” she said, “just to get them for themselves to bring home for dinner, and again, for after dinner. A lot of people will get the four and sit and eat and have a cocktail and then they will share like half of each so they try all four flavors.”

Four mimosas or cocktails or mocktails or iced coffees at Friendly Toast Bedford

4 Main St., Bedford, 836-8907, thefriendlytoast.com/bedford-nh, $19

Drink flights at The Friendly Toast are inspired by one particular time of the week, COO Staci Pinard said.

“We’re known for our brunch,” she said, “but we’re really excited about our bar program as well. For us, what we serve from the bar really needs to match the food. So we recently launched a spring bar menu. So we do a seasonal bar menu and we currently have three featured flights on that. We have three alcoholic flights, and then we have a wellness mocktail flight as well.”

The most popular flight, Pinard said, is a classic mimosa flight.

“This is something we do — rotate with some seasonal flavors. We’re headed into spring, so we designed the mimosas around that.” This includes a ‘Market Square” mimosa, she said — a classic orange juice-based version. “We have the Rose Berry Bliss,” she said. “This is a new addition to our menu. Most of our mimosas have your classic Champagne on it. This one actually features a really nice rosé prosecco, so you get a nice kind of rosé hint to it. We use our mixed berry jam, which we make fresh in house, and then it has a elderflower liqueur as well. And then fresh lemon juice that we squeeze in house as well.” There is also an “Extra Fancy” mimosa, she said, made with Stiggins’ Fancy Pineapple Rum. This is followed by a blood orange Aperol Spritz.

There is also a spring-themed cocktail flight, Pinard said, called The Secret Garden, with drinks making use of white wine, berries, tequila, coconut water, grapefruit liqueur and several other light, zesty ingredients. There is also a non-alcoholic juice-based flight with carrot ginger turmeric juice, pineapple, kale, guava, and more blood orange.

Three espresso martinis at The Miller’s Tavern

1087 Elm St., Manchester, 854-8442, themillerstavern.com, $20

You’ve got your choice of two different espresso martini flights at The Miller’s Tavern, said bartender Kristyn Merritt — a Light Flight and a Dark Flight.

“The dark has no Baileys,” she said, pointing to each martini in turn.

“Here is an Original,” she said, “and there’s a salted caramel, and a peanut butter. The original does not have a rim, but it gets the three coffee beans.” By this she meant that two of the martini glasses had flavorings on their rims. “The salted caramel has caramel vodka, RumChata, and it has caramel and salt on the rim. And then the peanut butter gets chocolate and peanuts on the rim, and has Screwball [a peanut butter flavored whiskey], peanut butter, and the Baileys. The original dark is just Kahlua, vanilla vodka, and espresso.”

“It goes without saying that there are some secret ingredients,” she said. “They are delicious, but they are secret.”

Merritt said the flight is popular after dinner.

“Customers wait till dessert,” she said, “and everybody gets a round of espresso martinis. But some people start with it.”

Four types of lemonade at The Spot Eatery

1461 Hooksett Road, Hooksett, 664-4249, thespoteatery.com, $12.99

“We have a lot of lemonades that we can actually do,” said Jill Lucas, owner of The Spot, “but on our board we feature four of them to go in a flight. One of our baristas came up with most of these and right now we’re calling our lemonade flight The Garden Social.”

“The first one is a cucumber and honey lemonade. It’s got fresh muddled cucumber with honey. The second one is a sunburnt mango lemonade, which is fresh muddled mango with Tajin [a chili-lime spice blend]. The third one is a botanical berry lemonade, which is fresh muddled strawberries and basil. And then the fourth one is a blueberry breeze lemonade, which has fresh muddled blueberries and mint.”

“We just started this flight a couple of weeks ago,” Lucas said, “but people have started ordering it. We make fresh-squeezed lemonade here, so this seems like a natural for us. We can do hot chocolate flights. We do coffee flights. We do chai flights. We can do, you know, lemonade flights. We do whatever somebody wants.”