Category: Food

New Hampshire Distiller’s Week returns

By Katelyn Sahagian

ksahagian@hippopress.com

New Hampshire in early November is the place to be for everyone who adores fine spirits like tequila, whiskey, gin and vodka. Celebrities of the industry come from across the country and the world to partake in the spirited celebration.

The annual Distiller’s Week, with the highlight event of the Distiller’s Showcase of Premium Spirits on Thursday, Nov. 3, is back.

When Mark Roy began Distiller’s Showcase and Week, it wasn’t something he anticipated getting this big. Roy conceived the show when he was hired as the New Hampshire Liquor Commission’s spirit marketing and sales specialist. He saw that there was a week-long celebration of wine in New Hampshire, and thought, why not one for liquor and spirits as well?

“We did a trial run our first year to see how it would work with the support of our local brokers,” Roy said. “We had a whopping 250 people in attendance and it was a smashing success.”

While it started off small, this year there are expected to be around 1,000 participants alone. Roy, when he spoke with the Hippo, said that more than 800 tickets had already been sold.

The showcase will have 180 booths set up with different brands of alcohol at many of them. The tables will offer tastings, and some will have specialty cocktails for people to try. Roy said that he recommends people look up the brands that will be visiting, to try to make a game plan of brands they want to see and have never experienced before.

“I tell them to use this as an event to try products that you normally wouldn’t try or maybe try ones a bit out of your price range,” Roy said. “If you make a checklist of who you want to see and what you want to taste, that’s a really good idea.”

There’s more than just alcohols and tastings. Brands like Pepsi and Stonewall Kitchen will have non-alcoholic beverages, water and cocktail mixers for people as well. Restaurants like 110 Grill, Tuscan Brands and Whole Foods Market will have stalls for people to peruse.

Before the Showcase, there will be a special event called A Taste of Ireland. The experience will begin at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 2, at the Manchester Country Club (180 S. River Road., Bedford). This event was curated by Bord Bia, the food board in Ireland.

Teresa Phelan, the board’s Vice President of Alcohol for North America, said her entire job is to get people in America excited about Irish alcohols. While most people think of whiskey when it comes to Irish spirits, Phelan said that there is a growing emphasis on gin on the island.

“A lot of our distilleries started producing gin when they weren’t quite ready to release their whiskey, but they’ve used all these wonderful botanicals from the Irish countryside and made these excellent gins, which are now super-popular,” Phelan said. “They’re also not as traditionally juniper-heavy.”

A Taste of Ireland will highlight the love of gin with the Irish botanicals, but will also have an emphasis on the diverse flavors of Irish whiskey.

Phelan explained that while most whiskeys have a lot of rules they must follow, Irish whiskey isn’t bound to many more than having to be made in Ireland and contain malted cereal grain. For example, bourbon can only be made of over 50 percent corn and stored in new, charred white oak casks for at least two years before bottling.

This lack of hard rules on what makes Irish whiskey an Irish whiskey allows for distillers to have more freedom with the flavors and process, said Phelan. To really drive this point home, she had scratch-and-sniff booklets created for people to smell different parts of the distilling process, as well as the Irish countryside.

“I think one of the greatest things about Irish [whiskey] is that it’s got this distinct flavor profile,” Phelan said. “It’s a lot lighter, it’s fruity, it’s got some cereal notes.”

She added that a great example of this type of classic Irish whiskey is Jameson Original, which has a strong flavor of orchard-ripe apple, as well as a deep spice from the used bourbon casks it’s aged in.

While the flavors and variations of Irish whiskey are going to be highlighted at the event, Phelan said that the history of Irish whiskey was something she really wanted to drive home.

According to Phelan, there were hundreds of Irish distillers making whiskey in the 1700s. Nearly all the whiskey in the world was made in Ireland, and it was exported across the globe for consumers to enjoy.

The downfall of Irish whiskey was a twofold event, Phelan said.

“We would have had almost a distillery in every town in Ireland, except for Prohibition in the U.S., which was one of our biggest markets,” she said. “Along with us getting independence from the British, that cut off pretty much our sales market instantly.”

By the 1980s the total number of distilleries in Ireland had dropped to just two. Now, that number has grown to 42, a greater than 4,000 percent increase in a decade.

Many of the distilleries in Ireland will be featured in the Showcase, along with new whiskeys made in America — and, at least one new release is from the Granite State.

Tamworth Distilling, owned by Scott Grasse, is coming out with a new whiskey. Grasse, who engineered the viral Crab Trapper whiskey, is using a cone to help his newest creation during the aging process. The whiskey is called Dunce, an homage to John Duns Scotus, a Franciscan priest and philosopher who wore a cone-shaped hat because he believed it heightened his mind.

“It’s remarkable because it’s added magic to the aging process,” Grasse said. “You’ll taste it, [and] you’ll say, ‘What am I tasting?’ What you’re tasting is the divine energy of the universe.”

Grasse recently wrote a book about his life as a distiller with renowned spirits expert Aaron Goldfarb. It’s scheduled for a Nov. 8 release, just after Distiller’s Week comes to a close.

While Grasse and Goldfarb won’t be able to come up to celebrate the release of the book, or the whiskey, the Showcase is something they both look forward to hearing about.

“The New Hampshire Liquor Commission has been an amazing partner,” Grasse said. “New Hampshire is one of the biggest single buyers of spirits and [they’ve] been so helpful with us when we launched something. I don’t think we could be doing or leading the world in innovation if we didn’t have such an amazing partner.”

Ninth Annual Distiller’s Showcase
Where: DoubleTree by Hilton Manchester Downtown, 700 Elm St., Manchester
When: Thursday, Nov. 3, 6 to 8:30 p.m.
Price: Tickets start at $60
Visit: distillersshowcase.com

How are all the types of whiskey different?
Source: New Hampshire Liquor Commission
Bourbon
Must be made in America
Must have at least 51 percent corn in the mash
Must be aged in a new charred oak barrel for minimum of two years
Canadian
Must be made in Canada
Must contain no less that 40 percent alcohol by volume
Irish
Must be made in Ireland
Must have at least 30 percent malted grain in the mash
Japanese
Must be made in Japan
Is allowed to contain rice
Rye
Must be made from at least 51 percent rye
Scotch
Must be made in Scotland
Must be aged in oak barrels for at least three years
Age statement is the youngest age after bottling
Tennessee
Must be made in Tennessee
Mash must be at least 51 percent corn

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

Fody’s Tavern introduces fall festival in Derry

When Fody’s Tavern acquired a 40-by-60-foot tent in January 2020 for its inaugural winter festival in Derry, co-owner Maria Foden could not have imagined just how critical that investment would be.
“I mean, we’ve probably used that thing a thousand times now,” Foden said. “It was just good fortune … because when everybody else was shut down because of Covid and we were trying to scramble to get outdoor seating ready and everything, we already had the tent. So we were very lucky, because we were able to have so many seats outside early on.”
After skipping a year in 2021 due to pandemic concerns, the winter festival returned for a second year the following January. Now, a new similar event is building on its success — the first Fody’s Fall Festival is happening on Saturday, Oct. 22, and will include all kinds of locally sourced food and beer samples, Foden said, along with live music, a stein hoisting competition, children’s games, giveaways and more.
“We’re essentially mirroring our winter festival, so it’s going to be literally 10 hours of just fun entertainment, [with] great music and food, all outdoors,” she said. “We’ll have all sorts of fall goodies … for people to buy, and samples, too.”
From noon to 4 p.m., the festival will be open to attendees of all ages, with pony rides, face-painting and other activities and games available for the younger crowd. Then, beginning at 4 p.m., the event will transition into a 21+ outing. In addition to beers from several local breweries — Rockingham Brewing Co. of Derry; and Long Blue Cat Brewing Co. and Pipe Dream Brewing, both of Londonderry, to name a few — the Boston-based Ghost Tequila, a chief sponsor of the festival, will offer samples of its own.
Food samples will be provided by some local vendors as well. Fabrizia Spirits of Salem, for instance, will have some of their own limoncello-infused desserts in addition to some of their liqueurs, while Theresa Zwart of 603 Charcuterie is providing several types of locally made cheeses and other products commonly found at her wildly popular charcuterie classes. Additionally, Foden said that the tavern will likely offer a special menu of seasonal options.
“We’ll probably just do easy things that, when people are out there enjoying themselves, they can just grab a snack,” she said. “The whole restaurant will be open for full dinner and lunch service as well, so if people want to go in and sit down and get a meal during the festival, they can.”
A full schedule of live local music is also planned, with each act broken out into two- to three-hour performing increments. From 6 to 8 p.m., there will be a stein hoisting competition, a tradition at many Oktoberfest celebrations that originated in Germany and is now a competitive sport. Participants are given a stein filled to the top with beer that they must hold by the handle out in front of their bodies with one hand for as long as possible. The person who can hold it for the longest time without breaking form or spilling their stein is declared the winner.
Once night falls, Foden said, attendees can gather around a fire pit, and there will also be a special LED light dance show.

Fody’s Fall Festival
When: Saturday, Oct. 22, noon to 10 p.m. (kids’ activities will be available from noon to 4 p.m.; after 4 p.m., the event is 21+ only)
Where: Fody’s Tavern, 187½ Rockingham Road, Derry
Cost: $10 general admission; additional charges apply for food, drinks and pony rides
More info: Visit fodystavern.com or see “Fody’s Fall Festival” on Eventbrite to purchase tickets
Event is held outdoors, so be sure to dress appropriately. A potential rain date is scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 29.

Great Bowls of Fire Chili Cook-off returns

If you think you make the best bowl of chili around, here’s your chance to show it off — the Great Bowls of Fire Chili Cook-off, returning to Goffstown Ace Hardware on Saturday, Oct. 22, is a friendly competition and fundraiser that will feature a variety of homemade chilis available to taste from local community members and restaurateurs.
Chili entrants are welcome to bring a slow cooker of their best batches by 10:30 a.m., with sampling beginning at 11 a.m. No pre-registration is required for entrants, nor for tasters who just want to come and vote. Prizes in the form of Goffstown Ace Hardware gift cards — $100 for first place, $75 for second place and $50 for third place — will be awarded to the winners.
“We started doing it … just sort of casually, and now people are really excited about it, and so we keep doing it in October,” said event coordinator Pat Barss of Goffstown Ace Hardware, who herself took home second place in last year’s cook-off, her first year participating as an entrant.
The cook-off was introduced in 2018 as one of several fundraising events sponsoring Goffstown Ace Hardware owner Karen Henderson’s annual running of the Boston Marathon. While they did have to skip a year in 2020 due to the pandemic, Barss said they experienced a great turnout at last year’s cook-off, with around 15 chilis for attendees to sample.
“There are chili competitions all over … and I guess the word gets out,” she said.
But part of the draw of this cook-off is that you’ll never know what’s in store to taste until the day of. In the past, Barss said the event has been known to feature all varieties of chili, from traditional beef chili to some white chilis, vegan or vegetarian chilis and even a venison chili. While any individual can enter, the cook-off in the past has garnered participation from local agencies like the Goffstown Fire Department, as well as The Village Trestle and some other restaurants in the area. All of the slow cookers are placed under tented tables out in front of the store. Each entrant is assigned a number that’s displayed in front of the chilis, enabling attendees to blind taste each one and vote for their favorite. Some people, Barss said, have even turned the cook-off into their own lunch outing.
“We have little sampling cups … and once it’s gone, it’s gone,” she said. “If most people are there to sample early, then … some of the [slow cookers] are cleaned right out.”
Vote counting will take place at the conclusion of the cook-off around 1 p.m. Donations will also be accepted during the event, with proceeds benefiting Boston Children’s Hospital.

Great Bowls of Fire Chili Cook-off
When: Saturday, Oct. 22, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Where: Goffstown Ace Hardware, 5 Depot St., Goffstown
Cost: Free to enter in your chili or attend as a taster; no pre-registration required
Visit: goffstownhardware.com
Entrants are asked to bring their chilis to Goffstown Ace Hardware by 10:30 a.m. First, second and third place prizes — Goffstown Ace Hardware gift cards of $100, $75 and $50 — will be awarded. Proceeds from gathered donations will benefit Boston Children’s Hospital.

Featured photo: Scene from the Great Bowls of Fire Chili Cook-off.