The weather for the coming weekend looked decent (at least
for Sunday), so I’d put the word out to a few of the guys to see if any of them
were interested in revisiting Parker’s Maple Barn for breakfast. This is the place in NH we went to a number of
years ago that allows you to bring in your own booze. This was also the same place that we thought
bringing flasks in made us pretty cool, only to be thoroughly outdone by the
folks who brought in a battery-operated blender and all the ingredients
(including a 5th of vodka) for making bloody mary’s.
At any rate, Zig had to work and Rex had house responsibilities
to take care of, so it was me and Matty.
Nice! We were sure to find
ourselves a bit of trouble on the day.
Thursday night, I got my flask ready and filled it with “99”
brand Butterball. The thing about this
is, the “99” isn’t just the brand name, it’s also the alcohol content. And after sampling it a bit, I realized that
I probably didn’t want to be knocking back an entire flask of this stuff if I’m
doing a day of riding. So, in a rare bit
of intelligence, I swapped that stuff out and went with my homemade Kahlua,
instead. (I know what you’re thinking;
yes, some batches of that stuff have been pretty potent, but the batch I used
for the flask was from a much-lighter-booze-on-the-booze batch, so no worries.)
And then...it was Sunday morning! I woke up, got dressed and walked out the
front door. Man, it was beautiful
weather already! Warm, dry air greeted
me as readied my bike – I wouldn’t even need a jacket this morning!
A quick shower and then I was off, headed to Matty’s house –
it was gonna be a good day!
Although…those skies above me were looking pretty ornery…
Arriving safely, I found Matt had already pulled his bike out and was ready to go. But, before we could leave, we needed to make sure the flasks were properly filled. He was bringing not just his usual two-halved one, but also (what I affectionately call); Frankenflask. This thing is enormous! It holds a full litre of liquid. Egads…
He opted to fill that one with Peach schnapps, I believe it
was (I forget what he put in the normal-sized one), and we were off…well, almost…just
need to take care of the customary sendoff beerverage to appease the road gods.
(Yes, that one on the right is the can he superglued to his
counter.)
I’d mapped out the route ahead of time and while it seemed
different than the way we’d gone the last time we headed to this place, it
wound up being a very enjoyable and scenic ride. Lots of back wooded roads with shade, minimal
traffic, and only one deer which bounded out in front of the car ahead of
us. Fortunately, no one wound up worse
for wear as both Bambi and the car managed to avoid each other, and the two
bikers pulling up the rear didn’t wind up with any animal shrapnel to dodge.
We found the place easily enough and pulled in. Hey, how about that, they even have
bike-specific parking now. Sweet!
We put our name in to the queue and then kicked back to pass
the ~40 minute wait time. Now was as
good a time as any to snap a couple of pics;
A row of bikes parked in front of your establishment is
usually a good indication of the food quality to be found inside.
We began pulling out our wares and got them set up on the
table for the obligatory picture (yes, that monstrosity behind the normal flasks, is Frankenflask…)
…complete with the obligatory action pic…
…and that was when the wheels fell off of our plan. The waitress at the next table saw Matt doing his thing and said in a pretty loud voice that she’d better not see that again. Uhm…say what??
Well, it turns out that this place doesn’t allow you to bring alcohol in any longer! That if they saw us drinking again, well… (I don’t really know what would have happened. She didn’t say what, but we got the impression we’d probably be asked to leave.)
Damn. All this way
for an expensive, albeit tasty, breakfast, but no booze! Yes, so we can still enjoy a breakfast
without a snoot full, but this was all about the fun! Where else can you go to breakfast and bring
in your own booze? (I don’t know, but I’m
now on the hunt to find that place!)
We hastily put the flasks away and set to eating our food –
which did come out mighty quickly. Not
sure if they were trying to rush us out of the place or not. The good news is that the folks around us
didn’t give us the stinkeye at all. In
fact, some of them seemed to have gotten a kick out of the whole thing.
When we’d finished and paid our tab, we headed back to the
bikes and decided it was much too fine a day to head back to helmet-land (aka;
Mass) just yet, so we agreed to just ride random roadways and see where we
wound up.
We found some good roads and some not so good ones, even a
dirt one at one point that fortunately didn’t last too long. After about an hour or two, we found
ourselves on 101A and stuck in stop-n-go traffic on the outskirts of Nashua. Bleah.
The heat was pretty strong at this point and we weren’t moving much but
sometimes that’s when Providence provides.
We spotted a little yard-style sign which pointed down a
side street. Why is this important? Because apparently down this side street was
a distillery…which was open…and which had tours going on.
Ta da!
Hopefully they had tastings as well, but there was only one way to know for sure so we u-turned it and found the place in question; Djinn Spirits http://www.djinnspirits.com/.
It was a small operation; a husband and wife, and they’d
only been in business for a year and a half.
They were very friendly and gave us all the back story on their company…all
while Cindy (the wife) was giving us samples.
Yaaaay samples!
They had a clear (white) whiskey which had hints of sweetness
(in a good way), a Reserve, which was slightly yellow and hinted of oak and
corn. They had a gin which I politely
declined, but which Matt tried and then advised I should, as well. I did, and was pleasantly surprised as this
was not (as was explained to me) made the same way as the dry gins I’d tried
before.
Lastly, they had a honey-based liquor to try and this was
amazing. Krupnik! The website has the write-up on this (and
their other spirits), so I won’t go into all the detail, but suffice to say
this one was Matt and my favorite by far.
Andy (the husband) gave us a lengthy, in depth tour of their
operation. It was very small, but it
sure seemed like they are on to something and have things down to quite a
science. They’ve got another whiskey
that’s barreling right now and will be ready in the December timeframe (I
believe it was a more of a Reserve-style, but I’m not certain).
After the tour we each picked up a bottle of the Krupnik, thanked
and wished them well, and hit the road again.
Oh yeah; we also got a glass with our tour fee!
It was about mid-afternoon at this point and it seemed prudent to hit the roads toward home so as to get a jump on traffic before the Sunday rush kicked in. We fared pretty well, only hitting some slowdown at one point by Rte 290 on-ramp, but sailed smoothly for the rest of the way.
As Matt’s exit neared, he signaled the universal hand gesture
for “hey, let’s have a beer”, to which I earnestly agreed. We hit the off-ramp and cut to his house.
Setting the ‘stands, we hung out on his steps and talked
about the day. It had truly been a fun
one so far, and what better way than to continue things by hitting Natty Green’s
to see what they had on-hand for specialty craft brews.
As luck would have it, they had two offerings which I was
very interested in; the first was a very-early Seasonal/Christmas beer,
complete with all the spiced aromas and tongue tantalizing flavors one would
expect from something like this.
The second one…ohhh, the second one. That came from what has to be my favorite
brewery; Southern Tier. They’re the ones
who put out the Crème Brulee beer earlier this summer that I was quite fond
of. This one didn’t disappoint; it was
their ‘Chokolat Oranj” and was marvelous!
PIC 13
But only one of those, thanks, they’re pretty strong. Safety first!
:-D
After we’d knocked a few…whoops…one of those back, we
decided to round the day out by hitting the Red Rooster on Rte 1. There were a few bikes out front, which was
to be expected since it was still such a nice day out that I’m sure lots of
folks were still out rolling miles up.
And that was it for the day.
I don’t know the mileage we did – most of the day was spent rolling, but
most of the roadways were windy and pleasant.
Roads which you want to enjoy, rather than shredding, and that’s never a
bad thing.
A great day, to be sure.
Ride Hard, Take Chances
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