Drink

My favorite craft brewery in Massachusetts, Trillium, returns the Rose Kennedy Greenway in late May. The beer garden is perfectly situated in front of the Rowes Wharf Arch at the Boston Harbor Hotel. Expect Fort Point Pale Ale, dry double-hopped Melcher Street, and six other beers on tap. Castle Island will also debut their beer garden this summer beneath the Southeast Expressway in a new 8-acre site dubbed Underground at Ink Block. 20 Castle Island beers like the double IPA, Keeper, will be on tap as you check out the street art every Thursday through Sunday. Then there’s Wachusett Brewery, which will be bringing their perfect summertime brew, the Blueberry Ale, to City Hall Plaza daily, serving out of their Airstream trailer. So if you get parched this summer walking the streets of Boston, you’ll have your choice of stellar brew to savor outdoors. 

An hour south of Boston, you reach the southern shores of Massachusetts and the seaside town of Westport. It’s one of my favorite places to bike, where the farmland meets the Atlantic Ocean. It’s also home to Horseneck Beach and the popular restaurant, Back Eddy, where we held the closing night party for the film my brother, Jim and I wrote, Passionada. Another highlight is Westport Rivers Vineyards, rated one of the best wines in New England. On Friday nights in summer, bring your blanket, chairs, and bug spray and listen to live music from 6 to 8 pm at their Sunset Music Series. Enjoy dining from the Rhode Rage food truck and Cuttyhunk Shellfish Farms while sipping one of Westport’s award-winning sparkling wines. Local craft brews are also served. It’s a great way to end your day at the beach, but make sure to reserve tickets in advance. 

Travel writers adore properties like Stowe Mountain Lodge, the wonderful upscale resort at the base of Stowe Mountain. I started writing about this hotel in 2006, two years before it even opened. There was such a buzz that even then you knew it was going to be the best ski-in/ski-out resort in the northeast. It seems like every year since its opening in 2008, I’ve been back to report on some update as Stowe Mountain Lodge continues to expand, be it a new spa, theater, or indoor climbing wall. This week, I was back in town to pen a story on the exceptional craft brew and cocktail scene in Stowe. On Monday, I had the good fortune to meet master mixologist Dan Hatheway, who tends bar at the Linehouse, an invitation-only speakeasy found just outside the premises (sorry, I’ve been sworn to secrecy to not tell the exact whereabouts). Inside the cozy space of stained Vermont maple wood and lined pickle jars, we sat at the bar as Dan placed retro glassware (from Vermont estate sales) in front of us. Soon he was breaking out an eyedropper to place the bitters atop my rum-saturated Smugglers Barrel and firing up the rye in a devilishly good concoction of bourbon and blended scotch he coined the Kashki. The presentation of all his drinks were drop dead gorgeous, especially the drink he made, Lisa, the aptly named Fancy Lady. Needless to say, if you get an invite to the Linehouse, run, don’t walk. 

Already a phenomenon in Paris, Don Papa Rum has just arrived in New York and Boston. I went to a rum tasting last week at Shojo in Boston’s Chinatown and was even more enamored with this rum than the last time I tried it in France. The 10-year-old bottle has hints of vanilla which stems not only from the sweeter Noble Cane found in the Philippines, but the result of aging in former bourbon and American oak casks. As the story goes, founder Stephen Carroll was sailing around the volcanic island of Negros, when he learned about the centuries-old Noble Cane and the reason they coined the island Sugarlandia. He went on land and discovered the remains of a small rum distillery. Carroll bought it out and started creating his own “black gold” molasses. In less than a decade, he’s created quite a buzz in the liquor world. Grab your bottle of 7 and 10-year rum at Vinodivino in Boston and Needham, Charles Street Liquor in Boston, Gordon Liquor in Waltham, among many other Boston area liquor stores, and you’ll soon believe the hype. 

Excited to hear that the Greenway Conservancy is opening a Beer Garden this summer on the Rose Kennedy Greenway. They chose a perfect spot, right in front of the Rowes Wharf Arch at the Boston Harbor Hotel. They also chose my favorite Massachusetts-made beer, Trillium, which has breweries in Fort Point and Canton. Expect Fort Point Pale Ale, dry double-hopped Melcher Street, and six other beers on tap. Don’t just take my word that Trillium is one of the best brews in the region. Earlier this year, the website RateBeer ranked Trillium as the third best brewery in the world! The Beer Garden is slated to debut in late June. 

I caught up with Sam von Trapp at the Boston Ski Show and he was really excited about the opening of his new bierhall at Stowe’s Trapp Family Lodge. He’s been brewing award-winning Austrian-style lagers since 2010 but now you have a chance to swig a pint at large communal tables while being served lunch and dinner items from the wood-fired grill. The bierhall is located right on the cross-country ski trail network (and mountain biking network come spring). I can think of no better way to reward yourself after a good sweat than having a cool freshly made lager. Look forward to checking it out this winter! 

It’s wonderful to be back in Cape Breton, especially on a hot cloudless sunny day. After crossing Canso Causeway and following Route 19 on Ceilidh Trail, we picnicked on the rocks of the Celtic Shores Coastal Trail, a hard-packed gravel trail which snakes along the western shores of Cape Breton from Port Hastings all the way north 92 kilometers to Inverness. In Glenville, we stopped at the Glenora Distillery to sample the single malt whisky (can’t call it Scotch since we’re not in Scotland). We stepped into the bar and listened to the live Celtic music from local fiddlers and singers while sampling a flight of five whisky choices. The Glen Breton 10 year-old whisky was smooth, but we loved the 19 year-old cask strength whisky finished in a barrel used for ice wine to add a hint of sweetness at the end. Then we took a tour around the distillery to see how they produced 150 barrels of whisky this past year. Built in 1990, Glenora is the first distillery in North America to attempt to make single malt scotch. The water stems from the shimmering McClellan’s Brook which runs through the bucolic property, while the malted barley comes from Saskatchewan and the fast-acting yeast from South Africa. The finished product is aged in oak barrels from the Buffalo Trace bourbon distillery in Kentucky.  The result is award-winning single malt whisky, worthy of a stop. 

Lavaux’s majestic vineyards are sculpted into the steep hillside like the rice terraces of Bali. Many of the stone walls that hem in the rows of vineyards were first created by monks. The perfect introduction to the beauty of Lavaux is aboard the circa-1910 paddle steamer, La Suisse, preferably on one of their gourmet cruises for lunch. Heading east from Lausanne to Montreux, the hillside is awash in vines surrounding small villages and centuries-old villas.