vermont's local banquet magazine spring 2013

vermont’s

spring 2013 | issue twenty-four

local banquet

A “Spirited” Issue:Local Distilleries

Maple Mixed DrinksWinemaking in Barre

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CONTENTSS p r i n g 2 0 1 3

i s s u e t w e n t y - f o u r

6 Publishers’ Note

8 A Passion for Artisan Soap

10 The Story of Bread

Green Mountain Flour

12 Classy Wheat

Growing wheat at The Putney School

14 Set the Table with…

Maple Mixed Drinks

16 Down Home Distilling

18 Winemaking in Barre

21 Vermont Distillers Map

22 Hopeful on Hemp

29 Farmers’ Kitchen

No Kid Left Behind

31 Calendar

32 Last Morsel

local banquet S p r i n g 2 0 1 36

V E R M O N TB U S I N E S S E SF O R S O C I A LRESPONSIBILTY

M E M B E R

Publishers’ NotePublisher

Schreiber & Lucas, LLC

EditorCaroline Abels

Art DirectorMeg Lucas

Ad DirectorBarbi Schreiber

ProofreaderMarisa Crumb

ContributorsDavid Budbill

Joann DarlingSylvia Fagin

Claire FittsHelen Labun Jordan

Robb KiddShirley Richardson

Katie Ross

Printed with soy ink on FSC certified 50% recycled

chlorine–free paperSubscriptions, $22

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Vermont’s Local BanquetPO Box 69

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vermont’s LOCAL Banquet

Mission StatementThe purpose of our publication is to promote and support our local communities. By focusing on fresh, local, wholesome foods grown and made in Vermont, we preserve our environment, grow our economy, and enhance our nutrition.

Vermont’s Local Banquet (ISSN 1946–0295) is published quarterly. Subscriptions are $22 annually and are mailed in the spring, summer, fall, and winter. Please make checks payable to Vermont’s Local Banquet. Thank you.

Copyright (c) 2013. All rights reserved. No part of this periodical may be reproduced without written consent. Opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publishers or editors.

On the cover : Asparagus—Hartland, Vermont; photo by Meg Lucas.

Contents page : Barrels at Saxtons River Distillery; photo by Barbi Schreiber.

Maybe you’ve noticed that the “spirits” of Vermont are on the move and showing up at liquor outlets, farmers’ markets, restaurants—even your friends’ homes—throughout the state. Are they friendly spirits, you ask? You bet! As with local food, Vermont is quickly becoming a state with a flourishing locally distilled spirits industry.

Hear, hear! This is a trend to which we can certainly raise a glass (or two, or three). What could be better than handcrafted, small-batch liquors, made right here by creative folks who are rediscovering the artistry of this ancient endeavor and adding an inimitable twist of their own? Keep those kettles and barrels rolling.

In this issue, we begin our exploration of the “spirit world” by diving right in. Recipe developer extraordinaire Claire Fitts has been hard at work devising a number of yummy cocktails that you can make using local elixirs and that ubiquitous Vermont ingredient, maple syrup. (As a local foods magazine, we often feel compelled to run a maple article in the spring issue, but with a twist, and this one has a twist on the rocks.) Find her article on page 14.

On page 16, Helen Labun Jordan takes a look at some of Vermont’s innovative distillers and how they’re harnessing local ingredients to give the spirits in their world some unique “personalities.”

And to round off the theme, on page 21 we offer a map of Vermont distilleries that, as of this printing, are engaged in active production. If you’re planning a visit make sure to call ahead, as not all locations have tasting rooms.

Knowing that wines are not technically spirits (although they can make us all pretty spirited), we stray a wee bit off topic with a piece about winemaking at home. On page 18, Sylvia Fagin chronicles the annual tradition shared by a group of friends in Barre and discovers that it takes much more than grapes to make a good wine.

And not to worry—we’ll be covering local beer and brewing in a future issue, but as a nod in that direction, we have two articles on the topic of wheat.

Speaking for ourselves, we sleep better at night knowing that our Vermont “spirits” are afoot. Let’s raise a glass high in thanks to our local distillers who are making it happen!

Cheers!

Meg Lucas Barbi Schreiber

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S p r i n g 2 0 1 3 7local banquet


A Passion for Artisan Soapby Joann Darling

How are handmade soaps made? I’ll spare you the detailed chemistry lesson and just give an overview. Soap is formed through the hydrolysis of an oil or fat in an alkaline solution. The chemical reaction that occurs is called saponification, and the products that result are glycerol and fatty acid salts. The alkaline solution can come from any of the following sources: potash (potassium carbonate) leached from the ash of woody plants; soda ash (sodium carbonate) leached from the ashes of saltwater plants; and sodium or potassium hydroxide from a reaction with soda or potash and lime (calcium oxide). The oil or fat can come from either vegetable sources, such as olive oil, or animal sources, such as beef tallow or pork lard.

Once the soap has been thoroughly blended, essential oils and powdered herbs can be added. Then the mixture is poured into wooden moulds to set. For the soaps I sell, I like to use herbs I

grow myself. One of my favorites for adding to soap would have to be lavender (Lavendula angustifolia); it’s one of the most well-loved scents with its calming and relaxing effects, and is gender neutral. I also enjoy growing lemongrass (Cymbopogon flexuosus) for its fresh and uplifting fragrance.

After 48 hours, the soap is firm enough to cut into bars, and they will take an additional six weeks to fully cure and dry. In addi-tion to using my own herbs, I have lately been calling local wild game processors to obtain bear fat and deer tallow, and have plans to expand into shampoos for people and pets using sun-flower oil produced in Vermont.

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Soap is such an omnipresent word that no matter what lan-guage you speak or continent you’re on, no further explanation is needed—or is there?

My soap-making journey started a decade or so ago, when I was becoming more and more sensitized (allergic) to main-stream, detergent-type soaps. Eventually I just couldn’t use them anymore. As I researched the subject, I became alarmed at what was being used in cosmetic products on the market, not to mention all the harmful chemicals leaching into our water-ways as a result of those products. I decided to start making my own soap, and the enthusiasm I had back then for soap making has now turned into a passion and a business for me. My only regret is that I didn’t start making them sooner!


Joann Darling at her booth at the Montpelier farmers’ market

In the Dictionaire Oeconomique of 1750, soap is defined as:

…a composition of Oil of oliancientve, lime and ashes of the Herb Kali or Saltwort (Salsola kali); the chief use is to wash and clean Linnen. There are two sorts there of, which are distinguished by their colour, viz. White and Black

That’s quite specific as to ingredients and use! What excites me most about producing handmade soap is that I feel connected to an ancient tradition that seems to never be out of style—or at least is resistant to being forgotten. Regardless of what “soap” was originally made of or used for, I am glad our ancestors real-ized its value and embraced the craft.

The origins of soap are said to reach as far back as 2800 BC, when concoctions of ash and fats appear on Sumerians’ clay tablets. Pliny the Elder of Rome, in the Historiae Naturalis, lists a medici-nal soap-like recipe, using goat grease and spruce ash, to treat skin disorders. There is also a beautiful Roman legend that attri-butes the discovery of soap to the goddess Athena. It tells of how women washing clothes below Mount Sapo (Sapo Hill) one day noticed the ease with which the clothing became clean, and that there was an odd occurrence of foam along the river-bank. On Sapo Hill there was a temple to Athena where people often made animal sacrifices, and the ash and fat that accumu-lated produced a crude soap-like substance that washed down the hill and eventually into the river below. Somehow they con-nected the foam to cleaner clothes?

At least by the first century we have a sense that a soap-like sub-stance was being made and used. The best and most identifi-able account of soap production can be found in a 12th-century Italian book, Mappae Clavicula: A Key to the World of Medieval Techniques. The following is an English translation from its origi-nal Latin prose:

#280 How Soap is made from Olive oil or Tallow

Spread well burnt ashes from good logs over woven wick-erwork made of tiny withies, or on a thin-meshed strong sieve, and gently pour hot water on them so that it goes through drop by drop. Collect the lye in a clean pot under-neath and strain it two or three times through the same ashes, so that the lye becomes strong and coloured. This is the first lye of the soap maker. After it has clarified well let it cook, and when it has boiled for a long time and has begun to thicken, add enough oil and stir well. Now, if you want to make lye with lime, put a little good lime in it, let the above mentioned lye boil by itself until it is cooked down and reduced to thickness. Afterwards, allow to cool in a suitable place whatever has remained there of the lye or watery stuff. This clarification is called the second lye of the soap maker. Afterwards, work [the soap] with a lit-tle spade for 2, 3 or 4 days, so that it coagulates well and is dewatered, and lay it aside for use. If you want to make [your soap] out of tallow the process will be the same, though instead of oil put well-beaten beef tallow and a lit-tle wheat flour according to your judgment, and let them cook to thickness as was said above. Now put some salt in the second lye that I mentioned and cook it until it dries out, and this will be the afronitrum for soldering.

One could not successfully create soap (at least what we con-sider soap today) from this recipe found in the Mappae Clavicula without going through a lot of trial and error, and wasted ingre-dients. (And what exactly is “woven wickerwork made of tiny withies?”) Back then, the trade/craft/art of soap making would have best been learned through an apprenticeship with a “mas-ter” soap-boiler.

Thankfully, today one can find many wonderful books about handcrafting soap, such as The Complete Soapmaker, by Norma Coney; Handcrafted Soap, by North Light Books; and Susan Miller Cavitch’s The Soap Makers Companion. The tradition and skill of crafting soap continues today among those who produce hand-made soap using natural oils, fats and additives.

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What do I mean when I say handmade soap? It would be, but not limited to, a soap produced with oils or fats in their true form (not synthesized), and one that would also embrace nat-ural additives such as honey versus processed sugar. This soap would also contain all of the natural glycerol produced during the saponification process. (I’ve been told that some commercial soap companies sell the glycerol as a byproduct—too bad, as glycerin is what gives soap its moisturizing quality.)

Soap making for me will always be a craft and an art. From the moment I used my first bar of handmade soap, I was hooked. Nothing could be better than a warm bath with the alluring fra-grance of a thousand blossoms encapsulated in the creamy lather of homemade soap.

Joann Darling lives in Barre, in the homestead where she grew up and where today she practices and teaches skills in traditional arts.

Her soap company is called Green Sylk Soap Co. You can contact her at gardensofsevengables.com or visit her booth at

the Capital City Farmers’ Market.Phot

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HarvestingFor Green Mountain Flour, sourcing grains locally is part of a larger effort to revitalize the small grain economy in the region, which includes surrounding states and Que-bec. While the company’s sourcing strategy begins with Vermont-grown organic wheat, the company relies on Quebec wheat when local wheat is not available. With a thriving grain industry, Vermont’s farmer neighbors to the north have assisted growers here in many ways, as they establish this new industry.

PlantingThe organic wheat for Green Moun-tain Flour’s products comes primar-ily from Vermont farmers Jim Greer in Windsor and Ken Van Hazinga in Shoreham. Although wheat is a challenge to grow in Vermont’s wet conditions, there are more than a dozen grain growers here, supply-ing a steadily growing demand for locally sourced grain.

To MillMost Vermont wheat is milled in New York State with industrial roller mills. Green Mountain Flour uses its own stone gristmill, adjacent to the bakery, to produce “bolted” flour—flour that is simply crushed and sifted. It’s believed that stone milling results in healthier flour than roller milling because the entire grain is crushed and the healthy oils are retained.

Green Mountain Flour, a new artisan bakery in Windsor owned and operated by Zachary Stremlau and Daniella Malin, takes a unique approach to its craft: it uses local wheat, local milling, and local fuel to create its flours, breads, and pizzas.

Here, woodcuts that comprise the bakery’s logo tell “the story of bread,” echoing a time in early New England when, according to Zachary and Daniella, “the farmers knew the miller, the miller milled with stone, and the baker baked with fire.” —by Caroline Abels

The Story of Bread


Baking Zachary, the head baker, uses a wood-fired oven to bake his sig-nature breads, for reasons of flavor and sustainability. He often starts the day by splitting wood right out-side the bakery, which is located adjacent to the couple’s home. They buy firewood from Strobel’s in Ascutney and go through roughly seven cords a year.

Shaping When it comes time to make its products, Green Mountain Flour shapes by hand and uses only “fresh flour”—meaning the flour has not been purposely aged. Fresh flour, while considered healthier, has a reputation for being harder to shape and make into lofty bread, but with extra care and attention, both loft and superior flavor can be achieved.

To TableCurrently, Green Mountain Flour distrib-utes its products through a bread CSA and online farmers’ market, and wholesale to retail stores, restaurants, and schools. They also cater with their mobile pizza oven. Although their business is just starting up, Zachary and Daniella are planning to write another chapter in the story of bread by opening a “see-it-made” storefront bak-ery and gourmet pizzeria in Windsor.

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Last year, I arrived at The Putney School as their new gardener and was tasked with getting the high school students at this Putney boarding and day school excited about gardening. Early on, the farm manager told me he had planted some wheat on

the edge of one of the farm’s hayfields. I was intrigued. I had no experience growing wheat, but had heard of others who had grown it in Vermont, and as an avid baker I liked the idea of growing my own grains.

Depending on your pedagogical approach, you could either say that Elm Lea Farm is a farm embedded in a boarding school or that The Putney School is a boarding school embedded in a farm. I would say both are true. Elm Lea, owned by the school and on the edge of campus, includes approximately 35 milking cows, a 2-acre garden, and, during the summer and fall, tur-keys and pigs. The farm relies on student labor to operate, and the school’s head chef estimates that 10 to 15 percent of the food consumed in the dining hall comes directly from the farm.

That initial plot of wheat planted by the farm manager did not thrive, largely due to benign neglect. We were all busy, and since the wheat had been planted in what had recently been a grassy plot, the grass simply took over again. But the experiment was enough to hook me, and I decided to try growing wheat with students in the gardens the following year. I knew that harvesting and processing wheat without large-scale machinery was labor intensive, but I thought that doing these tasks with students would provide the school with local flour

Classy Wheat

Students at The Putney School

separate the wheat from the chaff

by Katie Ross

CLOCKWISEFROM TOP LEFT:

Harvested wheat; the wheat field at Elm Lea Farm; students

winnowing; gathering and bunching the wheat


Putney School students making bread with campus wheat

while connecting students to the source of their bread and intro-ducing them to an ancient but largely forgotten agricultural art.

Planting: Spring vs. Winter, Red vs. White

There are two main growing seasons for bread wheat, winter and spring. Spring wheat is planted in the spring and harvested in the fall. Winter wheat, on the other hand, is planted in the fall and harvested the following summer, so it’s not easily grown in harsher climates. But one of the positives of winter wheat is that it has less competition from weeds while it’s getting established, which means it requires less weeding come spring.

To be honest, when I chose the variety of wheat to grow, my decision was based solely on the fact that it was October. Two other classes of bread wheat are red and white wheat, and hard and soft wheat. Red wheat tends to be more bitter than white wheat, and hard wheat contains more protein than soft wheat. At the time I did not pay attention to the variety I had planted, only that it was winter wheat. (Next year I will do more research!)

Ben Gleason of Gleason Grains recommends planting winter wheat between September 10 and September 25 for best results. I seeded my wheat later, choosing the already-tilled gardens rather than the hayfields where the previous year’s wheat had been. Although planted late, my wheat germinated just fine and didn’t have to compete with established grasses.

Harvesting: Amber Waves of Grain

Somehow the weather gods always seem to smile on me. A mild winter and spring meant my winter wheat was sufficiently established in the fall and started growing well when spring arrived. While a dry summer meant a somewhat challenging vegetable growing season at The Putney School, it was per-fect for wheat. By July, the wheat field was that “amber waves of grain” color that inspires painters and poets.

At one point I popped a wheat berry from one of the drooping plants into my mouth to see if it was ready. The grain was chewy and surprisingly sweet. Wheat is ready to harvest when the plants are a golden color and the heads are drooping. The grains should be firm and crunchy; if they’re soft the wheat isn’t ready yet.

But then I faced the question of who would harvest with me, and which tool would work best for harvesting. The Putney School has a summer program that includes the option to learn about and experience farming. I realized that summer-program students could provide the numbers needed for harvesting and in return get an experience that would likely be a first for them.

We happened to have a bunch of sickles hanging around. A sickle is the crescent-shaped tool that played a starring role on the old Soviet Union flag. It’s nice because the wheat is bunched as it’s harvested. Students held the sickle in their right hand, grabbing bunches of wheat in their left hand and cutting with the tool as close to the ground as possible.

We also had a couple of old scythes—the tool you usually see the grim reaper holding—and tried those as well. The scythe is swung so the blade is parallel to the ground, cutting the wheat as low as possible. We found that it was much quicker to cut the wheat with the scythe, but the time saved cutting was spent gathering the wheat into piles, as the scythe sends the wheat in every direction. This can be solved by using a cradle, a contrap-tion attached to the end of the scythe that catches the wheat so it can be easily bunched. We didn’t have a cradle, but next year the time required to make a cradle will be well worth it.

As we cut the wheat, students used twine to bind it in bundles up to a foot in diameter. The students seemed to enjoy the har-vesting, chatting as they steadily worked, and the event almost felt like a celebration, as several school community members came to watch the wheat being cut.

Next we transported the wheat to an empty room on the sec-ond floor of the barn, where it could dry. Harvested wheat should be handled as gingerly as possible, for at this stage the wheat berries are poised to jump off the stalk. We laid out the wheat on a tarp above the barn and left it there for a month or so, with a fan pointed on it to encourage drying. The wheat can be processed as soon as it’s dry and crunchy but will hold up as long as it’s kept in a dry and rodent-free location.

Processing: The Wheat from the Chaff

Once the gardens started slowing down we were able to start processing the wheat. Wheat grain is processed into flour through three main steps: threshing, winnowing, and grinding. Threshing involves separating the wheat kernel from the rest of the plant, and winnowing involves removing the husk from the kernel. Once the husk is removed it’s called the chaff.

I tried a few different threshing techniques with a group of stu-dents who were turning our wheat into bread as part of the school’s Project Week, which happens twice a year in lieu of finals. First we tried banging the wheat against the inside of a trash can, which seemed not quite big enough to be effec-tive. Next we hit the wheat against a sawhorse. That seemed to work pretty well, but with only one sawhorse and five or six people processing wheat, there wasn’t enough room for every-one to use the sawhorse, so some just used a “whack-it-on-the-tarp” method, which worked fairly well but resulted in a bit more straw and chaff being mixed in with the grain.

Another option, especially if there’s a lot of wheat to process, is Continued on page 27Ph

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Artesheady Punch

Maple Mixed Drinksby Claire FittsWhile Vermonters know that maple flows

well beyond the breakfast table, we don’t regularly take it behind the bar. So when, at the request of Local Banquet, I started on the quest of tippling the tree, I had some good starting points, but mostly got to invent. Some of the creations were immediately delicious, while others needed to stick to their day jobs.

The most immediate and obvious way to imbibe with maple is just to swap maple syrup for simple syrup in an existing rec-ipe. Or add a splash of Grade B to your favorite spirit on the rocks. But you can go oh-so-much farther, and contrary to assumption, maple syrup isn’t just for the sweet drinks. My new favorite evening go-to (as of starting this article) is Ver-mont Sazerac, my New England version of the New Orleans staple. It is herbaceous, sharp, smooth, and scrumptious. The tra-ditional version is made with Peychaud bitters, but in all of my bitters experimen-tations I keep going back to Vermont’s own Urban Moonshine, made in Burling-ton. Their organic bitters is hands-down my favorite. (A little goes a long way, so it’s well worth the organic penny.)

Vermont Sazerac

1/2 tsp. absinthe2 oz. WhistlePig rye whiskey1/2 oz. lemon juice1/2 oz. Vermont maple syrup1/4 tsp. Urban Moonshine bittersSwirl the absinthe in a rocks glass to coat the glass. In a shaker, shake the rest of the ingredients with ice and pour everything into the prepared glass.

Speaking of WhistlePig, a little while back I met the folks from this Shoreham-based whiskey maker at a party and one of them recommended a WhistlePig mixed drink that sounded kind of interesting (in both senses of the word). They didn’t give me ratios or a name for the drink, so I went home and came up with the recipe, while my fiancé came up with the name. This drink is shockingly good and appears

to be liked by sweet and savory drink-ers alike. It’s a great cocktail to make pre-dinner when you’ve just opened a bottle of red wine to add to the pasta sauce.

Red Whistle

1 oz. WhistlePig rye whiskey1 oz. red wine1/2 oz. Vermont maple syrup1/2 oz. lime (or lemon) juiceShake everything over ice and pour into a rocks glass.

Bars usually cook up simple syrup in large quantities to have at the ready for many a mixed drink, but we in the maple world have sugar-peeps to do that for us. Still, there are some mixes that benefit from planned preparation. When citrus is in season (during our cold winter months), I now buy bags and bags of the stuff. With a simple hand juicer, I press out fresh lemon, lime, and orange juice to make large batches of maple sours mix. Then I keep mason jars full of the sweet and sour goodness in the back of my fridge for whenever the need arises.

This delicious variation on the sugary col-lege staple can be added to just about

anything. Your favorite distilled spirit + sours is simple and refreshing any time of year. My fiancé has taken to adding it to his rum and Coke in place of a squirt of lime. Meanwhile, my sours-du-jour has become a Gin Sours. There are more types of gin created in our region than of any other spirit besides vodka. That makes this gin lover very happy, but if you’re not a gin lover, I encourage you to take a sec-ond taste of our new regional delicacy. Green Mountain Distillers, Caledonia Spir-its, and Smugglers’ Notch are making gin in Vermont (with Vermont Spirits Gin coming soon), while Flag Hill Distillery in New Hampshire (not to be confused with Flag Hill Farm in Vershire) is making Karner Blue Gin out of apples, and there is a Que-bec flavored gin made just north of the border called Ungava. Mix any of these very different gins with tonic, sours, or just ice and see which becomes your go-to.

Maple Sours Mix

juice of 2 lemons (1/2 cup)juice of 2 limes (1/2 cup)juice of one large orange (1/2 cup)1 cup Vermont maple syrupMix all the ingredients together and store for later use.

Set the Table with…

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Mt. Mansfield Sunrise

Grand Isle Iced Tea

Before we leave the tastiness of home-made maple sours behind, I have to men-tion a delicious drink that you could totally defend as a health tonic. At a recent delicious dinner at Montpelier’s Kismet restaurant, I was introduced to the Kombuchita. I immediately needed to re-create it at home so I could partake at a moment’s notice.

Kombuchita

4 oz. kombucha (cranberry or yourfavorite flavor)

1 oz. Vermont maple sours1 oz. tequilaMix all ingredients and pour over ice.

My friend Helen was tasked with writ-ing a companion article to this one, so we decided that we needed to have a “work meeting” to “collaborate.” Yes, that did mean creating many, many mixed drinks with maple, and in this experimen-tation we came up with some surprisingly yummy drinks. One I wasn’t expecting to like was the Artesheady Punch. Beer doesn’t always belong as a mixer, but the Alchemist’s famously good Heady Topper out of Waterbury rises to the task. Arte-sano is a meadery in Groton with a well-honed palate. I’ve been creating many mixed drinks with the various flavors of their local honey mead.

Artesheady Punch

4 oz. Heady Topper2 oz. Artesano original mead1/2 oz. Vermont maple syrupMix all ingredients with ice and for an added flare, pour into a glass rimmed with cocoa powder and cinnamon.

Another mead-inspired favorite that I’ve named the Mt. Mansfield Sunrise is tart, sweet, and refreshing. Or you could stay on the Heady Topper side of things and go with the drink that Helen named Unethical, for how good and easy to drink it is.

Mt. Mansfield Sunrise

3 oz. Artesano cranberry mead1 oz. Green Mountain Distillers orange

vodka1/2 oz. Vermont maple syrupShake all ingredients with ice and enjoy.

Unethical

1 can cold Heady Topper1 oz. Vermont maple syrup1 oz. Vermont vodkaStir all ingredients together in a tall beer glass.

Sometimes you just need to go a little crazy and mix in a bit of everything. For-tunately, Vermont is producing a greater and greater variety of spirits, which give us more room for creativity and the abil-ity to create this “everything” drink that I named with geography in mind.

Grand Isle Iced Tea

1 oz. Green Mountain Distillers gin1 oz. Flag Hill Farm’s Pomme De Vie1 oz. Vermont maple syrup1 oz. Green Mountain Distillers orange vodka1 oz. WhistlePig rye whiskey1 oz. Smugglers’ Notch rumcolaShake all ingredients, except cola, with ice. Pour, with the ice, into a glass and top with cola to taste.

And when the holidays come around again, or whenever your chickens or your neighbor’s chickens are happily popping out eggs, I wholeheartedly recommend this eggnog.

Maple Eggnog

8 egg whites, beaten to soft peaks8 eggs yolks, beaten until light1 cup Vermont maple syrup1/2 tsp. nutmeg1/2 tsp. ground cloves1 tsp. cinnamon1/2 cup bourbon1/2 cup aged rum1/4 cup Cointreau or Triple Sec1 1/4 cup cream1 3/4 cup milkWhisk all ingredients together and store in mason jars in the fridge until ready for use, keeping in mind that this mixture includes raw eggs. As the air settles out, the mixture will decrease in volume.

So, imbibe in maple, tipple the tree, and take a little sap behind the bar. This centu-ries-old local sweetener is primed for your post-Prohibition pleasure.

Claire Fitts is a recipe developer for corporations and publications, as well as

the owner of Butterfly Bakery of Vermont. Check out her recipe blog at Goodgrub.

ButterflyBakeryVT.com.

S p r i n g 2 0 1 3local banquet 16

by Helen Labun Jordan

Here’s the first thing you should know about making specialty liquors: cupcake vodka is not made by fermenting cupcakes. Likewise for the cotton candy, cookie dough, whipped cream, and caramel vodkas all lining store shelves today. These trendy varieties are made by adding flavoring after the vodka is distilled; it’s why we can have cocktails that resemble a dessert buffet. For many consumers today, this is the most familiar way to make a vodka stand out from the rest. But it isn’t the only way.

Andrew Chapin, marketing manager at Vermont Spirits, uses the cupcake example to explain the difference between those ubiq-uitous sweet-flavored vodkas and his company’s Vermont White, a milk-based vodka. Instead of adding milk at the end as a flavor-ing, Vermont White uses milk sugars as the fermentable base for distilling the spirit itself. As a result, Vermont White has some of the characteristics we associate with milk, but it doesn’t taste like milk. The dairy shapes the final vodka by giving it a creamy qual-ity combined with an otherwise neutral flavor. Andrew sums up the effect as “a very, very smooth vodka with absolutely no burn.”

Local ingredients are shaping the character of Vermont spirits in all sorts of ways. Whey, maple sap, or hard cider provide the starting point for fermentation. Honey can be added in the final stages of distilling. Honey or maple might be used at the end of

the process to create a sweet liqueur. Soon local juniper berries will infuse gin, and local rye will go into the mash for whiskey. It’s all part of a Vermont spirits industry that is having a big influence, despite still being a very small part of statewide liquor sales.

Vermont only has 15 licensed distillers, and not everyone holding a license has prod-ucts on the shelves yet. Nonetheless, Mar-cia Lawrence, director of sales and mar-keting at the Vermont Department of

Liquor Control, sees Vermont distillers as having an impact that goes well beyond what their small numbers might suggest. She points to the national praise our distillers have received. “These producers are making national award-winning products…the outlook is very positive for growing at a pretty rapid pace.”

The positive national reception is clear when you browse the web-

sites found on distilledvermont.org, a project of the 11 members of the Vermont Distilled Spirits Association. Barr Hill Gin won double gold at the 2012 New York International Spirits Competi-tion. Smugglers’ Notch Vodka took double gold in the 2011 San Francisco World Spirits Competition. And Vermont Gold took gold in the same competition in 2010.

Closer to home, Vermonters have taken notice. Meghan Sher-adin, executive director of the Vermont Fresh Network, which connects chefs and local producers, says, “It’s exciting to see the variety of Vermont specialty cocktails on so many menus around the state.”

Distillers’ websites are also providing suggestions for mix-ing specialty cocktails at home, and these spirits aren’t just for beverages: they can appear in everything from marinades to marshmallows. It’s a new dimension in local cuisine.

Although “no burn” can be used to describe Vermont White, that’s not how you would describe the eau-de-vie made by Sebastian Lousada and Sabra Ewing at Flag Hill Farm in Ver-shire. Their apple brandy is unapologetically strong. It’s made from some of the more than 80 varieties of apples grown at Flag Hill Farm, which include not only heirloom varieties and mod-ern strains, but also a judicious sprinkling of wild apples for spice. This brandy is another example of Vermont spirits showing the character of their local ingredients without nec-essarily tasting like them. Just as dairy-based vodka doesn’t taste like the “whipped cream” variety, this apple-based brandy does not taste like an appletini. Like the vodka, though, it still carries the essence of apples. The aromas that you take in with the brandy unmistakably reflect a cider house or a farm stand in autumn.

Caledonia Spirits, based in Hardwick, offers a good example of how the same local ingredient can produce dif-ferent effects. Beekeeper-turned-spirits-maker Todd Hardie uses raw honey to make distinctive drinks. He infuses his Barr Hill Gin with honey and botanicals during the final stages of distillation, not to produce a sweet gin, but rather to add a floral quality and soften the edges of the flavor. His elderberry

Down Home DistillingLocal spirit makers add Vermont ingredients to their concoctions

17local banquet S p r i n g 2 0 1 3

cordial, on the other hand, uses raw honey to make a sweet liqueur that works equally well as a cocktail addition or an ice cream sauce.

Both Caledonia Spirits and Flag Hill began with an agricul-tural enterprise. Sabra and Sebastian started with an orchard, moved to hard cider, and eventually began distilling that cider into brandy, alongside a pear brandy made with pear juice from Dwight Miller’s orchards in Dummerston. Todd Hardie began with bees, reaching 1,900 hives at his peak, and slowly moved from raw honey to medicinals and finally to the spirits he sells now. Most of his hives have been sold to other beekeepers, but Caledonia Spirits purchases their honey in what Todd calls a team effort (he counts the bees as part of that team).

Other entrepreneurs began with an interest in making spirits, then brought in local ingredients to give those spirits a unique twist. That’s how Vermont Spirits, based in Quechee, evolved. Their flagship product, Vermont Gold vodka, uses sugar from maple sap, which they purchase from Butternut Mountain Farm in Elmore. The whey that goes into Vermont White is a byprod-uct of dairy processing (although the company declined to pro-vide details on current whey purchases, as they are finishing some major changes to their operations); they’re in the com-pany of Vermont businesses whose creative uses for this dairy by-product include animal feed, fertilizer, nutritional supple-ments, wood finish, baby formula, and pork.

WhistlePig Rye Whiskey is entering the local sourcing business through another route: developing a rye farming operation and a reputation for fine whiskey simultaneously. Raj Bhakta founded WhistlePig with “the great patriotic sentiment to make the best whiskey in the world. Full stop.” He believes this “best whiskey in the world” will be a single estate whiskey, with ingredients grown, and product distilled—at his property in Shoreham.

However, Raj is not waiting on the availability of those local ingredients before developing a market for his product. With dis-tiller Dave Pickerell, he acquired a supply of promising whiskey from Canada and, in 2010, released a rye that received 96 points

in a Wine Spectator review (the highest score ever for a whiskey, according to WhistlePig’s website). The com-pany has caught the attention of national media, including the mag-azines GQ, Forbes, and Maxim. Brand development for WhistlePig has

succeeded quickly.

Success in realizing the ultimate goal of offer-ing single-estate whis-key will take longer. For one thing, WhistlePig Rye ages for at least 10 years. Raj is poised to harvest rye from his land for the first local WhistlePig this summer, but that makes 2023 the earliest full-release date for the local whiskey. The

process became further complicated this past winter as neigh-bors raised objections with the state over permitting for a distill-ery. As of this writing, those complications remained unresolved.

The distillers interviewed for this article uniformly predict a growth in the use of locally sourced ingredients.

Andrew Chapin, from Vermont Spirits, sees increasing interest in local sourcing from his customers. He gets a lot of questions about where ingredients come from. “There’s a general localvore attitude growing around the country…people are genuinely interested,” he says, adding that the company is at work now on developing a gin with juniper berries grown in the Northeast Kingdom.

“I think the overriding trend is toward local ingredients,” says Raj Bhakta, who adds that for him these ingredients are part of “a complete and thoughtful commitment to excellence.”

The current wave of Vermont-based distillation began in 1998, with Duncan Holaday, who founded Vermont Spirits before moving on to rums with his company Dunc’s Mill. However, Vermont distillers also reflect much older roots.

“I have family that’s been making Scotch in Edinborough since the 1800s,” Todd Hardie says to explain his interest in making spir-its. “I come from many generations of farmers making value-added products.” One day he hopes to visit Scotland and learn more about that country’s longstanding ties between spirit making and local agriculture.

Sabra and Sebastian of Flag Hill are making a classic style of apple brandy that was found in Vermont before Prohibition, but not since. “It’s cool to re-introduce something that was such a mainstay of traditional brandy,” Sabra says.

“Distillation is sort of like making maple syrup,” Sebastian adds, drawing a con-nection to one of Vermont’s oldest agri-cultural pursuits. Both processes start with one liquid—maple sap for syrup, hard cider for brandy—then require a lot of heat and time for evaporating it. The difference is that sugarmakers are after what stays in the pan while dis-tillers want what’s in the vapor. When these vapors cool back into liquids they become the brandies, whiskeys, vodkas, gins and other spirits we recognize.

Whether today’s distillers exemplify the continuation of an old tradition or the beginning of a new one, they’re well suited to become part of Vermont’s local food scene.

Helen Labun Jordan writes on a variety of topics from her home in

Montpelier. She’s a commentator on Vermont Public Radio and writes

about technology trends on her blog, digitalnovices.com.

local banquet S p r i n g 2 0 1 31818 S p r i n g 2 0 1 3

I was drinking a glass of wine with a colleague when she told me that she and her husband make wine. In a garage. With friends. I was intrigued. I know plenty of people who brew beer in their bathtub (so to speak) but I’d never met anyone who makes wine at home. When I expressed interest, she invited me to join their next winemaking season. So I put a reminder in my Google cal-endar and eight months later, voila: “Call Marianne about wine-making” popped up.

“We’re going to start next weekend,” she said when I called. “Come on over.” So I did.

What I discovered over the next month was a simple procedure that turns grapes into history’s lauded beverage. More than that, I discovered a Barre community tradition that honors a family’s heritage while creating lots of opportunity for fun with friends.

My tour guide to the experience was my teaching colleague, Marianne McNamara. Her family is from Sicily, and she and her husband purchased a house in Sicily a decade ago; now they spend summers there, and her enthusiastic stories about Italy,

its language, and culture had me eager to share in this local winemaking experience.

On a sunny Sunday morning in early October, I arrive at the cen-tral Vermont home of Vittorio “Vic” and Annette Rossi, Marianne’s friends, whose home—garage, actually—hosts the winemak-ing activity every year. A huge Italian flag hangs from the porch, alongside an autumn arrangement of corn stalks and pumpkins, and a half-dozen people buzz around the open garage door.

On the ground floor of the garage, Marianne works around a cardboard box of grapes approximately the size of a small hot tub. Her white rubber gloves stained purple, she moves bunches of grapes from the box into five-gallon buckets, which are then hoisted to the second floor of the garage via a simple, hand-rigged pulley system.

Following the buckets upstairs, I meet the Bobs—Bob McNa-mara, Marianne’s husband, and Bob Lucenti, Marianne’s brother.

by Sylvia Fagin

Winemaking in Barre

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A visitor joins Marianne and Bob McNamara in pressing grape skins.

Bob Lucenti uses a siphon system to pull wine from barrels into demijohns.

S p r i n g 2 0 1 3 19local banquet 19S p r i n g 2 0 1 3

“Are you Vic’s brother?” I mistakenly ask Bob Lucenti, trying to get everyone straight.

“No—crony,” he says with a laugh, the first of many such quips that establish him as the one who ensures levity in the proceedings.

Annette appears with a journal and asks my name. “For the log,” she says, adding my name to the list of those assembled and explaining that the journal is a much more accurate record of each year’s grapes and resulting wine than anyone’s memory.

This year’s grapes had finished their journey to Barre that morn-ing. At 8:00 a.m., Marianne and the crew took a pickup truck to meet a semi carrying about 2500 pounds of grapes from a vine-yard in northern California. For the past few years, the crew has been buying directly from the vineyard, and today’s Shiraz grapes, picked just six days earlier, are fresh and ripe.

Vic Rossi has been making wine in his garage since 1978, the year his father passed away. His father, a granite sculptor, went to art school in Carrara and was recruited to work in a Barre granite shed. He brought along Italy’s tradition of home winemaking. “My dad made wine as far back as I can remember, ”Vic tells me. After his dad’s death, it was just Vic and Annette making wine each year until Marianne and Bob made their first trip to Italy in 1995 and decided to join in.

Marianne notes that it’s really helpful to have Vic’s background in winemaking, and to know his father’s method. “We tried to stay true to his father, but we’ve made some changes.” Most of these changes involve adding machinery, including a crusher with a destemmer (so they don’t have to pull the grapes off the stems by hand), a kerosene heater (more on that later), and a press that screws to the floor for easier leverage.

As I follow one of the grape-filled buckets upstairs, I hear the loud hum of the crusher, perched over an oak barrel that’s quickly filling with grape juice and crushed skins. The juice fills five oak barrels, all lined up on a bench on the far side of the garage. A couple dozen multi-liter glass bottles, called demi-johns, are in the middle of the room, along with cases and cases of empty bottles, which won’t be filled for a few months.

Before the wine can be bottled, it must ferment. No sugar or yeast is added to this wine, so the barrels will sit, uncovered, for a couple of weeks. The juice will absorb wild yeasts from the air,

and as the yeast consumes the sugar in the juice, alcohol and carbon dioxide (CO2) will be produced. Fermentation will be complete when the yeast’s food source, sugar, has been fully consumed and no more CO2 can be released.

But yeast has a couple of natural enemies, cold weather being one of them. If cold kills the yeast before fermentation is com-plete, bad wine. This being Vermont, Vic’s not taking any chances. So as Husband Bob finishes crushing the grapes, Vic and Brother Bob hang a wall of tarps, insulated with blankets and sleeping bags, around the barrels. The aforementioned kero-sene heater is brought into the space and blows hot air into the now-insulated microclimate.

“Given that this isn’t California, we’ve just created it,” Brother Bob says. To what temperature, I ask? He guesses at somewhere between 60–65 degrees. This year, someone gifted Vic with a remote sensor thermometer so he can monitor the temperature of the space from inside the house. Vic also has another impor-tant job for the next two weeks: visiting the barrels twice a day to stir the juice, an act that will yield more juice, and thus more wine.

The buzz of the crusher is replaced by the whirr of the heater which flashes—and startles me—each time the built-in thermo-stat starts it up. The little space gets warm and crowded so I step outside the garage for a moment.

Sugaring, I realize. This is like a sugarhouse. There is work to do and equipment to manage and a process to follow, but also plenty of time for jokes, mildly sarcastic suggestions, and laugh-ter. Similar to in a sugarhouse, there are snacks aplenty, work for everyone, and a collective understanding that the human effect on nature’s gifts is certain but limited.

“It’s all in the grape, ”Vic says. “You can’t make a good wine out of a bad grape.” But you can, he concedes, screw up a good grape.

As they finish insulating mini-California and cleaning up, the crew begins to migrate into the house and I realize another

This is like a sugarhouse. There is work to do and equipment to manage and a process to follow, but also plenty of time for jokes, mildly sarcastic suggestions, and laughter.

Continued on page 25


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seeds for change

Hopeful on Hemp

by Robb Kidd

Some Vermont farmers are eager to grow hemp—once they’re allowed

“Hemp For Victory!” the poster reads.

Hanging in the House Agriculture Committee’s hearing room in the Vermont Statehouse, and put there by who knows who, it’s a poster that to some would be more appropriate in a college dorm room 30 years ago. In reality, it’s from 1942 and was produced by the United States Department of Agriculture to promote a film encouraging U.S. farmers to grow hemp to support the war effort.

But it’s a poster that has relevance today, as Vermont farmers who believe in the economic and agricul-tural benefits of growing hemp seek a victory in their longstanding push to grow industrial hemp.

In 2008, advocates led by Rural Vermont and the national organization Vote Hemp celebrated the tri-partisan passage of Vermont’s Industrial Hemp Bill, Act 212. The bill calls for a regulatory framework for growing industrial hemp in Vermont. However, it can only take effect once the federal government—either Congress or the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration—takes an active step in the permitting of hemp. In the meantime, the hemp export industry is thriving in Canada and China, primarily supplying the U.S. demand for hemp products.

Why the prohibition in America? Hemp’s cousin is the marijuana plant. The two plants look similar; how-ever the hemp plant contains minimal traces of the psychoactive drug associated with the marijuana plant, tetrahydracannabinol (THC). The hemp plant contains .3 percent THC concentration as compared to marijuana, which contains anywhere from 2 percent THC to the modern levels of 20 percent THC. If a person were to smoke hemp they would most likely achieve a bad headache rather than obtain any intoxicating effects.

There are many theories as to why the hemp plant became illegal to grow in the U.S., including allega-tions that it was competing with the Hearst family’s newspaper interests, as hemp can be turned into paper very efficiently compared to wood. But today, the biggest resistance to hemp comes from the law enforcement community, concerned by its association with marijuana.

So it is still illegal for Vermont farmers to grow hemp, but that is not stopping some from planning on it.

Will Allen, of Cedar Circle Farm in East Thetford, wants to grow hemp because “it’s a miraculous crop that can provide wood, cordage, high-protein seeds, fabric, medicines, large amounts of organic matter, bio plastics, animal feed….” In an interview with WCAX-TV last August, Will commented on its prohibition: “Yeah, it’s related to marijuana, but poppies are related to opium poppies—it’s the same issue. We don’t stop growing poppies because they are related to opium poppies. We grow poppies because they are beautiful, and we should grow hemp because it’s useful.” Should the federal government pave the way for Vermont’s law to take effect, Will plans on becoming one of the first Vermont farmers to grow hemp.

John Vitko, who runs a small-scale diversified farm in Warren, says hemp “is proven by our forefathers to be a very productive and manageable plant for a small farm, and denying farms this tool is a crime.” His farm provides eggs for his local ice cream business, and his “main reason to grow hemp is to supply a feed for my chickens that is high in omega 3-6, a complete protein, and loaded with amino acids; this feed will make my chickens healthier and in turn make healthier eggs and healthier humans.” Further-more, John points out that “a farm could improve hard clay soil [common in Vermont] with its tap root, and it could be grown in areas where other crops have difficulty, feed and bed the livestock, fuel the tractor, warm the farmhouse, and clothe the farmer.” He acknowledges that hemp is not the “holy grail” but is quite versatile and “should be in every farmer’s fields.”

Aspiring farmer Ben Brown of South Burlington envisions growing hemp on land he is looking to pur-chase. “I intend to use hemp on my [future] homestead to feed animals, sequester carbon, fix nitrogen in the soil, and hopefully sell the residual byproducts of my uses to other local industries such as textiles, building materials, etc.” To Ben, the possibilities are virtually endless. Communities such as Rutland and Barre could become hemp “factory-production” towns, he says, and Vermont could create “sustainable economies with existing infrastructure that is not currently being utilized to create lasting, meaningful local jobs.”


Full Sun, a new Vermont startup in the midst of building a com-mercial oilseed processing facility in Addison County, is also hoping to one day source local hemp. At first, “our business model is to purchase non-GMO and organic specialty oil crops [such as canola, sunflower, and soybean] from Vermont farmers and others in the region, and market the oil and meal for food and feed ingredients,” says Netaka White, cofounder of Full Sun along with his business partner, David McManus. “We can’t wait to set contracts with our farmer/partners to grow hemp seed.Farm gate prices are around $1.00 per pound now, with 800 to 1,200 pounds of seed per acre, so it’s a solid cash crop for the grower, and the hemp oil, the meal, and the hulled seed are all going to be important products for Full Sun. But unfortunately, until the federal government reclassifies hemp, we’re forced to buy from Canadian growers.”

Hempfully Green of Poultney is planning on developing “sus-tainable, clean, carbon-reducing, fuel-reducing, fire-proof, mold-proof housing made from locally grown hemp.” Forming hemp into a concrete-like substance called “hempcrete” is highly effi-cient and is currently being used in Quebec. Tom Simon, a part-ner in the business, is working on a business proposal to sell the equipment, know-how, and building needed to grow and har-vest—on 45 acres—all the seed stock to fulfill all the energy needs of a farm, from electric to auto/tractor fuel to home fuel. Emily Peyton, the other partner in the business, insists that “the prohibition be lifted on grounds of fair trade relations with for-eign countries, who enjoy the one-way market of exporting hemp to the U.S. while we are prevented from competing.” How-ever, she adds, “It will have to be the states who stand up to the feds, as we all see the fed forces are not anywhere near a place of doing loving things for the earth, or for the people.”

Where does hemp stand, legislatively? Last year, Vermont Sen-ator Vince Illuzi attached an amendment to a relatively minor bill that would have given the Vermont Agency of Agriculture the power to issue hemp permits and symbolically challenge current federal policy. Instead, a compromise was struck that authorized the agency to create rules for the permitting pro-cess and hold a public comment period (but the agency cannot issue a permit until the DEA or Congress acts on federal policy). Once this state-permitting process is developed by the agency, Vermont farmers would be a step closer to being able to plant hemp; they’d be “shovel ready” should the federal government act, and would not have to be delayed while Vermont engaged in a rule-making process.

On the national level, Vermont is not in a bubble. Vote Hemp, a national hemp advocacy organization, notes that “to date, thirty-one states have introduced pro-hemp legislation and nine-teen have passed pro-hemp legislation.” Rural Vermont and the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund have collaborated on a public education campaign to drive the Vermont Congressional del-egation to action, which they have taken. Vermont Rep. Peter Welch was a co-sponsor of Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2010, which gives authority to the states to reg-ulate hemp as they see fit. And this past summer, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders joined Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley in co-sponsoring Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden’s Indus-

trial Hemp Farming Act of 2012, which would do the same as the House bill. Neither bill has come up for a vote yet.

Topping off the state actions and federal legislation, this past November, voters in Colorado and Washington approved public referendums to legalize marijuana. Those same measures also legalized hemp; however, the states’ laws are now in conflict with federal law, so if a farmer in one those states were to grow hemp, they could still risk land forfeiture.

In late January of this year, Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, sent a letter to DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart declaring that the “Senate Judiciary Committee has an interest in the DEA’s regulation of industrial hemp and its effect on the ability of hemp producers to operate in states like Vermont.” The Senator’s letter questions why there has been no progress in the agency’s evaluation of hemp. “Has the DEA reconsidered any aspect of its regulation of hemp in light of these developments?” Sen. Leahy wrote, using his power as the Judiciary Committee chair to address these concerns. But he was not alone, and not simply acting within his own party. A week after Sen. Leahy’s letter was sent to the DEA, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, senator from Ken-tucky, issued a statement declaring his support of the industrial hemp movement, to allow hemp farming in his home state.

In the near future, Vermont farmers such as Will, John, and Ben may be allowed to grow hemp, and businesses such as Full Sun and Hempfully Green may be able to source hemp locally and create an added economic opportunity for farmers and entre-preneurs. When might this happen? It’s hard to be sure, for watching the political process unfold is like watching grass grow. However, given our country’s divisive political climate, hemp could become a unifying force for nonpartisan politics. As the USDA stated in 1942, hemp could mean victory.

Robb Kidd is an activist based in Montpelier and the organizer for Rural Vermont, a statewide farmers’ advocacy organization.Ph

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benefit of this winemaking ritual: the dining room table is set for a feast, tables added, and chairs brought from bedrooms and basements to make room for everyone.

Kids play in the kitchen as Annette shuttles back and forth to the outdoor oven where she’s baking calda calda, a flatbread made from chickpea flour. Marianne makes a salad, and someone makes sure there’s a wineglass at every place. Annette brings out fresh focacina bread, sliced meats and cheeses, roasted red pep-pers, and homemade minestrone soup in a huge tureen.

“The only reason we make wine is so we can eat,” Marianne says as we sit. Bottles of several sizes are produced and decanted and glasses are filled. There’s a rambling discussion as to the best vintage.

“To the start of the 2012 wine season,” someone proclaims, and glasses are raised in a toast. Quickly the room elevates with the buzz of a half-dozen simultaneous conversations. I’m thrilled to be included.

By the time I arrive on the Saturday morning two weeks later, the blankets have come off the microclimate and are folded on the porch. The top layer of grape skins in each barrel has dried, and there’s a gurgle from within one of the barrels. “What kind of gas is that again?” Vic asks for my benefit.

“CO2,” Brother Bob responds, coffee in hand. “Don’t mistake us for the science guys,” he says to me with a laugh. “We’re philosophers.”

“We’re not the science guys,” Vic clarifies, checking the equip-ment, “but we know what has to happen for it to work and you can’t skip any steps.”

Annette and Laine Lucenti, Brother Bob’s wife, haul the demi-johns downstairs to be rinsed in the backyard. Husband Bob and Andy Duback, a friend who’s joined the team, get to work screw-ing the base of the press to the floor, finding the three holes drilled in some past year for that purpose.

Brother Bob then uses a basic gravity siphon system to pull wine from the barrels to fill the demijohns. This juice is the “primo,” or first; after it’s safely in the demijohns, the skins will be pressed for the “secondo,” or second, wine, which will be more tannic and bottled separately. Vic calls for glasses as the first batch of juice fills the bottles.

“The breakfast of champions,” someone says as they try a sip of the two-week-old wine. I try too—glad to have eaten breakfast, as it’s barely 10:00 a.m.

“It’s the right color,” Husband Bob notes.

“It’s got a nice start—it’s kind of sweet,” Annette says. “But you never know how it’ll turn out.”

The press is assembled, and as each barrel is emptied of its juice, the skins go into the press. The press itself—the whole process, actually—is a lesson in the physics of simple machines: the screw and lever of the press, and the pulley that brought the grapes to the top of the garage on day one. The sun begins to shine through the garage windows on this gorgeous Indian summer day. “At least it’s not snowing, ”Vic remarks when I com-

ment on the weather. “We’ve done this in snow.”

Andy and Husband Bob turn an empty barrel on its side to get out all the skins. “I can’t get all the way in,” Bob says, reaching this arm in to the deep barrel as far as it will go, which isn’t far enough.

“This is probably what it’s like to be a large animal vet,” Andy suggests.

Marianne works the press, pushing and pulling to activate the ratcheting function. “This is what they’re doing in Sicily right now,” she says. As the skins get pressed, juice drains out the bot-tom into a clean bucket.

The floor gets slippery. I’m glad I wore boots. Everyone’s con-stantly in motion, and the best a casual visitor can do is stay out of the way. Marianne recruits me for a turn cranking the press, and it’s satisfying to pull and push the lever and watch the wine appear in the bucket.

I ask about the number of bottles that one barrel yields, which leads Husband Bob and Brother Bob, both former educators, to mull over liter-to-gallon-to-barrel-to-bottle conversions in a dis-cussion that would make a math teacher proud and that leads to this consensus: a whole lotta wine.

The operation gets smoother as the morning progresses. “The good thing about doing five barrels is that by the end, you’ve got the system down,” Husband Bob says. “But with a year in between….”

“It’s like doing your taxes,” Andy says. “You have to relearn it every year.”

As the demijohns fill, Vic sets about capping each one with an air-lock stopper that will let CO2 out, but nothing in. As long as it’s fermenting, CO2 will escape, and you have to keep it ferment-ing to get the sweetness out.

Soon, nine demijohns are filled primo, two with secondo, mini-California has been re-created, and the wine glasses are shuttled to the dining room for yet another celebratory meal. But the pro-cess isn’t over just yet.

Every couple of weeks the wine will be racked, or transferred, into new demijohns, leaving sediment and solids, called pom-ace, behind. After a couple of months of racking, the wine will be bottled and divided up among the friends to enjoy all year…until it’s time to start all over again. I begin wondering what kind of do-it-yourself ritual I can start with my friends, hoping it will be half as much fun as this.

“I’ve got my Italian class on Monday,” Husband Bob says as we finish cleaning up. “They always ask what you did this week-end.” Knowing the Italian for “I made wine, ”Vic and Brother Bob exclaim in unison: “Ho fatto vino!”

Sylvia Fagin writes about food and agriculture from her home in Montpelier. To make sure that Vic, Marianne and the Bobs were

making wine correctly, she recently took a tour of the Calchaquíes Valley winemaking region of northwestern Argentina.

She is happy to report that they are right on track. Contact Sylvia via Twitter: @sylviafagin.

WINEMAKING Continued from page 19

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WHEAT Continued from page 13to use a small threshing machine. We had one tucked away in a tractor shed some-where and processed a decent portion of the wheat with it. While it was faster and more thorough, it was also a good bit noisier than the other methods. The wheat heads are fed into the top of the machine; there are various screens that vibrate and the kernels move through the screens, leaving behind the straw and some of the chaff. The kernels are then diverted into different chutes, depending on how clean they are.

Once the wheat kernels have been separated, the next step is winnowing, remov-ing the chaff from the kernel. For this task I gathered a few baskets, plus a metal trash can lid; the shallower the container, the better. Wind is nature’s winnower, but on a wind-free day a box fan works just as well. The basic technique involves put-ting some wheat in a basket and tossing it up and down in front of the fan. There are plenty of videos on YouTube of people who have this technique down. If you have two people, another technique is to pour the grain from one basket into another basket while standing in front of a fan.

Winnowing is time consuming and repetitive, but somewhat meditative in the same way that shelling beans, weeding, or hoeing can be. Some of the students were into winnowing, while others were quickly bored; in general they did not seem to enjoy this part as much as the harvesting. The main skill in this endeavor is patience.

Once the kernels don’t seem to be losing any additional chaff, it’s time to mill the wheat, which involves grinding it into flour. We happened to be delivering our wheat to the school kitchen, which has its very own grinder. If you aren’t so fortunate there are a number of hand mills or small electric mills that can be used at home.

The end result was homegrown, as-local-as-it-gets, whole wheat flour. All of the wheat that we grew went to the school kitchen, where I was able to use it with stu-dents during our “wheat-to-bread” Project Week project. To make our wheat eas-ier to work with, the school’s head chef mixed a small amount of our homegrown wheat with some unbleached bread flour to make his signature whole wheat sour-dough bread.

Even now, as I write this in early January, a remaining pile of wheat is waiting in the barn to be processed. Slowly but surely we’ll get there. All in all, growing and pro-cessing wheat is both time consuming and magical; standing out in a sea of gold, harvesting heavy heads of wheat, I felt a tangible connection to the past. There is a part of me, the same part that wanted to be Laura Ingalls Wilder when I was younger, that would enjoy living in a world of subsistence farming.

On the other hand, given the time that goes into growing and processing wheat, I’m pretty happy that I don’t have to grow all the wheat I consume. I prefer to mix the old and the new. So I will continue to grow wheat and mix it with store-bought flour; and next year I plan on trying out some spring wheat.

Katie Ross is the gardener and farm assistant at The Putney School in Putney. She feels lucky that, in addition to getting paid to grow vegetables and teach, her job often requires

her to do things like make ice cream, play “Capture the Flag,” visit local farms, and sing.

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Tannery Farm Cashmeres is a small goat farm located in the Northeast Kingdom. My husband and I breed and raise Spanish goats that produce high-quality cashmere fiber and have healthy, robust bodies. Our focus is breeding for quality cashmere on quality meat goats, with the farm’s primary products being cashmere-producing breeding stock and chevon (goat meat), which is handled through my other company, Vermont Chevon.

The people who buy our goats do so for a variety of reasons. Some want to have a couple of goats as pets, or to clear land; others want a few goats so they can harvest their own fleece for spinning and knitting, while still others want to get started in the meat business. In Vermont, the goat meat industry is position-ing itself to provide consumers and multiple markets with a con-sistent year-round supply of premium, farm-grazed goat meat. Toward this end, Vermont Chevon is inviting goat and cow farm-ers to raise surplus dairy kids using Vermont Chevon standards and protocols. Last November, we co-sponsored the “No Kid Left Behind” symposium in Montpelier to start a conversation about how raising dairy goat kids as a value-added product can help a farm derive more income.

The breed of Spanish goat my husband and I raise is often referred to as the “brush goat.” These goats can turn scrub land, woods, and brush into protein! They are hardy and intelligent, maintaining many traits of their feral ancestors. They have high fertility rates, with few kidding problems, the does are excellent mothers who dote on their kids, and they are easy keepers.

Tannery Farm Cashmere’s breeding philosophy continues the practices developed during the 1970s and 80s, when cash-mere-producing goats entered the U.S. from Australia and were actively bred. Our goats are grass and milk fed with no growth hormones or concentrated feed containing protein from ani-mal sources. We pay close attention to our herd and their health status and nutritional needs. A healthy goat produces beautiful cashmere and delicious meat.

Vermont Chevon, which I launched in 2011, is a new resource on Vermont’s agricultural landscape. Its goal is twofold: add addi-tional value to Vermont’s dairy goat farms by converting their surplus livestock into a premium meat source and educate the culinary and consumer markets about this increasingly popular, healthy, and flavorful meat. Vermont Chevon currently supplies Vermont restaurants with goat meat and is focused on growing so that we supply a wide range of markets in the next few years.

We welcome visitors at our farm and recommend calling ahead. Our grandchildren especially love their springtime visits, when

No Kid Left Behindby Shirley RichardsonTannery Farm Cashmeres & Vermont Chevon

Chevon (Goat) Stew

3 Tbs. butter

2 lbs. boneless goat, cut into 2-inch cubes (you can use goatshoulder, stew meat or shanks)

1 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. pepper

1 large onion, sliced

1 ½ cups water

½ cup tomato sauce

1 lb. string beans (green or yellow), cut into 1” to 2” pieces

Melt the butter in a large pot and add the meat. Season with the salt and pepper. Turn or stir occasionally until the meat is browned on all sides. Add the onion and cook for a few minutes longer, until the onion is transparent. Add the water and bring the mixture to a boil. Simmer or slow cook in a crock pot for 2 to 3 hours or until the meat is tender. Forty-five minutes before serving, add the tomato sauce and the string beans. Serve with brown rice or rice pilaf.

the goat kids also arrive. They unload from the car (the children, that is, not the “kids”!) and head straight for the barn to check out the new kids and hug their favorites from the previous spring. There is much excitement as they discover another doe delivering her kids. Our grandchildren are a creative group so we imagine that their goat farm stories will be much like ours, when my husband and I were children growing up on—and visiting—our families’ farms: stories repeated often and fondly remembered.

Shirley Richardson and her husband farm in Danville. For more information, visit Tannery Farm Cashmeres at tfcashmeres.com and

Vermont Chevon at vermontchevon.com.

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C A L E N D A RMarch 5, 4:30–6:30pmAddison County Farm Animal Homeopathy Study GroupTaconic End Farm1395 Leicester Whiting Road, LeicesterOpen to all levels. Great peer support: learn how other farm-ers are applying homeopathy to their herds or flocks. A relaxed discussion that usually includes an in-depth look of atleast one remedy, some theory, and a case analysis. Bring your re-sources, if you have them, and a current or past case that you would like to discuss.802-247-3979 [email protected]

March 6, 7pmThe History of Herbal Medicine in AmericaGoodrich Memorial Library202 Main Street, NewportExpert herbalist Rosemary Gladstar examines the early history of herbalism in Amer-ica and how herbs play a role in healthcare today. A First Wednesdays lecture. Hosted by the Goodrich Memorial Library.802-334-7902, goodrichlibrary.org

March 14, 9:30am–5pm9th Annual Vermont Grain Growers Conference—Returning to Our RootsThe Essex Resort70 Essex Way, EssexJoin us at this daylong event that will provide you with a di-verse array of educational top-ics on bringing back small-grain production in North America.802-524-6501 uvm.edu/extension/cropsoil/wp-content/uploads/Save-the-Date-2013-22.pdf

March 15–17, all dayBread & Brew Weekend at the Norwich InnNorwich Inn325 Main Street, NorwichThis class will feature bread baking at King Arthur’s Baking Education Center with Jasper Murdock Ale grain ingredients. You can brew all day with Jere-my or brew in the morning and take the bread baking class in the afternoon.802-649-1143 norwichinn.com

March 16Pruning & Grafting WorkshopThe Scott Farm707 Kipling Road,DummerstonScott Farm will host a pruning and grafting workshop for back yard fruit growers. Participants will receive instruction while pruning a variety of old and young fruit trees from 9–11 and

practice grafting apple trees from 11–12. This class will dis-cuss caring for their trees, the proper tools to use and will give participants the knowl-edge, confidence and skills needed to work on their own fruit trees at home. The fee is $40.00 and reservations are necessary. For more informa-tion, directions, and to reserve a space, call (802) 254-6868 or email [email protected]. Reservations required.

March 22–24,New England Meat ConferenceGrappone Conference Center70 Constitution Avenue, Concord, NHThe goal of the New England Meat Conference is to enhance the production, processing, and marketing of sustainable, nutri-tious, humanely-raised, and de-licious meat from New England farms by providing educational and networking opportunities for meat producers, processors, and consumers.603-573-3306 newenglandmeatconference.org

March 23–24, 9am–1pmAnnual Maple Celebration and Pancake BreakfastMerck Forest and Farmland Center3270 Route 315, RupertAnnual Maple Celebration and Pancake Breakfast celebrates the sugaring season with MFFC’s own Vermont-certified organic maple syrup, our pas-ture-raised pork sausage, and locally sourced eggs and but-ter. Family-fun activities, wagon rides, and tapping demonstra-tions are also a part of the excit-ing day! Tickets are $10 adult, $5 children 5–12, and under age 4 is free. A portion of the proceeds benefits local food pantries.802-394-7836, merckforest.org

March 24–25, all day12th Annual Statewide Maple Open House WeekendSee website for locations throughout the state.Visitors are welcome at sug-arhouses all over Vermont to see how pure maple syrup is produced and to sample maple products. Admission is free.800-837-6668 vermontmaple.org

March 28, all day2013 Vermont Organics Recycling SummitVermont Technical CollegeRandolph CenterThe Summit is a one day event with six educational and tech-nical workshops designed specifically for the production

and use of compost in New England climate and soils. This year will also include a hands-on compost maturity and quality demonstration led by Highfields Center for Com-posting. Classroom workshops include:Building Infrastructure Town by Town: Low Tech Op-tions; Maintaining Compost Quality; Case Studies of Suc-cessful Collections Programs; Reduction and Source Separa-tion at Schools, Grocers, and Resorts; Capturing Heat from Composting; and Compost and Climate Change:How Carbon Sequestration Works.802-277-3360 compostingvermont.org

April 6, 8:30am–5pmAdvanced Organic BeekeepingMetta Earth Institute334 Geary Road South, LincolnThis course will cover the ins and outs of swarms and work-ing with swarms, apitherapy: health and healing with prod-ucts from the hive (honey, pol-len, propolis, bees wax, royal jelly, and bee venom), and de-veloping a personal/spiritual connection with the honeybee.802-349-4279 dancingbeegardens.com

April 14, 11am–3pmFlavors of the ValleyHartford High SchoolWhite River JunctionFlavors of the Valley is the greater Upper Valley’s premier tasting, informational, and buying event for locally grown foods. Whether you are a chef, gardener, consumer, wholesale or retail buyer, you’ll want to be here. Dozens of local farm-ers and chefs answer questions about their food and farm prod-ucts, including meats, produce, maple, dairy, baked goods, and prepared foods.802-291-9100 vitalcommunities.org/Agricul-ture/flavors/index.htm

May 26, Exhibition opens, 11am–5pmTrivets, Skillets, and Dutch Ovens: 18th Century Tavern CookingOld Constitution House State Historic Site16 North Main Street, WindsorThis special exhibition show-cases the types of utensils that would have been used in Elijah West’s tavern, now known as the Old Constitution House.802-672-3773 historicsites.vermont.gov/constitution/


LAST

MO

RSEL Seventy-Two Is Not Thirty-Five

I spent seven hours yesterday at my daughter’s househelping her expand their garden by at least ten times.We dug up sod by the shovelful, shook off the dirt asbest we could; sod into the wheelbarrow and off to thepile at the edge of the yard. Then all that over and overagain. Five hours total work-time, with time out for lunchand supper. By the time I got home I knew all too wellthat seventy-two is not thirty-five; I could barely move.

I got to quit earlier than Nadine. She told me I’d doneenough and that I should go get a beer and lie down onthe chaise lounge and cheer her on, which is what I did.

All this made me remember my father forty years agohelping me with my garden. My father’s dead now, andhas been dead for many years, which is how I’ll be oneof these days too. And then Nadine will help her child,who is not yet here, with her garden. Old Nadine, achingand sore, will be in my empty shoes, cheering on her own.

So it goes. The wheel turns, generation after generation,around and around. We ride for a little while, get off andsomebody else gets on. Over and over, again and again.

—David Budbill

Poet and playwright David Budbill lives in Wolcott. His latest play, A Song for My Father, will receive its third production at The Western Stage in Salinas, CA, this year. Exterminating Angel Press published David’s latest book of poems, Park Songs: a Poem/Play,

in September 2012. Visit his website: davidbudbill.com.

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Diggers’ Mirth Collective Farm, Burlington Photo by J.Silverman

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