Tag Archives: Caledonia Spirits

Bartenders, Charity, Cocktails are everywhere, Garden to bar, Most excellent ideas, People, Seasonal, You gotta eat

Saturday’s Off to the FARM: Cultivating cocktails and cuisine for a good cause

Caledonia Spirits
Farm-fresh-minded Amber West, in her days at Central 214, will be back behind the bar at Saturday’s benefit event.

It’s been way too long since the vivacious Amber West has loosed her earthy mixology mettle upon the world, but that’s all going to change on Saturday with Off To The FARM, an epicurean event benefitting Project Transformation, an education-oriented agency serving low-income kids throughout North Texas.

There will be goats. And aquaponics. And hors d’oeuvres from chefs like Hibiscus’ Graham Dodds, Garden Café’s Mark Wootten and Adam West of The Porch. And of course, drinks from Amber West, whose talents once shone behind the bar at Central 214 (where Dodds was chef) before she took a job as Texas rep for Vermont-based Caledonia Spirits.

Off to the FARM runs from 2 to 6 pm Saturday at 314 W. Belt Line in Desoto, just outside of Oak Cliff. The farm facility houses both FARM (Farmers Assisting Returning Military) and Eat The Yard.

Project Transformation, a non-profit education organization offering after-school and summer programs to low-income youth, is putting on the event in partnership with FARM. Participating chefs will create their hors d’oeuvres using the farm’s locally grown produce, and it’s a fair bet that Amber’s cocktails will include some of that fresh stuff, too: As bar manager at Central 214, she had a particular knack – and an undeniable passion – for highlighting seasonal fruits of the land in her cocktails. But then Caledonia stole her away, and then she became even busier still, taking time off to have her second daughter, Sage.

“I’ve supported Project Transformation for the last three years,” she says. “Being a mom, my heart just went out to these kids who don’t have anywhere to go after school. This really saves them from being on the streets.”

This drink at Central 214 benefits literacy programs. Get over there immediately and order one.
Some of West’s previous handiwork, this one for a 2013 Derby Day event.

And with part of Project Transformation’s curriculum including cooking and gardening workshops, she was sold.

West’s cocktails will celebrate springtime and complement the event’s Southern-style menu. And of course, they’ll feature Caledonia’s honey-kissed Barr Hill Gin. And probably herbs and honeysuckle too.

All proceeds will benefit Project Transformation. Tickets for the all-inclusive event are $35 in advance or $40 at the door and can be purchased here. More information is available here.

Events, Fort Worth, Seasonal, Spirits and liqueurs

The funnest way to help veterans grow organic produce involves pumpkins and cocktails

Caledonia Spirits
Sweet on you: Caledonia incorporates raw honey into its distillation process.

It’s pumpkin-carving season and as long as you’re going to handle a big knife, you may as well do it with cocktails – and for a good cause, besides.

Fort Worth’s Pacific Table is teaming up with Caledonia Spirits to host a Halloween-themed happy hour and pumpkin-carving contest to benefit veteran-based farming programs, including Dallas’ Eat The Yard, a veteran-owned urban farm that I profiled in The Dallas Morning News last year.

The Oct. 30 event runs from 5:30 to 7:30, with $6 Halloween-y libations from bartender Maria Ortiz showcasing Caledonia’s Barr Hill vodka, gin and barrel-aged gin – for instance, the Pumpkin On A Hill, with vodka and house-made pumpkin-spice syrup. Vermont-based Caledonia, which made its Texas debut six months ago, incorporates raw honey in its distillation process.

For $12, you’ll get a pumpkin and carving tools — with a cocktail included. Or bring your own pumpkin and pay just $6 to enter the contest. (Prizes include dinner for two at the Pacific Northwest-themed restaurant.) Not into carving? Just come and enjoy the spectacle along with $6 cocktails — and maybe drop a little donation in the “Cash-O-Lantern.” So many options: The world is your pumpkin.

Reservations and Halloween costumes are encouraged but not required.

Oak Cliff-based Eat the Yard is a veteran-run urban farm that uses commercial properties, residential properties, community gardens and the occasional rooftop to sustainably grow organic produce.

PACIFIC TABLE, 1600 S. University #601, Fort Worth. 817-887-9995.

Barmoire, Bartenders, Follow the bouncing ball, People

Follow the bouncing ballers: Bar peeps on the move

3 Comments
Clyde Mays Old Fashioned competition
Omar, we hardly knew ye: YeeFoon, The 86 Co.’s new Texas state ambassador.
The spirits scene is fluid. People move around, and maybe you’ve lost track of a few. Barmoire is here to help you out.

 

Last month came the official news that bartender extraordinaire Michael Martensen planned to open Proof + Pantry at One Arts Plaza; that’s still on track, with the space – formerly the Commissary – opening hopefully before summer. But while Martensen had hoped to reassemble the fine crew of bar talent that had formerly held sway at The Cedars Social and Bar Smyth, it appears at least one band member won’t be joining the reunion: Omar YeeFoon, who is joining Jason Kosmas’ The 86 Co. as Texas brand ambassador.

“I’ll be working with friends,” YeeFoon said last week over pasta and cocktails at the Windmill Lounge’s inaugural Spaghetti + Western night. “And it’s a product and a brand I believe in.”

Fork It Over Restaurants
Movin’ up the chain: Wilson, bar programs director for Fork It Over Restaurants. (Courtesy of Fork It Over Restaurants)

Meanwhile, Bonnie Wilson, the bartender who helped put Whiskey Cake on the cocktails map in Plano before taking over the bar program at The Ranch at Las Colinas, is now bar programs director for the entire group of Fork It Over Restaurants, which includes Mexican Sugar and Velvet Taco. Fork It Over has already expanded the Whiskey Cake brand to Oklahoma City and will soon open one in San Antonio.

Caledonia Spirits
Representin’: Farm-fresh-minded Amber West now with Vermont’s Caledonia Spirits
We’ve also missed the upbeat presence of Amber West, former lead bartender at Central 214 at the Hotel Palomar whose garden-to-bar enthusiasm never failed to mesmerize. West is now Texas brand ambassador for Caledonia Spirits, the Vermont-based company that produces honey-tinged Barr Hill Gin and other liquid goodies soon to appear in bars and restaurants around the state. She and her new portfolio were behind the cocktails at last Saturday’s Polo On the Lawn fundraiser in Oak Point.
She’d met Caledonia founder Todd Hardie through former Central 214 chef Graham Dodds; their similar views forged a connection. “Caledonia Spirits is all about his connection with the land, beekeeping and farming,” she said. “It’s beautiful.”
Nora and Windmill Lounge
If you’ve been looking for this guy, he’s taken his talents to Maple Avenue.

 

Meanwhile, for those who’ve been wondering whatever happened to bartender Michael Reith, the man whose drinks once shone at Lower Greenville’s Nora, the low-key barman has resurfaced at the esteemed Windmill Lounge on Maple Avenue, where he was last seen firing up cider-y accompaniments for the divey spot’s just-launched, above-mentioned Spaghetti + Western dinners on Mondays.

Cocktails are everywhere, Events, Horses, The Boonies

For your consideration: Another Derby event. Yes, there will be cocktails. And fancy hats.

1 Comment
Polo on the Lawn
Amber West’s Thoroughbred may set your heart racing. (Photo courtesy of Lovell PR)

You could spent hours thinking about how none of the hats that appear on Derby Day are actually derbies, or you could do something way more productive: Figure out how you’re going to get yourself to Polo on the Lawn, the annual afternoon fundraiser featuring horses, cool hats and the excitement of the Kentucky Derby.

The 13th annual event, at the Prestonwood Polo & Country Club in Oak Point, features a U.S. Polo Association-sanctioned polo match and benefits Project Transformation, a Dallas organization serving low-income youth in North Texas. There’ll be live music, a silent auction and, no doubt, plenty of fancy chapeaus. Prizes will be given for best hat, picnic, tailgate and outfits.

The match will break at 5:15 pm for the traditional Champagne divot stomp, wherein attendees sip glasses of bubbly while wandering the polo field and stomping grass back in place where the horses have torn it up with their hooves. That will be followed by a viewing of the Kentucky Derby, accompanied by the day’s special cocktail, the Thoroughbred, a gin mint julep designed by bartender Amber West.

What’s this? A julep made with gin, not bourbon? “Gin and genever were used more in the medicinal juleps in the 19th century,” explains West, the former bar master at Central 214 who’s now with Caledonia Spirits. Her version uses honey, mint and Caledonia’s honey-tinged Barr Hill gin.

The polo match gets underway at 4 pm, with doors open at 3. VIP tickets – including grandstand box seating, a catered meal, wine and swag – are $150, though if you act fast you might be able to score them at half-price. General admission tickets are $45 for tailgate and lawn seating, plus Champagne and a commemorative glass. Kids 12 and under get in free.

Giddy-up.

PRESTONWOOD POLO & COUNTRY CLUB, 525 Yacht Club Road, Oak Point. 214-390-3444.