A visit to Rhinehall~

A view of the still from behind the bar.

Through a new membership based service similar to Groupon tall friend and I visited Rhinehall, a new apple Brandy distillery in Chicago. It's located in the Fulton Market area, which used to be entirely warehouse buildings (and where my mother would drive through to avoid traffic), but it's now home to many different breweries and small businesses, such as Goose Island, Intelligensia coffee, and where I get all my cards printed, Dot Press.
Sometime last year when I was considering working with a sourcing company to manufacture skirts and dresses for me, I traveled to a building across the street from Rhinehall, which didn't exist yet and the space was just a garage. Rhinehall has transformed it to a combination bar/brewery. The owners are super friendly, and apparently this place is hopping on Thursdays. We happened to visit on a Thursday where things were much slower, so we really got a change to converse with the owners and try literally all of their cocktail offerings.

Pictured here are a couple of their offerings.

The menu seems to be influx and the recipes for each item literally change every time they make it. The Brandy is very smooth, made entirely from local Michigan apples that they keep in huge pallets in the back. Pretty cool place, I look forward to seeing what they come up with. So far their spirits have only been used in restaurants, but they are starting to sell bottles of it in stores. They haven't been able to keep up with the demand, which is a great sign!
Rhinehall's bar is open Thursdays from 5-9PM and Saturdays 2-7PM.
The cocktails are reasonably priced between $6-$8.

I always support small local businesses, although sometimes I might not think the products are up to snuff. The pricing on Rhinehall's liquors themselves are a little high (running at around $50 for the grappa) but it makes sense given their small batch production runs. The owners of Rhinehall are originally from the Chicago area and are using recipes passed down through their family. Their use of historical recipes with a modern spin is very enjoyable.

A new direction...

While I was at Whole Foods we had the privilege of being shown about by the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board. They rented us a school bus, took us to a couple creameries in south Wisconsin and also took us to New Glarus. The Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board does an unbelievable amount of publicity for their state cheese and value added milk products, as they should. They've got some seriously amazing cheese and it's getting better all the time. This past year the state of Wisconsin hosted the American Cheese Society's annual conference. I didn't attend (I was beginning to think my life wouldn't take me back to cheese), even though it was so close to me, in Madison! I've heard some really great stories about silly hang-outs with cheese makers from some of my new Cheesemonger friends (who hail from great places like Marion Street Cheese Shop in Oak Park and Pastoral here in Chicago).
Being from the Midwest, I hear all the time about how people love cheddar. It's a bigger deal here than in other regions, given our proximity to Wisconsin. Cheddar is lovely, it's a great cheese. Sometimes it's mild, sometimes it's sharp (oh boy, I'm really adding a lot to this conversation)... It's standard.
It's familiar.
Let's break outside of that box, said the cheesemakers at the place for the best and freshest cheese curds around! Roelli Cheese Haus has been a family business for generations, making cheddar. The current generation of cheesemakers at Roelli wanted to do something different, challenge themselves and make something beyond the standard.
They created Dunbarton Blue, which is a hard traditional cheddar style blue cheese.

Click the photo for a link to purchase this cheese.
It doesn't get much love at my place of employment (yet!) but it's a good cheese for people looking to break the mold. Somewhere in the annuals of my photo collections are pictures from their facility, but I'd much prefer to go back and take more. I love their cheeses, and it looks like they've even got some new ones, award winners! I just managed to snag a piece of Red Rock, which I'll try to post on soon.

Telling their story is important, but the main reason I'm stuck on this creamery right now (and thinking alot about them) is because of their proximity to Chicago.... oh and those cheese curds were really really good. and warm. and fresh.
It's not a bad drive, so I'm thinking that the tank, tall friend and I should take a trip over there. Headboss would like tall friend to learn more about cheese, and he isn't particularly inspired, so I think we have some cheese inspiring adventures ahead of us.
Almost a year ago I sat down to pen an entry that was supposed to be the restart of this blog.
Obviously that did not happen.
Recently I've found myself with quite a bit of time on my hands in front of a computer. There's so much I want to share and so many amazing interesting things happening in the world, that I think it's about time I began to attempt some sort of blog again. I also really love taking pictures. I haven't been doing much of that, and I really should. Editing all this down into some sort of conceptual theme is going to be a little difficult at first, but I think I'll manage.
I will focus on the things that are important to me. Cheese, animals (all varieties of flesh), tea, reenactment related weirdness and other such things... I'm trying to peg it with something, but for now it'll just be me!