WE JOINED! Tread Lightly!

The Muddy Chef Challenge is for Land Rover owners.  Land Rovers work best where they were intended – in the wild!  We give owners the opportunity to drive vintage and modern Rovers in challenging real-world settings.  As such, we take off-road trail use seriously.  Our events do not destroy ancient town roads.  We don’t pull down trees, or drive off predetermined trail routes.  At every opportunity we collect trash and litter.

As a Tread Lightly! member we strive to promote responsible off-road trail usage.  We hope everyone who joins our events will consider becoming a Tread Trainer to help spread the word!  For more information about becoming a Trainer, click HERE. 

 

Tread Lightly!: What We Do Infographic

Whistle Pig Rye Whiskey Review from Mouth.com

STRAIGHT RYE WHISKEY

MADE BY WHISTLEPIG IN SHOREHAM, VERMONT

MOUTH SAYS…

100% rye. 100 proof. Aged for 10 years in New American oak barrels. Oh yeah, WhistlePig is a seriously strong, seriously good rye.

It’s full-bodied with great hints of wintery spice wrapped around a black pepper center. The long aging tames some of the heat and brings along the vanilla and a touch of dark chocolate.

WhistlePigStraightRyeDetail2900_grande

It’s got a pretty good story, too: Dave Pickerell, longtime Master Distiller for Maker’s Mark, believed that rye was going to be the next big thing, so he went on a quest to find the best rye possible. He fell in love with an unusual 100% rye (rumor has it, it was made by our neighbors to the North, but he’s not telling). He teamed up with WhistlePig founder Raj Bhakta, who bought a 200-year-old working dairy farm in Shoreham where they began hand-bottling the whiskey. Today, they’ve built a distillery, are growing their own organic rye and are working towards distilling and aging their own rye whiskey.

Until then, we’ll just have to settle for drinking this powerfully delicious spirit of top-secret origin that has garnered rave reviews since it hit the market. How’s that for American pluck?

TIP OF THE TONGUE

While whiskey at this price is usually too precious to mix, we love this rye splashed into warm apple cider for a restorative winter warmer.

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Muddy Chef Challenge / Pre-Running the Madava Trail

The Muddy Chef (www.muddychef.com) staff and a select few volunteers recently visited Crown Maple/Madava Estate. We spent the day pre-running the trails and moving a log or two.  Lunch was served in the parking lot and everyone had a great time.  Video provided by Brad Andrews.

 

 

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WhistlePig Rye Whiskey / The best in the world?

SOURCE: FORBES

 World Class Whiskey – From Vermont?

 Larry Olmsted

I’ve been writing on wines and spirits for over 15 years, and living in Vermont for even longer, but the two have never had much in common – until now.

Unlike vodkas made from Maple syrup or even lactose (really), WhistlePig, which is bottled on a farm in rural Shoreham, Vermont, is not just another marketing gimmick – according to many critics it is the best rye whiskey in the world.

As I reported recently with the launch of a high-end rye from boutique bourbon maker Knob Creek, super-premium rye is the hot new spirits category. America’s favorite before Prohibition, rye is again all the rage among bartenders heralding a return of classic cocktails like the Manhattan and Old Fashioned. But WhistlePig is almost too good for this, and can be appreciated on its own.

Introduced in mid-2010 and made in very limited quantity (1000 cases), the story behind WhistlePig is unique. Industry legend Dave Pickerell, the longtime Master Distiller for the renowned Maker’s Mark bourbon distillery in Kentucky, decided to devote himself to a quest for the best rye possible, the next evolution of boutique bourbons. He wandered the earth trying rye whiskies, until he found what he considered its finest expression in the form of a new Canadian version, made from nothing but rye grain (law requires the majority of starch to be rye in order to be labeled rye whiskey, just as it requires 51% corn for bourbon, but pure ryes are rare).

For various reasons, including the fact that rye grain is considerably more expensive than corn, but also because a straight rye distillation is very tough on equipment, gumming it up with sticky residue, few distillers have bothered with pure rye whiskey. But the Canadians solved the sticky problem with two solutions, using malted rye and by developing a special strain of yeast-like fungus for distillation (for much more detail on this issue, check out this article from a great site devoted entirely to Canadian whiskies).

So Pickerell teamed up with WhistlePig founder Raj Bhakta, a former contestant on The Apprentice, who purchased a two century old working farm in Shoreham and renamed it WhistlePig Farm and began growing his own rye. Bhakta purchased the incredible Canadian rye whiskey, still in bulk storage, brought it back to Vermont, hand bottled it, and it blew critics away with rave reviews. At the same time, Bhakta and Pickerell, now Master Distiller for WhistlePig, have set up their own distillery on the farm and are working towards producing their rye from start to finish going forward.

But where it is made is not nearly as important as how it tastes.

Pickerell fell in love with the stuff because of its strength, purity (100% rye grain) and maturity – he calls the combination of proof and purity 100/100 and along with 10 years of aging in new American oak barrels, claims it hits “the sweet spot” in all three categories. I think he is right, and the balance between the higher than usual strength, higher than usual purity, and lengthy aging is perfect. It certainly does not taste like 100 proof, or half alcohol, because the woodiness for the aging perfectly balances the strength. It’s got just a hint of herby spice, maybe a little mint or cinnamon, but nowhere as much as many whiskies and less spicy zing than most ryes. Rather it j tastes of grain, its essential component, in a good, earthy, bread-like way, with the caramel-rich mouth feel of well-aged whiskies. I hesitate to call it straightforward, because that makes it sound simple, but its straightforward – it tastes like rye.

I’m not the only one who likes it. When the first batch was just released in mid-2010, it immediately earned a whopping 96-point rating from Wine Enthusiast – the highest rating the prestigious magazine has ever given to a rye. The Tasting Panel magazine gave it 94, and F. Paul Pacult’s acclaimed Spirit Journal gave it the highest possible 5-star rating. Details magazine simply called it “America’s Best New Whiskey,” while the Wall Street Journal named it one of the top five whiskies of the year. There was no shortage of other accolades.

And the odd name? Well to really appreciate that, you have to listen to the funny story in first person audio from Bhakta on WhistlePig’s website, but hey, it’s as good as lots of names, and to go with it, they created a suitable logo which reminds me of the Monopoly board game guy crossed with a pig. If I’m going to buy a $70 bottle of rye from anyone, it’s as likely as not to be a cartoon high-roller pig with a top hat and cigar.

But seriously, as whiskey lovers continue to enthusiastically embrace WhistlePig, there is likely to be a lag between the sellout of the limited first batch and future production, so hesitation might not be the best strategy.

We get a shout out on Jalopnik

We Adopted A Terrible Toyota Truck To See How Reliable They Really Are

Andrew P Collins

We Adopted A Terrible Toyota Truck To See How Reliable They Really Are1

This is no diamond-in-the-rough. It’s not an “oldie but goodie” like Bowman’s well-storied Ram. This ravaged third-gen 4Runner a mean-muggin’ non-fucking-giving beater, and now we have the arduous task of taking care of it. Or, you know, destroying it.

Last night this lifted, bent, ratty Toyota 4Runner appeared at my doorstep like an abandoned baby in a basket. It smells faintly of Mexican food and everything aft of the front seats seem to have been converted to a sleeping/storage area.

At least somebody did put the wheel back where it’s meant to go, here’s the 4Runner as it sits at Truck Yeah HQ right now:

We Adopted A Terrible Toyota Truck To See How Reliable They Really Are234

The whole thing is this cool militaryish green/grey with a Rhinoliner’d hood (why?). The front grille is definitely not straight and neither is the (aftermarket?) trailer-hitch rig. But really, all it needs is a light bar and maybe some funky Plasti-Dip on those wheels. Next stop Wal-Mart, baby.

Okay the real story is the owner (a former colleague) lit off to San Francisco and didn’t feel like paying for parking, I think, so he bequeathed it to Truck Yeah!/Jalopnik for an undefined period of time “as long as we promised to document its destruction.”

I dunno, the whole arrangement’s pretty vague but I’m basically running a rusty orphanage up here and I just couldn’t turn those sweet three-spoke wheels away.

After a brief assessment and lap around the driveway, I’ve concluded it may be too nice to simply suicide… sounds okay, tires are great, and the 3″(?) lift looks professionally executed.

We Adopted A Terrible Toyota Truck To See How Reliable They Really Are

So what are we going to do with this hog? Chase polar bears up Canada way? Mud racin’? Make it my new guest bedroom? Should be a good rig to teach my fellow NY-based bloggers how to off-road this summer… at the very least.

Your turn: Ideas. Go.


Andrew P. Collins is Jalopnik’s off-road and adventure guy. Shoot him an email atandrew@jalopnik.com or hit him up on Twitter @andr3wcollins to talk trucks.

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You should come to Rovers on the Rocks this year, or Muddy Chef challenge up at Lime Rock if you want something more local to you.

WhistlePig Rye Whiskey / OFFICIAL SPONSOR

 

For America, it has been a long road back to rye.
That road was paved with tea leaves.

  

Before the American Revolution, most Americans ate rye bread and drank Caribbean rum.  Dutch settlers pushing up the Hudson brought the rye grain with them from the Low Countries, and introduced it to their Yankee neighbors, who needed a crop that could survive a winter far harsher than what they had left behind in England.  Meanwhile, British ships regularly offloaded large volumes of rum shuttled from their West Indian colonies to their great colonial ports of Boston and New York.  If Americans drank whiskey at all, it was because they were backwoodsmen too far from these ports to access this rum.  These pioneer farmers turned to building their own stills, and distilling whatever might be left over from their harvests, as a way to keep the chill off in the cold northern winter.

Things changed in the cities, though, after the colonists entered open rebellion.  The Crown responded by hitting Americans where it really hurt: by placing an embargo on rum imports.  Thirsty and resourceful, the young republic turned to something it could produce independently: rye whiskey. If the American Revolution had an “Official Beverage”, it would’ve been rye. All the classic American whiskey drinks, like the Old Fashioned and the Manhattan, called for rye. The hearty grain was right at home in northeast American soil, toughing out the long winters and persevering throughout the seasons. George Washington himself became the largest producer and distributor of rye in the United States.

 

Pure, aged rye is more flavorful, complex, and delicious

than any corn-based whiskey.

Though sturdy and resilient in the ground, rye couldn’t stand up to the punishment of the Civil War. Along with the rest of the country, the rye industry was torn apart. As the decades passed, the punishment continued; prohibition and two world wars conspired to keep America’s finest whiskey buried in the frozen past. Even during periods of great prosperity, from the Roaring 20’s to the Baby Boom, the country poured all its capital-crop love into the sweetest, easiest grain of all: corn. Poor old rye was hung out to dry. With the lowest sugar content of all grains, it is the most difficult grain to distill. Rye is tacky, bratty, and stubborn… but the labor of love is worth the struggle. Pure, aged rye is more flavorful, complex, and delicious than any corn-based whiskey – just ask The Founding Fathers.

Speaking of fathers, WhistlePig was born in 2007, when Raj P. Bhakta bought the Farm. Rather, he purchased the farm. The point is, he is alive and well and married and a father, and the proud owner of WhistlePig Farm. After spending his last dime on 500-plus magical acres in Shoreham, VT, Raj joined forces with Master Distiller Dave Pickerell (of Maker’s Mark fame) to plot the long awaited return of rye whiskey to the States. The two men got their hands on the best batch of aged rye in North America. A few months later, in February ’09, they hatched a 5-year plan to transform WhistlePig Farm into the first ever single malt, one-stop rye shop, with all stages of the process located on site: from growing the grass, to distillation, to barreling and aging, to bottling.  With the opening of our single-estate farm distillery in the summer of 2015, what was once a pig-headed dream will be a top-shelf reality.

On January 1, 2010, Raj & Family cleared out an old barn, rolled up their flannel sleeves, and started bottling the exquisite rye. The ‘Pig was out of the pen! In 2013, the gang harvested its first crop of rye. And when distillation begins on the farm on July 4th, 2015, the WhistlePig vision will be complete. Just like that, after 200 years of lying dormant, Miss American Rye is back on her feet.