There’s something so satisfying about a snow report sliding under your hotel room door before dawn alongside the morning paper. When that report heralds the presence of fresh powder on the mountain, as so often happens during the winter months, it’s even better. I...
Guatemalan coffees have long been among the more prized Central American beans – I’ve written previously about the fact that Honduran coffee farmers used to route their beans through Guatemala in order to command higher prices from American coffee buyers. The...
For my last post, you met Joe Nazir of Tov, Portland’s one-of-a-kind double-decker coffee bus. For this week’s profile, I drove the six hours out to the small ski town of Sandpoint, Idaho, where I got a chance to chat with Rick Evans, one of the two brothers behind...
Last time around we chatted with Henri Schock of Mr. West, whose new café-bar serves up espresso, light fare, wine, vermouth pours and more alongside freshly cut flowers and pretty, punchy lifestyle magazines, at the heart of one of downtown Seattle’s vibrant...
Welcome to the updated Caffeination Cascadia! Since I started writing weekly on the topic of Pacific Northwest coffee culture in July of 2013, I’ve covered more Northwest beans, brews, cafés and customs than I could have imagined. Yet through it all, I’ve realized...
In general, it’s incredibly hard to get absinthe right, thanks to the spirit’s rocky history, complex flavor profile and long list of specialty ingredients. That’s why this particular Seattle-born liquor—which won gold in our Best of the Northwest 2015 after...
Coffee, like any food item, can be in season or out of season—and as with other foods, it’s best to enjoy your coffee when it’s in season and freshest. Luckily, different countries in the Bean Belt enjoy different growing seasons, so there will always be in-season...
Badger Pocket (according to Skip Rock Distillers, who gave their potato vodka line the same name) is “more than a place on the map. It’s an attitude that is shared by many that are lucky enough to call this place home.” This Central Washington locale is all about...
Upon pushing open the door and stepping into Marjorie Restaurant (perched at the corner of 14th and Union on Seattle’s Capitol Hill), first-time diners and longtime patrons alike are welcomed with bursts of warmth and color in a wide variety of formats. Painted...
The pursuit of smoothness is akin to the definition of vodka, and Bendistillery’s Crater Lake Spirits label hits that nail on the head with their unique Reserve vodka, distilled in Bend, Oregon from grain to an even 40 percent ABV. Cascade Mountain water is a big...
