Whitaker Mill Watering Holes

Beer and Cider Tour

Our group of 11 gathered at Lynnwood Brewing Concern in early February, around a long table in the taproom. Each guest chose four beers for their flight, and had their order filled at the bar. While tasting, everyone enjoyed appetizers from Wilson’s Eatery, sister next-door restaurant to Lynnwood. The pimento cheese is great on pork rinds or tortilla chips, and the salsa and guacamole were very good also.

During our tasting, we learned about the history of watering holes in the neighborhood, dating back to the late 1700s, before Raleigh was even a city. Today, the area has become a beer and cider mecca, home to at least five breweries and the city’s first cidery, with more to come in the near future.

For our second stop, we made the short walk to nearby East Bower Cider Co., stopping briefly to learn a little history of the Whitaker Mill neighborhood. East Bower was having their annual Wassail Day, celebrating hot, spiced cider with music, dog adoptions and crafts vendors.

• 

• 

  Pork rinds pair well with pmento cheese from Wilson’s Eatery.

• 

The group found tables indoors and everyone tasted two ciders – Dry Twig cider and semi-sweet Ginger Agave. A few tried the warm, spiced cider (Wassail). The drinks were well-received, with some preferring one to the other, and nearly everyone was surprised at how much they enjoyed the cider. The group continued getting to know each other, even after the tour time was over. Some moved on to explore other businesses in the neighborhood and vendors selling items for Wassail Day.

Join our next tour in this neighborhood will be March 9, 1-3 pm. Purchase tickets at here while they last!

Visiting Hendersonville wineries

We recently joined other influencers touring wineries in Western North Carolina’s Crest of the Blue Ridge AVA. It was our first visit to the area since it became one of the state’s wine destinations, and we were not disappointed with what we experienced and tasted there. Crest of the Blue Ridge lists seven vineyards, all within a short drive of Hendersonville, Flat Rock and Mills River.

We heard many stories of people in professional careers making a return to a long-time family farm and others looking for a new path in the wine industry.

The AVA is known for its elevations – 2,000-3,000 feet – and it straddles the Eastern Continental Divide. The climate here is known for warm days during the growing season and cooler nights, producing some very fine Vinifera and French American hybrid wines. One grower said this area has, “the most diverse climate in the world.”

Souther Williams Vineyard

Owners Ken Parker and Angela Adams named their winery Souther Williams to honor Ken’s grandparents, Carrie Southern and JK Williams. They opened their tasting room in 2015 on a family farm, and planted vines on the property in 2016. Their goal was to plant varietals that were not commonly grown in the area, such as Grüner Veltliner, Blaufränkisch (also known as Lemberger) and Saperavi.

• 

• 

• 

This vineyard was established in 2015, on a family farm dating back to the 1800s. Of nearly 10,000 acres in what was Hooper’s Valley, 35 acres of the original farm remain. Eight are planted in vines, with plans to expand to five more.

We were treated to the sip and hike experience, walking through the vineyards (with one really tough hill to climb), stopping to refill our glasses along the way. One of the stops was at an old springhouse, used by early residents for refrigeration.

The tasting room is open during the warmer months to allow mountain breezes to cool guests. Outside, there are lots of Adirondack chairs overlooking the nearby vines. If you don’t want to stray too far from the tasting room, there are several Airbnb properties onsite where you can spend a few nights.

St. Paul’s Mountain Vineyards and Appalachian Ridge Cidery

St. Paul’s Mountain Vineyards and Appalachian Ridge Cidery share the same property and owner Alan Ward, one of nine generations to farm this land. There are two tasting rooms located just across the road from each other, and both include large, open patios overlooking the vineyards. On weekends, there is live music.

• 

• 

• 

Both European varietals and hybrids grow here, along with 14 varieties of apples for cider making in this area that is also known for its apple production. The cider varieties are more frost tolerant than some apple varieties. After exploring cider production in Normandy, France, Ward and his apple consultant Marvin Owings decided to plant several Normandy varieties of apples to use in cider production.

Winemaker Kelly Rivera has created some outstanding ciders and wines, including Appalachian Ridge Sugarloaf Mountain Cider, one of three winners of this year’s Governor’s Cup for North Carolina wines. Rivera came to North Carolina from Texas during COVID, looking for an East Coast winery to call home.

Marked Tree Vineyards

The modern tasting room of Marked Tree Vineyards sits atop a hill, just yards away from a lone chimney known as the “ghost house.” The winery was a long-time dream of owners Tim Parks and Lance Hiatt, who left professional careers to follow their dream of owning a winery in 2015.

• 

• 

• 

Tim led us on a stroll through the vineyard, sharing information about their grapes, cultivation practices, soils and climate. At an elevation of 2,300 feet and situated on the Eastern Continental Divide, the site drains well and benefits from winds that protect vines from disease.

We were treated to brunch here and also tasted a variety of wines, including several that earned recognition in the NC Fine Wines competition.

The name of the vineyard comes from the Native American practice of bending trees to mark paths through the woods. It is symbolic of the owners choosing their own path in the wine industry.

“What you see isn’t where it started,” Tim told us. “This started as a napkin and a dream in Walla Walla, Washington.”

Stone Ashe Vineyards

Craig and Tina Little, owners of Stone Ashe Vineyards, planted vines in 2015, with trellises running straight up a hill near the entrance to the tasting room and dropping away from the site in the back. Craig Little was looking for a vineyard site in Virginia, but he decided on land in North Carolina instead. The tasting room includes quite a bit of outdoor space and stunning views of the mountains.

• 

• 

• 

We were greeted with a glass of 2022 Riesling. We also tasted their 2021 Sauvignon Blanc and 2020 Coppedge Hill, a Bordeaux blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Verdot and Merlot.

Gradually, the venture has become a family affair, with their two sons working in the vineyards, helping develop sustainable practices that enhance the quality of the wines. One son said he had told his father he would work on the farm for a year, but he enjoyed the work and decided to stay.

A highlight of the visit was getting a Kubota ride to the top of the vineyard to see the expanse of the site, then riding back down the hill, right between the vines. Not quite a rollercoaster experience, but pretty close.

Point Lookout Vineyards

The Point Lookout name reflects the experience you’ll have “looking out” from the 3,000 foot elevation vineyard and winery across the mountains, including stunning views of nearby Sugarloaf Mountain. Owner Mike Jackson had a chain of coffee shops in Charlotte before deciding in 2015 to return to his family farm to start a vineyard.

• 

• 

• 

Jackson took our group to the highest point of the vineyard, to look over the estate, where his family once grew apples. The tasting room, which opened in 2018, is expansive and rustic, with lots of open and outdoor space. An underground barrel serves as a naturally cool event space and barrel aging room.

Point Lookout opened their tasting bar to us, and I tried the barrel-fermented Chardonnay, Petit Verdot and Javin, a nod to Jackson’s experience in the coffee business, a semi-sweet wine with notes of coffee and chocolate.

We ended our long day with a delicious dinner of barbecue and vegetables at Point Lookout, watching the sunset over the mountains. Perfect!

Chatham Beverage District

Spend a day in this unique setting tasting mead, beer, cider, coffee and spirits

Guests enjoy beverages at outdoor tables in the Beverage District.

When I was in graduate school in 2009, one of my classes took a field trip to Piedmont Biofuels in Pittsboro, where used cooking oil was converted to biodiesel. When I visited the Chatham Beverage District recently and saw the signs for Piedmont Biofuels, the memory came right back to me.

The once industrial complex that became the Beverage District is now home to mead, beer, cider, coffee and spirits, as well as a small farm that provides produce for a vegetarian restaurant. Lyle Estill, owner of Fair Game Beverage and Distillery, describes the transformation of the area as, “a happy accident.”

The complex and surrounding acreage started as a chrysanthemum farm in the 1950s. From 1986-96, it became the “Cold War relic” of an aluminum smelting plant, but that operation never quite took off. So the plant was abandoned until Estill and partners bought it in 2005 to produce biodiesel. 

In 2013, Fair Game moved into the space as the 13th distillery in North Carolina and the first to do barrel aging. Clientele footwear changed from “steel-toed boots to stilettos,” he said.

Estill became an owner of Fair Game Distillery in the 1990s and began to see a new purpose for the district. At the time, Becky and Ben Starr of Starrlight Mead were looking for a bigger home and began making plans to build in the district.

Today, Fair Game Beverage offers rotating taps of local beer and cider from the district’s Chatham Cider Works (which doesn’t yet have room for its own tasting area) and BMC Brewing Co., as well as other local beverage producers. Fair Game also sells its own spirits (with distillery tours on Saturdays) and a nice selection of estate wines from across North Carolina.

“The thing is booming,” Estill says. On any weekend afternoon, crowds fill the parking areas and wander to the meadery or into the beverage district. The space feels almost like a Spaghetti Western set, with buildings on two sides of an open space, where guests stroll by.

Part of the district’s charm is outdoor artwork, including a shiny pondscape with dragonflies and birds, as well as giant green frogs. Hearing loud noises at the end of the property? You’ll find people playing darts and throwing axes at a wooden wall.

Starrlight Mead opened its new tasting room and production facility in October 2018, after about four years of planning and building. The new facility doubled the size of both the production and tasting room space from their original location at Chatham Marketplace.

On Mead Day back in early August, crowds filled Starrlight Mead’s tasting room and porch to sample the honey wine that comes in a variety of flavors, from traditional off-dry mead to blackberry, as well as coffee, lavender, ginger and more. A holiday favorite is spiced apple, which can be served warm. 

“Business is increasing to levels even better than pre-pandemic,” Becky Starr says.

The Starrs started their meadery in 2010 after tasting mead at Renaissance fairs. The meadery purchases 7 tons of honey each year (roughly 400 hives’ worth) to make their mead. Three hives onsite help visitors understand that bees are the equivalent of grape vines for mead production.

At Starrlight Mead, you can experience a guided mead tasting at the tasting room bar or enjoy six meads in a flight on your own. Once you’ve decided which ones you like, buy a bottle to enjoy in the rockers on the covered porch.

Hungry? Copeland Springs Kitchen offers vegetarian bowls and small plates with seasonal faire like squash pie, zucchini and corn fritters, and sweet and spicy cucumber salad. Their food is available to take out to any of the beverage businesses in the district. 

Around the perimeter of the Beverage District are fields where Copeland Springs Farm raises produce. A walking trail around the property goes by the farming areas.

On Sept. 25, Starrlight will hold its annual Meadfest, a mini-Renaissance Faire. The free, family-friendly event will be mostly outdoors.

More about Meadfest

• 

• 

• 

Fair Game Beverage Co.
220 Lorax Lane
Pittsboro, NC
919.548.6884

Starrlight Mead
130 Lorax Lane
Pittsboro, NC
919.533.6314

Pick your own berries

• 

  We picked about a gallon and a half of blueberries.

• 

  Caroline expertly picks berries from the tops of bushes.

• 

  Two cidermosas, strawberry lemonade and strawberry cider to refresh us after picking.

Blueberries, grapes or muscadines, NC vineyards offer opportunities to pick your own fruit

Botanist and Barrel in Cedar Grove has a large field of blueberry bushes, and in the summer, you can pick your own. Last weekend, the winery/cidery hosted their 6th annual Pick a Ton event, where they donate blueberries to hunger relief.

For every 25 lbs. of berries picked by guests, B&B donates a pound of fresh berries to feed food-insecure kids in Chapel Hill this summer.

Four of us stopped by early on Saturday with our berry buckets and picked about a gallon and a half of fresh berries. We learned that the berries were hit hard by a late frost, but we were still able to find what we wanted to pick. The trick was to wade farther into the berry patch and reach up to pull down top branches that were berry heavy.

In addition, there were cidermosas for sale at the taproom and a pig-pickin’ at noon for all who could stay. The cidermosas were refreshing and tasty, after a hot morning of berry picking.

There’s more to do at most wineries/cideries/meaderies in the state that just taste wine, and this is just an example. As we approach NC Grape Month in August, look for opportunities to pick your own fresh market grapes or muscadines at vineyards near you!

Botanist and Barrel
105 Persimmon Hill Lane
Cedar Grove, NC 27231
919.644.7777

NC Grape Month

Find your brewery

Not even a pandemic could keep us completely away from breweries this past year, but we chose carefully, looking for those that were keeping visitors safe, while still maintaining the atmosphere of FUN that is the hallmark of a good brewery.

As you look for more ways to enjoy your weekends and evenings in the Triangle this summer, here are a few of my favorite local breweries and recent discoveries. Getting out is getting easier now, especially for those fully vaccinated. #getbacktowhatyoulove.

Bond Brothers Beer Company, Cary
With its large patio and expansive seating, you can’t beat Bond Brothers for the beer and atmosphere. Always a food truck in the evenings, and outside food is also permitted. I am especially impressed with their sours recently. It’s definitely one of my favorite places to gather a group for an afternoon beer. Bond Brothers now has a second Cary location that focuses on music. 

• 

• 

• 

Lonerider Brewing, Raleigh
Lonerider has come a long way from when the tasting room was actually inside the brewing area. When we first visited last fall, both employees and guests were being very careful about masks, but things are more relaxed this spring. The Hideout taproom at the original location has quite a bit of space and many tables outside. You need to arrive at the Hideout early if you want shade, or bring your own chairs to seek a cool spot. There are also taproom locations at Five Points and in Wake Forest. The beer selections have greatly expanded — I am partial to True Lime.

• 

• 

Bull City Ciderworks, Durham
When we visited the Ciderworks in May, construction had just begun on — let me guess — apartments across the street, creating a dusty breeze that blew into the taproom’s outdoor space. It didn’t stop us from enjoying our ciders. I tried Rhize Up, a ginger cider that had a nice kick to it. There is usually a food truck in front of the building — the cidery is actually in the back. The Ciderworks also has locations in Greensboro and Lexington, where the cider is produced. Soon, a new location will open in Cary.

• 

• 

• 

Glass Jug Beer Lab, Research Triangle Park
I visited the Glass Jug Beer Lab in early June to hear the band Mr. Felix, and it appears the brewery has live music most weekends. The site has a nice beer garden, a taproom and bottle shop. There was lots of outdoor space, with room to bring in chairs for the music. The beer was good — I tried Summer Zest American Wheat Beer — and there were lots to choose from, with both the Glass Jug beers and others on tap. Along with a food truck, there are several restaurants in the same shopping center. There is also a location of the Glass Jug near Durham Central Park.

• 

• 

• 

Plenty of outdoor seating, music and great beer selections make this brewery a great place to visit.

Botanist and Barrel

This cidery/winery in Cedar Grove is a paradise of wild fermentation

Deric McGuffey, left, and Kether Smith are inside the fermentation room at Botanist and Barrel.

We recently got the best table in the house on a Saturday trip to Botanist and Barrel in Cedar Grove — well, actually the only indoor table. Though the cidery/winery north of Hillsborough has plenty of outdoor seating, there is only one four-person table inside the tasting room, and the good news is that you can reserve it.

Since the weather was still cold back in late February, we reserved the tasting room table for what turned out to be a great afternoon of cider and wine tasting and tacos. And we had the full attention of the tasting room staff and partner/head cidermaker Kether Smith, all socially distanced and masked.

The food truck we were hoping for — Succatash — wasn’t at Botanist and Barrel as planned, but Mama Chava’s tacos didn’t disappoint (chorizo, barbacoa and shredded chicken tacos). 

Botanist and Barrel isn’t just another cidery. The ciders are made with naturally occurring yeasts on fruits like apples and blueberries. Their ciders and wines are low in residual sugars and are “raw, wild, unfined, unfiltered and unpasteurized,” according to their website.

The cidermakers at Botanist and Barrel don’t strive for consistency between batches, but instead they marvel at the different flavors that natural yeasts can produce. Kether told us that sometimes the taste of a cider or wine will actually change within a few minutes of opening a bottle or can.

Fire rings and heaters make the outside space at B&B comfortable and safe in colder months.

We started with a tasting flight featuring the Less is More Pet Nat, a dry cider fermented in the Petillant Naturel method; Vintners Reserve, a wild fermented cider blended with orange and grapefruit juice; Tart Blueberry, organic blueberries co-fermented with apple to produce a dry rose cider; and for our “wildcard” selection, we chose Forbidden Root, made from whole blackberry, baby ginger and whole turmeric.

Behind Botanist and Barrel lie acres of blueberries used in the ciders, and in the summer, the berries are available to pick-your-own enthusiasts. And there is plenty of outdoor space at the venue to enjoy a glass of cider or wine, complete with fire rings and heaters in the winter. There also is a covered area with picnic tables. 

Cider and wine sales are done mainly through a window to the tasting room, but several people dropped in to buy bottles and cans while we were there. 

If you like dry, not sweet ciders, which are really more like a sparkling dry wine, you’ll be very happy with the ciders at Botanist and Barrel. We brought home a four-pack of Farmhouse “Seriously Dry” Cider and a bottle of the 2019 Traminatte, a white wine.

For Asheville fermentation fans, we learned that Botanist and Barrel is planning to open a tasting room in downtown Asheville later this year. 

Botanist and Barrel isn’t far from the Iron Gate Vineyards and Winery and Grove Winery as well. You could make a day of it in and around North Carolina’s Haw River American Viticulture Area (AVA). Or spend part of your day visiting downtown Hillsborough or taking a hike at nearby Occoneechee Mountain State Park.

Botanist and Barrel
105 Persimmon Hill Lane
Cedar Grove, NC 27231
919.644.7777

The Farmhouse Cider at Botanist and Barrel is “seriously dry,” as the can says.