But I'm a simple girl with simple needs: if there's a pickled bean in it, I'm on board. This totally clear whiskey is matured in an oak barrel (no owls were harmed in the process), so it’s super mellow, although the cocktail doesn’t have as much bite as I'd like. (Image: Stacey McLachlan)īellies warmed, we’ve now filled our cups with whiskey Caesars from White Owl White Whiskey. This lovely lady from White Owl White Whiskey concocts some Caesars for our tasting pleasure. It’s made with vanilla and spices-delicious! My drinking companion is engaged in rapid-fire industry conversation with the friendly man in the booth I’m going to use this time to calculate the ratio of mustaches per square foot. Just tried our first whiskey (the only cost was a smile!): Revel Stoke. My date Maia and I have each received a bag of tokens to purchase samples with, but we’re finding out that our feminine wiles are worth their weight in imitation-gold at an event jammed with mustachioed men-folk. Here's a running diary of my time at Hopscotch. And, if the opportunity arises, I suppose I may indulge in a drink or two. The Rocky Mountaineer Station is packed wall to wall with vendors, handing out tipples of whiskey (rye and bourbon) and brews.
I’m not one to quibble, though, when someone is doling out adorable tiny cups of scotch. Hopscotch claims to be the biggest combined whiskey and beer festival in Canada, but I have a sneaking suspicion it may be the only combined whiskey and beer festival in Canada. And by midnight on Saturday, when the festival closed until next year, you couldn’t have drawn a line between the different camps of drinkers at all.The Whiskey Diaries: Hopscotch Festival Hits Vancouver Sons and father-and-laws discussed hundred-year-old whiskies over botanical-aged ciders and cappuccino stouts, and gaggles of early twenty-something girls waited in line for vertical flights of variously aged Scotch, or comparative tastings of Northwest whiskies. As space filled from some hundreds to over a thousand attendees and the effects of both varieties of alcohol set in, the beer and whiskey mixed and soon became indistinguishable. Here, the booming music was muffled and Master of Whiskey Peter Karras, fresh off a plane from New York, expounded on the virtues (and they were copious) of blended and single-malt Scotches, some older than the youngest festival-goers beyond the red curtain.īut as the afternoon progressed and the Scotch workshop finished, the curtain was pulled back to combine both groups. Meanwhile, the ticketed, seated Scotch workshop took place onstage behind a heavy red curtain. The beer drinkers milled about in loose groups on the venue’s main floor, stepping in and out of line before volunteer-poured kegs and bantering over the reverberations of deejayed pop music. And while the distinction is far from black and white, as the second day of the HopScotch festival kicked off early on Saturday afternoon there was a line drawn, even if it was blurred.
Your average Scotch drinker is generally perceived as a little older, a little more sophisticated, and a little more mature. It didn’t begin that way – at its inception, as Hops on Equinox at Seattle Center, Hopscotch’s predecessor was solely a craft brewfest until being reimagined, renamed and rebranded seven years ago.Īlthough there is unquestionably overlap, stereotypes would paint beer and Scotch drinkers differently.
HopScotch is the only one of the three that sets out to fully incorporate two quite disparate beverage communities – whiskey enthusiasts and beer lovers.
#Hop scotch festival full#
Fremont Oktoberfest, also held in and around the spacious Fremont Studios that housed HopScotch, draws a full flannel-clad array of bearded and bespectacled beer-happy Fremonters, while Kirkland Uncorked, an outdoor wine tasting across Lake Washington in that comfortably affluent sleeper city, draws a relatively swankier suburban crowd. The fest, a signature function put on by Bold Hat Productions, is one of three annual major beverage-focused events held locally by that production company.
#Hop scotch festival plus#
Over the weekend, greater Seattle plus visitors from around the region reveled in the two days of festivities that marked the 11 th annual HopScotch Beer & Scotch Festival in the quirky Fremont neighborhood north of downtown Sea-town. The 11th Annual HopScotch Festival brings together diverse drinkers in the NW.
0 kommentar(er)
