Memorial Day Weekend 2013

Long weekends are wonderful. They always pass a little too quickly, but they are a great way to get a break from work without using up lots of vacation days. The best long weekends are the ones that also have a federal holiday at the beginning or end. :)

For Memorial Day weekend, Dan and I started off with a date night at the new Alamo Drafthouse theater in One Loudoun. If you’ve never been to an Alamo theater, I highly recommend you check it out. They are a combination of a movie theater and a restaurant. You purchase tickets for specific seats (so you don’t have to show up really early for the good ones), and you can order all your food and drinks (including alcohol) directly from your seats, even during the movie!

Dan and I have been to the theater three times since it opened at the beginning of May. We love the food, the funny previews before the movie, and the friendly staff. This past Friday, we saw the newest Star Trek movie, and we had yet another great visit at the Alamo. Here’s a picture we got at the theater before the show:


On Saturday, we stopped at two different parties. The first was a very yummy crab feast at a friends’ house. The crabs were delicious, and Dan had fun scaring people with the crabs before throwing them into the cooking pot.

After the crab feast, we headed west to have dinner with my family in Martinsburg. It’s always fun getting together with my cousins. Only your cousins truly understand the kind of crazy family that you come from. LOL We seem to be getting crazier as we get older too. Heehee…

Sunday brought a beautiful sunny day, and Dan and I got to clean house and watch some episodes of Castle before heading out to a VA Wine Mafia meet up. The “godfather” of our group, Kurt, had most generously opened up his pantry and basement to share some wines before they got too old to drink. The other mafia members also brought wines and snacks to share with everyone. Dan and I brought a bottle of Fox Meadow Freezeland White to share. Mmm…




There were many favorites being passed around. Some of my favorites were a Breaux rose, Crushed Cellars Merlot and Meritage, and Berry Hill’s 2010 Petit Verdot. Kurt even broke out a few special bottles – Keswick’s 2009 Cab Sav, Clarksburg’s 2010 dessert red (from Cali), and Corcoran’s special white port.



VA Mafia meet ups are always a blast, and we enjoyed every minute spent with this fantastic group!


No weekend would be complete without spending time gardening, so Monday was spent working on our veggie garden at my dad’s house and the potted garden at our house. We started with a trip to Home Depot for mulch, insect repellant, and a couple flowers.

Our veggie garden was growing, but slowly, and the zuccinni, squash, and cucumbers were getting seriously attached by some nasty yellow striped bugs. At Bluemont nursery, a worker said he had seen the same kind of bugs that we had and gave us some repellant called Eight. It is a product that has been used for years, and part of the mix comes from the extract of crushed mums.

After weeding, applying the insect repellant, and putting down some garden mulch, our garden looked much better.



The last hours of sunlight were spent cleaning up our own backyard. We moved my little maple tree into a big half-barrel pot, put down a bunch of mulch, and did a general clean up. We even gave the puppies a bath, much to their disappointment.





Dan and I thoroughly enjoyed our Memorial Day weekend. It was a great mix of relaxing, fun, and outdoor activity. Cheers to wonderful long weekends!

The Whiskey Cow and the VA Wine Mafia

Even though Labor Day weekend was a while ago, I had to write about a few of the things Dan and I got to do over that weekend.

Bottling Gin
About 15 minutes outside of Leesburg lays Catoctin Creek Distillery. Catoctin Creek Distillery is a three-year old distillery in western Loudoun that makes organic whiskeys, gin, brandy, and a few other liquors. One thing that sets them apart is that they offer locals a chance to help with the bottling process! How cool is that?! I had heard about the bottling events from a co-worker, and he invited Dan and I and another co-worker to join him over the weekend.

The bottling event turned out to be even more interesting than I had expected. Not only did we get to participate in each step of the bottling process, we got to have the owner walk us through the entire procedure of creating liquor. It was quite fascinating, and I loved learning how they were a 0% waist facility!

The distiller
For those who are interested, the bottling process contained about 11 different positions. Here is a short breakdown of them: (Please note that some of these names are not the exact position names. I couldn’t remember them all. Lol)

• Liquor can manager – hooks the whiskey cow up to a full can of liquor
• Empty bottle runner – would give the person working the whiskey cow new boxes of empty bottles
• Whiskey cow worker – Place bottles onto an automatic pourer (the whiskey cow) that fills the bottles perfectly. When the bottle is filled, they take them off and place them next to the corker.







Dan and I working the Whiskey Cow

• Corker – places corks in the filled bottles
• Capper – places a metallic cap on the bottle
• Sealer – uses a HOT blowdryer-looking device to shrink the cap onto the bottle (sealing the bottle shut)




The table where the Corker, Capper, and Sealer work

• Bottle runner – runs the filled and sealed bottles to the labelers
• Labeler – places labels on the front and back of the bottle.




Me with my Bazinga! label

• Bottle runner – runs the labeled bottles to the packer
• Packer – checks for “floaters” in the bottles and packs the bottles into shipping boxes
• Bottle runner – runs any bottles with “floaters” in it back to the Liquor can manager.

The coolest part of the bottling process is the whiskey cow, and the hardest part was corking the bottles (you have to have a lot of arm strength). Everyone has a lot of fun with the labeling part, because you get to write short phrases on the labels before they go onto the bottle. This makes each bottle a little unique. For example, I wrote “Bazinga” on one of the bottles, so hopefully, a Big Bang Theory fan will find it in the store and enjoy it. :) Dan and I wrote a label for just us, and we had the bottle set aside for to purchase later. :)

The work is done. Time to celebrate!
The whole event was really fun, and they saved the best part for last – the taste test. LOL Dan really liked the gin, and we both were fans of the rye whiskey. Naturally, we got a bottle of each to take home with us.

Catoctin Creek Distillery liquors
Wine and Lobster
In addition to bottling gin, Dan and I got to visit a few vineyards over the weekend. We stopped at North Gate Vineyard, because Dan had never tried their wine before. We enjoyed a glass of Cab Franc and split a cheese platter and picked up bottles of the Cab Franc and Apple wine to bring home with us.

Our next vineyard stop of the weekend was Loudoun Valley Vineyard. I have been able to enjoy some of Loudoun Valley’s wines at local restaurants like Fireworks, but this was my first visit to their property. Apart for wanting to see their grounds, we were also drawn to the lobster fest that was being held. :) Two sides and a big lobster for $20 – you can’t beat that! (I was very glad to learn about the lobster fest through Twitter and Facebook. It is a great way to keep up on local events now!) With our bellies full of delicious food, we picked up a bottle of Route 9 and the house white to share later.

Meeting the Wine Mafia
As I mentioned above, I have been involved more on Twitter and Facebook lately. I started using Twitter to help bring traffic to my blog and ended up following a lot of local people involved in events and wine. It was through these wine folks that I got introduced to the Virginia Wine Mafia bloggers group on Facebook, and I was very excited when they invited me to become a part of their group.

Over Labor Day weekend, Dan and I were invited to a small gathering of local wine bloggers from the Wine Mafia group. It was a fantastic evening! Everyone was very friendly and inviting, and Dan and I got to learn about and try a bunch of new VA wines. We even met someone who had been our pourer at Barrel Oak Winery. :)

Some of the wines we were sharing
One favorite point of the evening was the discussion that arose around Bob’s wines. The name of the actual winery is Crushed Cellars, but everyone from the party will remember it as Bob’s (the owner of the vineyard) from now on. We all split a bottle of Bob’s Vidal Blanc, which was quite delicious, and Dan and I added another winery to our “To Visit” list. LOL

You can read more about the wine gathering from Wine About Virginia – our hosts for the evening.