Beards, Bourbon & Tasty Eats

              It is spring, right? Looking outside, all I see is the dark and gloomy rain clouds. Living in the beautiful pacific northwest if there is one thing I have learned it is that you can’t let the dark and gloomy or the rain keep you down, or in the house! Put on that trusty rain coat and go for a walk. Have an adventure. Enjoy the fresh air!                Here in Olympia the Farmers Market is about to open and vendors are gearing up for all the festivals the new season brings. My family loves to go downtown and just wander form vendor to vendor and store to store in search of nothing more than a smile, a great coffee and an amazing meal. We are huge fans of brunch and always on the hunt for great local spots. On one of our adventures downtown we discovered Hart’s Mesa, Oly-Mex Brunch House on Colombia Street.         ...

Beards and mustaches are amazing! A nice-looking handle bar mustache or well-groomed beard are always a conversation piece. There are so many ways to wear a beard or mustache, or both! With handsome beard and/or mustache comes great responsibility. Don’t forget to outfit yourself as well! You wouldn’t wear a nice suit and not press the shirt, so why would you not comb out your beard?                There are so many beard and mustache styles out there to embrace. There is a Full Beard or Short Box Beard and Scruff. The Chin Strap and Chin Curtain. There is the Goatee and the Soul patch. Don’t forget about the mustache! There is the Fu Manchu and the Pencil. The Cop Stache and the Dali and my favorite the Handlebar.                You can see there are so many combinations to choose from, so how do you go about choosing what looks good...

This week we are cracking open a bottle of Elijah Craig 12-Year Barrel Proof bourbon! First a little background, Heaven Hill has been released their Elijah Craig bourbon as a 12-Year-Old Barrel Proof since the Fall of 2013. They release about 3 per year. This is the 14 th release of the Elijah Craig Barrel Proof offering and their second release of 2017. One of my favorite things about this bourbon is that it is still affordable, even being a limited release! Elijah Craig really is the history of Bourbon. Reverend Elijah Craig was a Baptist preacher and active character in Kentucky during the 1800’s. He was many things during his lifetime, but being a distiller and entrepreneur is what cemented his place in history as “The Father of Bourbon”. No one really knows how Elijah began charring his barrels, but once he did it’s easy to taste and understand why he continued the process! Inside those barrels magic happens and clear liquor is transformed into an amazingly awesome, distin...