Nibble: CT Food Events for Week of October 13-20 Events Features Events News Emma Jane-Doody Stetson October 10, 2019 Get ready to get crazy and “do-nut” miss this event! Friday October 18 is Donut Crazy Flight Night at Two Roads Brewing Company. They’ll even be featuring a Roadsmary’s Baby Donut inspired by the Autumnal Brew. Check it out in the tasting room from 4-9pm. On Saturday October 19, Barcelona Norwalk will hold a pig roast on the patio. From 3-6pm, kick off fall with a roast suckling pig and seasonal tapas prepared by Chef Kaline Capps. Wine pairings will accompany the evening’s offerings. Hamilton Park, located in The Blake Hotel in Downtown New Haven, now offers 50% off all bottles of wine during Monday evening dinner service. The restaurant offers dinner service from 5-9pm.Le Fat Poodle is pleased to present Oktoberfest specials. The Oktoberfest menu includes specials like German beer cheese dip, pretzels, bratwurst, and more. Order a la carte or opt for three courses and get a beer and stein. Read More
Nibble: Tasty CT Food Events Happening October 6-13 Features Events Events News Nibble Emma Jane-Doody Stetson October 04, 2019 Everyone is Italian on October 12 and 13 when the That’s Amore Italian Street Festival comes to Stamford. There will be plenty of Italian food as well as concerts, games, and Italian-inspired entertainment. TASTE of Fairfield returns on Sunday October 13 at Delamar Southport. Over 25 vendors will offer tastes of their delicious food. There will also be local vendors, wineries, and specialty cocktails to check out. Purchase a general admission ticket or upgrade to VIP for early admission to the event. Cousins Maine Lobster and Bad Sons Beer Company are teaming up on Friday October 11. From 4-8pm, head to Derby for refreshing brews and a pop-up from the Hartford-based seafood eatery. Read More
CTBites Scene: Greenwich Wine + Food Festival 2019 Features Events Events Greenwich Wine + Food Festival James Gribbon September 26, 2019 The Greenwich Wine + Food Festival sailed into harbor to cap off the summer for its ninth year last weekend, and CTBites was there: awkwardly balancing camera, food, and cocktails, and wishing for a prehensile tail. Bites were eaten, photos were taken, and not overly much wine was spilled on ourselves in the process. Perhaps you will see yourself in the gallery, maybe you'll be inspired to attend next year for the tenth anniversary - either way you'll feel better than we did on Sunday morning - and anyway, it'll be worth it. Read More
Nibble: Tasty & Boozy CT Food Events for September 29-October 6 Features Events Nibble Food Events Food News Emma Jane-Doody Stetson September 26, 2019 On Friday October 4, HAPA's Chef Chris Gonzalez, SoNo 1420 craft distillery, and Ria Rueda of Bread & Butter Marketing are teaming up to bring you the first ever Kamayan style dinner to celebrate Filipino American History Month. A kamayan meal is a communal feast served family-style eaten with a large group of friends, featuring a variety of Filipino dishes served on banana leaves over rice and eaten with your hands. A $75 dinner includes 2 cocktails, dinner, and dessert. 116 Crown is celebrating its 12th anniversary! Join them on Saturday October 5 at 6pm for a cocktail hour, seasonal dinner, bocce, and live music. Return on Sunday October 6 for a “Family Happy Hour” featuring pumpkin painting, cocktails, and more. Washington Prime in SoNo kicks off their fall/winter wine series with a Caymus Wine Dinner on Wednesday October 2. The five course pairing dinner kicks off at 7pm with limited seating. Reservations can be made by calling (203) 857-1314 or by visiting the restaurant. Read More
Nibble: Tasty CT Food Events For September 22-29 Features Events Events News Pop-Up Dinner Wine Dinners Emma Jane-Doody Stetson September 20, 2019 You still have time to partake in “Taste of the Suburbs” presented by CTNow. Through September 29, participating restaurants will offer special multi-course, price-fixed tasting menus. Visit hotspots like Millwrights, Bistro on Main, Carbone’s, and more. Every Wednesday from Sept 25 through November 13 a new chef will bring their culinary POV to Amis Trattoria in Westport in their new Guest Chef Pop-Up, where chefs create a menu of specials that fuses their style with the Italian flair of Amis. On September 25, they welcome Robin Selden of Naked Fig Catering. Enjoy a Spanish Evening of Cheese and Wine at the Farmington Polo Grounds on Wednesday September 25. Start the evening with a prosecco toast under the tent watching the polo game. Then, a professional cheesemonger will guide you through a selection of artisanal Spanish cheeses and pairings of locally made jams, pickles charcuterie... and of course, wine! The Westport Farmer’s Market’s Fork It Over Party in the Parking Lot goes down on Thursday September 26. Partake in dinner, drinks, and music in a picturesque setting… and all to support the market. This year, witness the Chef-at-the-Market finale! Read More
Growing CT Beer At Fox Farm Brewery Features Ingredients Brewery CT Farms CT Beer Beer Local Artisan Local Farm Homepage James Gribbon August 25, 2019 Beer, as I've said so many times on this site, is food. Beer is a farm you can drink. It's an agricultural product that comes to us from fields of grain and leafy green hop yards, even down to the yeast brewers culture and grow from the skins of fruit in orchards. The massive proliferation of breweries in Connecticut - many of them less than five years old - means a huge uptick in the need for all these natural products. I wanted to take a look at how the rise of craft beer is affecting the state of agriculture in the Constitution State, and how breweries and farms are working hand in hand to create and restore the growth of Connecticut beer. This will be an ongoing series as summer days get shorter and we approach harvest time, but I thought the best way to start would be with a place that brings agriculture and beer together, and I started with at Fox Farm Brewery. Read More
Guide To Our Favorite CT Summer Farm Stands Ingredients Features Best of CT Farmers Market Farm Stand CT Farms Local Farm Farm to Table Maddie Phelps July 26, 2019 With the glorious warmth that summer brings to Connecticut comes a plethora of delicious fruits, vegetables, and other produce that are sure to highlight any and every meal of the season. If you’re looking to get a taste of the incredible produce CT offers when the temperature is at its hottest, you’ll surely want to make a trip to some local farm stands. As late July is upon us, however, the number of summer days left are ticking away at a startling speed. But fear not; your life just got a little bit easier. Some of the best summer farm stands in the state are listed below, ranging from the eastern most points of Connecticut to down in Fairfield County. All you have to do is find one that catches your eye and take the drive. Read More
Local Boxing Trainer Creates Hot Lady Hot Sauce Brand Ingredients Features Ingredients Hot Sauce Local Artisan Andrew Dominick May 28, 2019 The hot sauce market is stacked with thousands of brands trying to win over your taste buds and into your pantry, but few have roots right here in Fairfield County. Cue Hot Lady Hot Sauce, created by Adam Colberg, a Connecticut resident who grew up in Westport. For Colberg, hot sauce wasn’t always in his overall plan. “Before I graduated from Staples High School, I always embarked on different projects, I always did things differently,” he said. “I wasn’t ready for college, but I wanted to do something adventurous, so I joined the Marines.” His time in the corps, where he was a jet mechanic, granted him the opportunity to travel the world, including a tour in Spain. Read More
A Short History Of The Retro Cocktail: Post Prohibition Recipes Features Ingredients Cocktails Bar Education Mixology CTbites Team May 03, 2019 Bartenders, especially those involved in the “cocktail” world, understand the significant impact that Prohibition has had on the industries surrounding alcoholic beverages. Many consumers, however, are unaware of that impact. National Prohibition was rooted in political and religious belief systems, that sought to temper a vice, and legislate morality to a nation. Any time a product, that is in high consumer demand, is made illegal, a black market is created. Crime increases, violence increases, and eventually, the public demands action. It didn’t take long for the ridiculous idea to be repealed, and when Prohibition ended on December 5, 1933, the nation joined together in a collective sigh of relief, and a toast to better times ahead. Treatises have been written, documentaries have been filmed, and many a scholar has spoken about the nearly decade and a half that The United States of America suffered under the tyranny of Prohibition. What is sorely missing, however, is a definitive study of the decades following its repeal. And, maybe, that is because not much is ever said, outside of our small circle of bartenders, about what life in this industry was like before Prohibition was passed. Read More
SONO 1420, Small Batch Distillery Featuring Hemp Distilled Spirits, Opens in South Norwalk Features Ingredients South Norwalk SONO Distillery Cocktails Spirits Homepage Opening Kristin L. Wolfe April 20, 2019 It was a vote of 14 to 20.One hundred years ago in 1919 Connecticut State Senate couldn’t ratify the 18th Amendment which made Connecticut one of two states at the time to defeat prohibition. It was a real moment in history, and now a real moment for SONO 1420, the revolutionary new distillery making waves in the world of spirits. As far as everyone knows, they are THE only distillery around using hemp seed in its remarkable mash for whiskey as well as other parts of the plant for its flavorful and aromatic essence in gins, bourbons, and ryes. Read More
Hartford Flavor Company: Uniquely Delicious Botanical Liqueurs Features Ingredients Liqueur Cocktails Ingredients Hartford Specialty Market Kristin L. Wolfe April 17, 2019 It’s herbal, it’s floral, it’s natural, Oh MY. It’s botanical liqueur.Walking into Hartford Flavor Company is like walking into a place where all’s right with the world: it’s owned and operated by a smart woman, everything is natural, and it is as beautiful as a field of flowers should be. Or, it’s like a laboratory-meets day spa-meets fully-stocked bar. Take your pick.Anyway, I think you are getting my point. It is downright lovely and essential and all you think while touring around and talking to owner Lelaneia Dubay is, where have you been all my life? Read More
BD Provisions: Gourmet Bulk Food Shopping That’s Really "Out of the Box" Features Ingredients Shopping Specialty Market Grocery Store Newtown Ingredients Coffee Jessica Ryan April 16, 2019 Bulk shopping isn’t exactly a new concept – we’ve been filling the trunks of our cars and SUVs with oversized products from those mammoth box stores for years. But bulk shopping that’s zero waste is something we don’t often see. BD Provisions, in Newtown, takes this familiar concept and gives it a breath of fresh air with a new, environmentally friendly spin. Less is more, especially here. Less waste means more product which means greater savings and more fun, but you really need to head over to experience it yourself. At BD Provisions you’ll find 270 carefully curated products sold by the pound in massive sustainable containers. Products range from dehydrated and powdered superfoods. You won’t want to pass by the creative, flavored rice, quinoa and soup blends that will enhance any weeknight dinner. Of course there are plenty of healthy snack options from the most beautifully colored wasabi coated soybeans, beautiful and delicious dried, crunchy beets, spicy chick peas, a wide selection of nuts both raw and flavored. Gorgeous beans and pastas. Beautiful aromatic spices, a generous selection of the most beautiful tea blends. Read More
How New Haven’s Salsa Queen Became the State’s First Black Female Brewer (via CT Magazine) Features Ingredients Brewery CT Beer Beer Connecticut Magazine March 12, 2019 We love celebrating local CT entrepreneurs. Connecticut Magazine gives a shout out to this trailblazing woman who’s shaking up the primarily male dominated craft brewing industry. We also hear that Rhythm beer will be available at Chef Chris Scott’s highly anticipated Birdman Juke Joint in Bridgeport. Craft beer needs more diversity. The realization hit New Haven’s Alisa Bowens-Mercado five years ago while she was at a beer festival. She didn’t mean diversity in terms of more women and minority ownership of breweries; not yet anyhow. Back then she was thinking about diversity of flavor.At that festival, every beer she tried was either too hoppy or too sour for her taste. She felt the craft industry needed more approachable options for drinkers like her.“I want to make a beer that, when I go to a beer festival, that I can drink,” she told her husband.Four years later Rhythm Brewing Co. was born and Bowens-Mercado, owner of Alisa’s House of Salsa, a dance studio in New Haven, became Connecticut’s first female African-American brewer. This month, as she celebrates Rhythm Brewing’s one-year anniversary, the company’s flagship product, Rhythm Unfiltered Lager, is available at more than 200 locations across the state. Bowens-Mercado is also getting ready to start distributing it in the Bahamas. Read More
Mystic Cheese Co. Opens in Groton, CT: Artisanal Cheese Shop, Wine, Beer & Classes Ingredients Features Groton Cheese Specialty Market Opening CTbites Team March 06, 2019 In an unusual but convenient industrial park in Groton, just near the Groton Airport, Mystic Cheese Co. is opening a new location this month to serve homemade and artisanal cheeses to the after-work crowd and cheese connoisseurs alike. Upon stepping into the front doors at the new site of Mystic Cheese, visitors are welcomed into a cozy tasting room in which they can perch on barstool seating that offers glimpses into the impressively sized cheese maturation room. The feeling that the owners, Brian Civitello and Jason Sobocinksi (former owner of the beloved Caseus Cheese), have tried to create with their events and cut to order cheese is relaxed, fun, and unpretentious. Mystic Cheese has definitely accomplished this with their communal tables, friendliness, and awesome narwhal logo. By doing this, their overall aim is to attract people to the world of artisanal cheeses by offering cheeses at multiple price points, cheese-centric food, and educational classes. Read More
Newtown's Maple Craft Works With Breweries & Distilleries To Make Award Winning Maple Syrup Ingredients Features Ingredients Local Artisan Local Farm Dessert Connecticut Magazine January 15, 2019 Connecticut Magazine features a great local vendor who skillfully combines maple syrup and local distilleries. When people try Maple Craft Foods’ bourbon barrel-aged maple syrup for the first time and taste the all-natural sweetness of the Vermont syrup layered with subtle smoke and caramel flavors imparted by aging in bourbon barrels, their reactions are often visceral, Dave Ackert says.Watching new fans “ooh” and “ah” their way through this tasting is the best part of the job for Ackert, who owns the Newtown-based company along with his wife Eve, father Paul, and friend Bill Begany, of Begany Design.Bourbon barrel maple is the company’s flagship product, and though it does not contain alcohol, it is the offspring of the burgeoning craft beer and distilling industries in Connecticut. Read More
Rise Brewing Co: Nitro Cold Brew Coffee Made in CT Ingredients Features Ingredients Coffee Brewery CTbites Team December 26, 2018 Years of drinking bland and commonplace cups of coffee began to take a toll on Connecticut natives and founders of RISE Brewing Co., Hudson Gaines-Ross, Grant Gyesky, Jarrett McGovern, and Justin Weinstein. In 2014, they decided to take matters in their own hands by hitting the drawing board in their New York City apartments. Bean after bean, one roast and cold-brewing method after another, they finally created a cold brew coffee, making them the founders of RISE Brewing Company. Traversing the concrete jungle with their product, they asked experienced mixologists if it was the real deal. One day, in a Brooklyn café, the espresso machine broke; RISE cold brew came to the rescue, and was a hit amongst the customers. The product became available for purchase in July of 2017. Read More
Field Trip Premium Beef Jerky Opens 1st Retail Shop in Westport Ingredients Features Ingredients Snacks Specialty Market Westport Opening Stephanie Webster December 13, 2018 On December 11th, premium jerky & snack brand Field Trip opened its first store at 153 Post Road East in Westport CT. The 500-square-foot space will be the company’s first ever brick and mortar establishment. You can find Field Trip jerky in 50,000 retails outlets nationwide, but this is, and will be their ONLY dedicated store. The first 1,000 customers over the weekend of December 15th/16th will receive a free meat stick if they mention having read about us on Westport Moms, Dan Woog, CTBites, or via WestportNow! Read More
"OOPS I Ate My CBD:" CBD Infused Gourmet Chocolate Bars Features Ingredients Local Artisan Dessert Chocolate Specialty Market Homepage Stephanie Webster December 11, 2018 There is a lot of buzz going around regarding CBD, and also quite a few misconceptions. CBD, is one of the chemicals in cannabis, but unlike THC (also found in Marajuana), CBD is a non-psychoactive compound that is emerging as a very popular wellness ingredient. The plant extract, often consumed as an oil under the tongue, is now the featured ingredient in high-end products including body lotion, olive oil, cold-brew coffee, infused water, and even dog treats. Local start up, “Oops I Ate My CBD” is leveraging this emerging trend to create gourmet hemp infused chocolate bars, which come complete with 50mg of CBD per serving. The bars are made with 99.6% pure hemp derived CBD Isolate, and contains zero THC. Hence it is legal in all 50 states…and the chocolate is delicious. (Plus, I was VERY relaxed after my tasting) Read More
Cross Culture Kombucha Opens Kombucha Taproom and Brewery in Danbury Restaurant Ingredients Brewery Tea And Coffee Danbury Opening Kristin L. Wolfe October 09, 2018 Cross Culture Kombucha just opened its doors in Danbury. It’s the first Kombucha taproom and brewery in the state, and they’ve been welcomed with open arms and growlers ready to fill. The light, effervescent drink has been around for ages but has most recently seen the limelight as a non-alcoholic alternative; one that is both really delicious and packed with healthy goodness. Read More
Friday Froth: Kent Pils, Two Roads Spills on Area 2, And A Hazy IPA That Kills Features Ingredients CT Beer Beer Garden Beer Brewery James Gribbon August 24, 2018 This week in Friday Froth we're going to toss back a beer in the middle of a trend, a new creation in an old style, and some brewery news which leads us to an aged beer.And now, as another James May say, the nyeewws:I recently was among the first few dozen civilians to ever see the inside of Two Roads' new mixed fermentation secondary brewery, Area 2. First announced in 2016, this new on-site facility in Stratford will focus on sour, barrel aged, and wild ales - all the little organisms bursting with possibility, and voted most likely to make your wine or Bud Light drinking friends say "This is beer?!?" Read More
