What is Easter? Want to go to an Adult Easter Egg Hunt? Some questions are answered to shed more light and why we are here. Get ready for our trail week. Every day a new subject. What are your favorites?
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Coming up, the plans are in place to include you, the followers, the listeners, the faithfuls, as we prepare to sit down, have a drink, and talk about what you enjoy about western New York. And I dip into the mailbag to answer a few of your questions and inquiries that have come in through the past few weeks. The Buffalo Brews podcast is coming to you now. Welcome, everyone. It's Brews Day, and you know what that means. I'm Jason Edinger, your host, and thank you for joining me this episode two of the Buffalo Brews, Brews, Views, and To Do's podcast. Last week, I remember recording the opening and talking about how spring was in the air here in western New York. Well, as the prophecy has foretold, one must blast us with one more shot of snow this coming week, and hopefully we'll be done with winter as five inches are expected to fall here in the Buffalo area on Thursday. Now, mind you, on Tuesday, when this episode is supposed to drop, the high is going to be 68 degrees. For the opening this week, I'm sitting here and sipping Four Roses bourbon from the Four Roses Distillery in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. Now, what's unique about Four Roses is they're the only distillery that combines two different mash bills with five proprietary yeast strains that they use to create ten distinct bourbon recipes. So each recipe brings something different to the batch that they create, and they're carefully mingling them, and it allows them to achieve an endless range of flavor profiles to please pretty much any bourbon lover. This particular mash bill consists of 75% corn, so you can taste a little bit of the sweetness in it, 20% rye, and 5% malted barley. And when I taste this, on the front side, I'm picking up floral accents, gentle spice on the front end, there's a very light hint of like fruit, and I had to look up on the website to see that the fruits that they use for this are pear and apple. I'm not very distinct on picking up specific fruit flavors in bourbons, but the finish on this was amazing, long, very pleasant, and quite enjoyable. So where would you be able to pick up Four Roses bourbon? I'm sure you could pick up at any of your favorite wine and spirit stores around the western New York area. Mine came from the Buffalo Booze Box, which if you go to buffaloboozebox.com, on their website currently you'll find for sale their Bourbon and Rye's Volume 2, as well as a wine box that they created. Originally created in December of 2020, they put out their first Bourbon and Rye box that I picked up. This is the first time I've ever cracked that box open, so I still have the rest of that box, as well as the Volume 2 of the Bourbon and Rye's that I picked up as well. I'll post a photo of the box on our Instagram and our Facebook. Easter is coming up, and it's one of those holidays that's celebrated differently depending on who you talk to. I myself, I'm a spiritual person, but I've never been overly religious, even though my teen years consisted of a lot of church services, Sunday school, church plays, Iwana club, and it can still be recalled for me when needed because of years of reading and studying the Bible. So for me, especially after the birth of my son, it became more of a bunnies, chicks, eggs holiday. My son was in the plans for Easter actually this coming weekend, as I had planned to spend it with him in Arizona visiting him and hiking the Coronado National Forest. However, thank you COVID for now my third canceled trip. So let's talk Easter, and I know what you're thinking, yet like another history lesson? Yeah, so let's gather around kids and it's time for one of Jason's beloved Easter specials. But come on, you know you're gonna learn a little something. I know I did out of this one, and I promise you on the back end of this there will be no more history lessons for the foreseeable future, no what brought tax day about, or single de Mayo. Okay, so hear me out. Easter is a Christian holiday, as we know. It's celebrated in belief of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and in the New Testament of the Bible. The event is said to have occurred three days after Jesus was crucified by the Romans, and he died in roughly 30 AD. The holiday concludes the Passion of the Christ. It's a series of events in an incredible movie, and holidays that begin with Lent, a 40-day period of fasting and prayer and sacrifice. I myself gave up mountain climbing, and ends with the Holy Week, which includes Holy Thursday, the celebration of Jesus's last supper with the 12 apostles, Good Friday, on which Jesus's crucifixion is observed, and Easter Sunday. Although a holiday of high religious significance in the Christian faith, many traditions associated with Easter date back to pre-Christian pagan times. So Easter this year is going to be this Sunday, April 4th. However, Easter falls on a different date each year. Easter Sunday and related celebrations, Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, they're considered movable feasts. Although in Western Christianity these follow the Gregorian calendar, Easter always falls on a Sunday between March 22nd and April 25th. Easter typically falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after the spring equinox. And if you look at the Eastern Orthodox Christianity, which adheres to the Julian calendar, Easter will always fall on Sunday between April 1st and May 8th of each year. So depending on which faith that you follow, you'll know when your Easter holiday will fall in turn. So in some denominations of Protestant Christianity, Easter Sunday marks the beginning of Eastertide, or the Easter season. Eastertide ends on the 50th day after Easter, which is known as the Pentecost Sunday. And then you have the Eastern Orthodox branches of Christianity, where Easter Sunday serves as the start of the season of Pascha, which is Greek for the word Easter. And then that ends 40 days later with the holiday known as the Feast of the Ascension. So did I lose any of you yet? I'm pretty sure I did because I almost lost myself trying to write that all out originally. So despite its significance as a Christian holy day, many of the traditions and symbols will play a role in Easter observances actually have roots in pagan celebration, particularly the pagan goddess Joster. And the Jewish holiday of Passover. The resurrection of Jesus is described in the New Testament of the Bible. Essentially, it's the foundation that the Christian religion is built. Hence Easter is very significant as a date on the Christian calendar. Now according to the New Testament, Jesus was arrested by the Roman authorities essentially because he claimed to be the son of God, as we know. Although historians question the motive with some saying that the Romans may have viewed him as a threat to the Empire. But let's not be making any excuses for Rome. It was what it was. Jesus was sentenced to death by crucifixion, as we know, marked by the Christian holiday Good Friday, the Friday before Easter, and subsequent resurrection three days later, as it said by the authors of the Gospel, to prove that he was the living son of God. So in varying ways, all four of the Gospels in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, state that those who believe in Jesus's death and resurrection are given the gift of eternal life, meaning that those of faith will be welcomed into the kingdom of heaven upon their earthly death. So notably, Easter is also associated with the Jewish holiday of Passover, as well as the exodus of the Jews from Egypt, as described in the Old Testament. And then these links are clearly seen in the Last Supper, which occurred the night before Jesus's arrest, and the sufferings that he would endure following his arrest. The Last Supper was essentially a Passover feast. However, the New Testament describes it as being a new significance for Jesus, and it's identified that the matzah was shared with the twelve apostles as his body, and the cup of wine that they drank as his blood. These rituals would come to symbolize the sacrifice that was about to make of his death, and became the basis for the Christianity ritual that we know as Holy Communion, which remains a fundamental part of the Christian religious services today. In Western Christianity, the period prior to Easter holds a special significance. The period of fasting, or pronounced as a hundred times, I'm going to get this wrong again, as penitence, is called Lent. It begins on Ash Wednesday and lasts for 40 days, not including Sundays. The Sunday immediately prior to Easter is known as Palm Sunday, and it commemorates Jesus's arrival in Jerusalem, when followers laid palm leaves along the road to greet him. Many churches begin the Easter observance in the late hours of the day before, also the Holy Saturday, in a religious service known as the Easter Vigil. In Eastern Orthodox Christianity, we'll come back to that now, is Easter rituals start with the Great Lent, which begins on Clean Monday, that's 40 days prior to Easter, not including Sundays. The last week of Great Lent is referred to as Palm Week, and it ends with the Lazarus Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday marks the beginning of the Holy Week, then which in turn ends on Easter. So now we come to the modern rituals that we see in commercialized business now, the big one being Easter eggs. Irrespective of denomination, there are many Easter time traditions which have roots that can be traced to non-Christian or even pagan and nonreligious celebrations. Many non-Christians choose to observe and even pagan and nonreligious celebrations. So many non-Christians choose to observe the traditions while essentially ignoring the religious aspects of the celebration. Examples of those including Easter eggs and related games such as egg rolling and egg decorating. It's believed that eggs represented fertility and birth in certain pagan traditions that predate Christianity. So egg decorating may have become more of an Easter celebration as a nod to that significance of religion of Easter, i.e. like the the resurrection of his birth. Many people, mostly children, also participate in the Easter egg hunts that we know as today, or in some cases adults that in adult Easter egg hunts that I will get into later on. Perhaps the most famous Easter tradition for Christian or first children, I'm sorry, is the annual White House Easter egg roll when children roll Easter eggs down Capitol Hill. Now how about the rabbit? In some households the character known as the Easter bunny delivers candy and chocolate eggs to children on Easter Sunday morning. These candies often arrive in an Easter basket. The exact origins of the Easter bunny, unknown, although some historians believe it arrived in America with German immigrants in the 1700s. Rabbits are in many cultures known as enthusiastic procreators, so the arrival of baby bunnies in springtime meadows became associated with birth and renewal. Notably, several Protestant Christian denominations, including the Lutherans and Quakers, have opted to formally abandon many Easter traditions deeming them too pagan. However, many religions observe observers of Easter also include them in their celebrations. So then Easter foods, steeped in symbolism as well as the Easter dinner of lamb, also has historical roots. Since a lamb has often been used as a sacrificial animal in Jewish tradition, the lamb is frequently served during Passover. The phase lamb of God is sometimes used to refer to Jesus and the sacrificial nature of his death. And today Easter is more of, as we know, a commercial event as well as a religious holiday marked with the sales of greeting cards and candies such as Peeps chocolate eggs and chocolate Easter bunnies and other gifts. One of the biggest facets of this podcast is you. It's the listeners, the followers, the faithfuls who download you, like you, comment, and especially when you message me with your feedback, your questions, and suggestions. And those who write me know that I write back and take everything that you say into consideration. So I think that we can agree that starting back from that 45-second trailer all the way up through the preview trailer that included the Kelly Guilfoyle interview was quite a sizable improvement and we can only go up from there. And the biggest reason for that was my participation in the months of February and March in the Podcast Global Summit. Chris runs an incredible program there. He is in charge of an annual podcast summit that usually takes place in Orlando, but because of the pandemic he turned that to a virtual setting this year that allowed so many people to be included. And their objective this year was actually to set a Guinness world record for the number of attendees to a podcast summit. I don't know if they achieved that, but of the number of people that I engaged with there were certainly thousands of names and comments that I would see daily in the different boards that would attend the various video meetings and sessions and seminars. And I learned an incredible amount of information from equipment to software to technique, the video aspects that go with certain people's podcasts, hosting platforms like we do here. It gave me an opportunity to really meet some great people out there and one I'm going to actually call to the carpet right now is Chelsea with Moms Who Keep It Real. Her podcast is for moms and dads who love their kids one minute and will hide from them the next. Since her and I have been engaged with each other through podcasting, we built a nice little rapport. Her latest episode included a good friend of hers on the subject of gestational diabetes. I encourage you to reach out if you're a mom or a dad with young ones and you want to learn about all aspects of everything mom and dad for those little ones. You can find her on Instagram at Moms Who Keep It Real or you can find her podcast and all the popular platforms, Apple, Spotify, and it's a very good listen. Her show drops every Friday. I wish Chelsea all the luck in the world with her podcast. So many of you have chosen to follow us on Instagram and Facebook. We out there, we've got beer and bourbon enthusiasts, we have events people, we have travelers, we have home brewers, and I've seen and had so many great talks with a lot of you and we're already starting to build content in order to share with the rest of you out there. So if you haven't talked to me yet and you'd like to get together and plan, send me a private message through Instagram, through Facebook. You can email me at buffalobrewspr at gmail.com. Easter, as you already know, is going to be this Sunday and I told you that Easter egg hunts aren't just for kids anymore. So in my event travels, I came across a Spring Lake Winery in Lockport and their upcoming event this Saturday, their adult Easter egg hunt. Now that's going to be on Saturday, April the 3rd. Admission is $25 and that $25 includes the egg hunt with a variety of prizes. There's live music from 1 to 5 p.m. from Murphy's Law. You get a beverage, you get a choice of burger, cheeseburger, veggie burger, hot dog from the grill. You collect your eggs. You can redeem them for wine, candy, and cash prizes. They encourage you to bring your own chairs, find a spot around the lake, and enjoy the day. This year's Golden Egg winners that they'll have will be a choice of a case of wine valued at $250, which includes a preset mixed case of 12 bottles of their Most to Nine Friends, which is a $310 value, and included with that is a wine basket filled with wine and chocolates. Now the time slots that they have, and obviously we have to keep COVID in consideration, social distancing, and following the rules, and making sure that we have things limited. So there's three time slots that day, 11 to 1, 1.30 to 3.30, and 4 to 6 p.m. To register, go to their website at springlakewinery.com, click on events, and then it will take you to the registration screen, and then you can follow through with the rest of the rules and expectations. Remember that the COVID precautions are in place, so masks are going to be mandatory and must be worn unless you're sitting at a table. A social distancing measure of six feet is in place, and be mindful and maintain social distancing, and of course it's an adult egg hunt, so you must be 21 or older to participate. I waited until the very last minute to record this final portion of the podcast because I really wanted to think this answer out. Tonight is Monday. The podcast will drop tomorrow morning at 7 a.m. as it will each and every Tuesday or bruised day at 7 a.m. As I'm looking at social media real quick before recording, I see that Bill's Stadium has been renamed as Highmark Stadium under the Blue Shield umbrella, so congratulations to the Buffalo Bills on the renaming of the stadium, and I highly anticipate the start of the new season and what the Bills are going to bring to the table with all these fantastic new signings. Matt Breida, Emanuel Sanders, the list goes on and on. It's going to be a very exciting season for us. So with this last segment, I wanted to address two questions that were brought to my attention. One was from a specific follower who asked me if the Buffalo Brews podcast was going to be heavily involved with beer or beer and spirits, and the answer is yeah, there's going to be a facet of it that has to do with beer. The reason for that is because Buffalo really came into the craft beer boom in 2014, and here we are about seven years later, and quite frankly, we're crushing it. We exist in an area of the country where we have so much on our doorstep that other communities around the nation don't have, and Buffalo has really taken that by the horns and ran with it. You know, just in the example being with the interview that I had with Tom Whitmarsh last week with the Western New York Beer Trail, he alone has 38 breweries that are in one distillery in there as well that are signed up as part of the beer trail. That's 38. It doesn't even touch all of them that are in Western New York. All of them unique, all of them wanting each other to succeed, all of them bringing their own element to the table, and I look forward to experiencing each and every one of them. So yeah, there will be a very strong facet of beer involvement. It's a given. A lot of our followers are beer enthusiasts as well who some who have reached out and want to collaborate beyond the podcast and talk about the beers that they like. Sure, let's promote the best that Western New York has to offer, but don't be surprised when I bring you into that interview and I ask you about the best places to eat to or the best events that you like to go to because we are going to highlight it all, folks. So I think that really takes care of that question. The second question that came up, I put a lot of thought into. After the trailer number three, which was the introduction and the Drink Like a Girl and Kelly Guilfoyle interview, that week I received a question, more like a ribbing of sorts, from an individual who listened to my introduction and thought it was the most vague thing he had ever heard. And when I went back and listened to it myself, I thought, wow, that was very scripted and very vague. And the question surrounds what brought me to the podcast world. And I'm going to put this in my own words, so if it sounds a little drawn out, you who know me knows that that's the way Jason works. You that don't know me knows that if he's really going to put thought into this, it's going to take a hot minute. So here it goes. When I discharged from the United States Air Force in 1998, I moved back to Buffalo. The reason was, being originally from Sherman, New York, for what I was looking for, there was no jobs in that area. So Buffalo is where I returned to. My ex-wife was originally from Cheektowaga. Actually, I live in Cheektowaga now. And there was a lot to offer here and a lot in the way of growth. So this is where the growth happened. This is where I was going to settle down. This is where I was going to start my family because we hadn't had kids yet when we lived in South Carolina. So when I came home, you know, Buffalo was, you know, whatever the state it was at the time. But what we commonly heard were celebrities and sports stars who would come through the Buffalo area who kind of took a holier than thou attitude with our city, our city. And I never liked that very much because Buffalo has a lot to offer. I appreciate good architecture. I appreciate good food. I wasn't a beer or alcohol drinker at the time because I was very ill at the time when I got out of the military and alcohol just really wasn't in the cards for me. So I like to appreciate good events when I could take them in. One of my favorites at the time was what was known as the Mash Bash or the now I guess it's called the Bash. I'm hoping that it comes back in some way, shape or form again, because I love that concept of the, you know, the 4077 and dressing up like characters from, you know, a 1970s TV show, taking in great music, auctions, friendship. It was a great time. Fast forward, we had our son and raising him in the area. Again, a lot to offer. We settled at the time in North Tonawanda. And again, we would hear the same thing, people who would come in and out of town and trash talk the town. And it was really bothersome because, you know, you have to really appreciate where you live. The state is what it is, you know, taxes and such. But Buffalo has a lot to offer. And now you fast forward a few years yet and then you introduce Uber and Lyft to the area. And in order to earn some extra dollars for the family, I would drive Uber and Lyft on the weekends. And the stories that I would hear about different aspects of Buffalo that I never knew about was astonishing. I never knew that Buffalo was a brunch town. I didn't know that going into 2014 that there were so many craft breweries that were booming up everywhere because we never went out and did things because we couldn't because I was sick all the time. So I never got to experience those things. But I would listen to people who were in the backseat talking with their friends, talking on the phone. They would even involve me in the conversation. I would learn so many great things about Buffalo. And then my travels took me everywhere. I would drive in Lewiston. I would drive in Hamburg, Orchard Park, Eden. One time I ended up in North Collins for some ungodly reason. Not to say that North Collins is a bad place. It's not. I just that's a long way to drive to for an Uber ride. But I did and it was worth it. So, you know, then learning about places like Ellicottville and then, you know, I grew up around Jamestown. So now we bring those aspects into play. And then we talk about the trails. I love the concept of trails. I like I grew up in the woods with my father. I like hiking. I like things associated with trails because for me it's a it's a line that goes somewhere that sometimes breaks off into other lines that go other places or go to the same place you're going. It's it's all about choosing your own path and going. And I've said already that Western New York is an area where we boast one of the most prominent wine trail regions in the country. In Western New York alone, you have access to four different wine trails within two countries and two states within a two-hour drive. No other place in the country has that. I dare you to find it. That's wine alone. And then take the breweries into consideration. And then the word trail pops up everywhere you go. In Buffalo we have a ice cream trail. We have a chicken wing trail. We have a pizza trail. So I'm hoping that that's going to offer a little bit better answer as to why I kind of came into the podcast dance. And it's a good tie-in with talking to you about bringing you as the followers, the listeners, the faithfuls in who want to talk and collaborate about your favorite places as well. So here's one of the things I'm going to do to really lead this charge is starting tomorrow which will be Brews Tuesday, March 30th when this podcast drops. I'm going to be posting a photo every day on Instagram and Facebook. I want you to like. I want you to comment. We're going to have a day that's dedicated to ice cream, a day that's dedicated to pizza, a day that's dedicated to whatever the subject is of the day for the next seven days. And I want you to tell me all of the great places in Western New York that you like. And I'm going to take the opportunity to comment back. I'm going to take the opportunity to reach out to you and let's see what we can put together here. Let's put together these grand lists and find out who it is that we need to talk to out there and get their story. Because that's the other aspect of why I like to get into the podcast world is because everything and everybody has a story. I have a story. You have a story. And I want to hear those stories. We heard the story last week about how Tom Whitmore started Western New York Beer Trail. We heard the background on Kelly Guilfoyle on how Drink Like a Girl 5k and how the Curtin Up event came to be. And now with the interviews that we have coming forward that we're getting ready to bring to you, there's stories involved with all of them. And now I'm going to want to hear your stories as well and the places that you like to go and the things that you like to see and do. And I want to hear their story as well. And just like that, we're at the end of episode two. And it didn't kill you. You got a history lesson in Easter and there was no pop quiz. And I promise you no more history lessons for the time being. So once again, follow us on Instagram and Facebook. Find us on your favorite podcast platform and hit that subscribe button. Share it with your friends, family and co-workers and let them know we're out there. And in turn, we're going to share everything that's great about Buffalo and Western New York. Email us at any time at buffalobrewspr at gmail.com because I love talking with you all. So join us next week. And until then, make sure that you go out there with much peace and love. And remember to make your own path. So long.
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