Our love for our high school sports has suffered. Livestreaming or 2-spectator rule? What's your option? I highlight some recent adventures to Windy Brew, Totally Buffalo Store and Main Street Ice Cream.
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Coming up, we drive the miles so we can take in the events, eat the food, and drink the beer. Buffalo is working on getting back to normal and the sun is out, so let's get out and make plans with friends and family. The Buffalo Brews podcast semi-annual half-off candy edition starts 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 week, just as you do each and every week. I hope you enjoyed your Easter holiday weekend and the amazing weather that we had here in western New York, and to all my Polish friends out there, I hope you enjoyed your dingus day as well. Pussy willows, squirt guns, and polka bands. I dare any filmmaker in Hollywood to come here and make a movie based on that foundation. So, I'm sitting here recording this week's opening on Easter Sunday, sipping a Bullitt Frontier Whiskey from the Bullitt Distillery in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. It's one of the samples I received in my Volume 1 Bourbons and Rye box from Buffalo Brews Box. You can go visit their site at buffalobrewsbox.com to pick up their Volume 2 box today. Bullitt Bourbon was inspired by the whiskey that was pioneered by Augustus Bullitt around 1830, which has a mash build that consisted of the time of a two-thirds rye and one-third corn, which today would be classified as a rye whiskey. Tom Bullitt, who is an ancestor, began his version of the bourbon in 1987 with a higher rye consistency. In this case, it's 28 percent. So, you add a lengthy aging process to that with a minimum of six years, and then fast forward to when the Seagram's Company bought the brand and moved the operation to Lawrenceburg, and it's actually produced in the same plant as Four Roses bourbon, which is the whiskey and bourbon that I spoke of in last week's episode. This is a 90 proof bourbon with a mash build containing 68 percent corn, 28 percent rye, and a 4 percent malted barley. So, that high rye content will give it a spicy character on the initial sip, and the sweeter aroma on the front end as well is a characteristic of that twothirds corn mash build. So, though it's a smooth wood tone that you're going to taste and finish being strong, it's an inviting bite that's really dry and it hangs with you. I own a bottle of it myself, but I haven't opened it as of yet. So, I'll make sure I post a picture of that on our Instagram and Facebook. So, head over. Give us a like, give us a comment, and let us know what your favorite whiskey or bourbon is, whether it's international, made in Kentucky, or even something locally made. So, while things are progressively getting to the new normal that's going to be us in the near future, our schools and education system in high school sports have really taken a considerable impact as a result of the pandemic. We all remember the days when we made the mad rush from work to attend our sons' and daughters' away games, the parking, the finding an available seat for what always seemed to be like a sellout every time you went, perhaps grabbing the folding chairs from the trunk and slotting into the sidelines next to the parents or of your teammates and cheering in unison. And at least for the time being, those days have drastically changed. We lost out on much of high school sports for our children and us as parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents alike that we enjoyed previously. Once the fall and winter sports were able to finally return, we could breathe a small sigh of relief, but were gripped with the changes where spectators were either limited or not even permitted at all. So, many of you were able to watch this season's basketball games on live stream broadcasts for the schools that were able to provide those, which I thought was a considerable step on their part. Now, here we are. We're in a shortened five-game spring football season in which we're very limited on restrictions as well, where typically right now only two spectators per player, but many schools are offering live streaming to their wider fan bases as well. So, these are the schools who are really making an effort to include you in the experience as best they can. It may not be the best, but it's something that I applaud for those administrations who can make that possible. With that said, I had a friend of mine the week before last who made a pretty heated statement to me in regards to the two spectator rule, and I wasn't surprised to learn that it involved football. He knew that I've been very involved with high school sports and youth football and have actually gone to school to be a high school football referee. Especially now, how could... I guess the way he approached it with me is how could Section 6 put such a ridiculous rule in place and it was denying people the chance to see these kids play. So, I really cleaned up that statement based on what he had actually said and let it process for the moment. I had been in tune with Section 6 sports for years since I left Sherman. Mainly after 1998 when I left the military and I was back in the Buffalo area. I felt that Sherman especially had been dealt a harsh blow when they weren't allowed to participate in state tournaments for football when they could for sports such as basketball. So, for a few years, the best they could do was achieve winning what was called the Class Double D title and then they went home while other schools in the four classes in the state battled for another month or more even to achieve the dream of becoming state champions. So, in the years after I had returned home, I had written a few letters to Section 6 and I had had a few small conversations whenever I would bump into Tim Slade who was the Executive Director at the time at various football functions and he always reminded me that he was on Sherman's side as well as the other Double D schools in southwestern New York, but he essentially had his hands tied at the mercy of the state athletic association. So, back to my friend, I let him know that typically Section 6 is at the mercy of a higher power and in this case here, the rules on the number of spectators is not mandated by the section. It's mandated by the New York State Department of Health. So, the rules had just changed and I had been keeping up with that and in this case, I wasn't privy to the new verbiage that was being used because it kind of created a slippery slope as most things that come out of the New York State Department of Health, their mouth does. So, they were stating essentially that the maximum outdoor attendance for any high school sporting event is 200 spectators or two spectators per player. So, the individual schools which are identified as the quote-unquote responsible parties in that rule can dictate how to proceed as long as they maintain a six-foot social distancing mandate. So, the safe approach for any school is allowing two spectators per player as opposed to trying to use the logistics around trying to manage 200 people and you run the risk of creating more heat among parents. The rest, unfortunately, we have to be really tolerant, respectful of. What other choice would we have as parents and fans short of causing a newsworthy uproar that would really serve nobody any good? So, there's four weeks left at this point of this football season. Yes, is it ideal? No. Is it awful? Yes, but it is what it is. So, I will now take the opportunity to record this segment for a third time. Each time, I didn't seem to learn my lesson as I would be talking and then my phone would ring. The first time I thought would be a fluke. Is Jamie there? No, Jamie's not here. There's nobody here by that name. Okay, have a good night. A second later as I start recording again, can I speak to Jamie, please? No, there's no Jamie here. You just called me. Well, do you know Jamie? Oh, I know Jamie. Here it goes. Soccer-style kicker, graduated from Collier High, June 1976, Stetson University honors graduate class of 1980, holds two NCAA Division I records, one for most points in a season, one for distance, former nicknamed the Mule, the first and only pro athlete to ever come out of Collier County, one hell of a model American. Then I realized she had hung up before I finished my spiel. So, thank you, Karen. So, in the past few months, I have definitely put some miles on the car, going out to great places to eat, drink, talk with people, a lot of hiking that I have done over the winter and now beginning my summer challenge. But I wanted to talk about an experience that I had recently when I went out to Strikersville to Windy Brew. Now, to get to Windy Brew, you have to go down the 400 to the East Aurora exit, take a left off the exit. It's about seven or eight miles out in the foothills. And you'll know you're out there because you see the windmills. And when you get to Windy Brew, you've got this small parking lot next to a home in a garage. And you realize that the garage on the outside is the brewery. But when you get inside, it opens up into this homey restaurant feel brewery kitchen with great people and a fun atmosphere. When I got to Windy Brew, I was greeted with a smile by a woman who was to my immediate right. She was at a table with another individual and then an older couple that sat across from her. I went up and talked to the bartender for a few moments. And the reason I had originally gone to Windy Brew was to try their PTSD IPA. And I'm not going to give away too much on that now, because there is an interview that I'm looking to schedule with them, but they are incredibly busy and I understand. And we are going to make that happen because there is a great story there to be told. But after talking to the bartender, I did get a pint of the PTSD, which I also saw on their merchandise table. They had a PTSD sweatshirt, or I'm sorry, a t-shirt, which I picked up as well. And then I took a look at their menu to see that they did their own pizza. So they had less. And after a little while, the woman who was to the right, when I walked in the door, walked the older couple and her friend out. And when she came back, she started to mingle around the room with different folks that were there. So when I went back up to talk to the bartender for a few moments, he informed me that that was Michelle.
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