There's Thanksgiving and then there's Friendsgiving. We are blessed to be surrounded by such a great group of people. Time together, food, drink, and hiking. The Riviera Theater was the backdrop for some 90's country music. Ever been at Aldi's on a release day? Plus, we talk visiting three great breweries in the Finger Lakes region as well as our favorite winery, Toast.
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The Buffalo Brews podcast. What's the first thing that you think about when you think about Friendsgiving? Green bean casserole. Oh, tapioca.
Everyone loves my stuffing. Right. I don't know.
These are the things that I think of. You mean like this most recent Friendsgiving? Yeah. I think of we were all together in a cool Airbnb by the lake.
Yeah, let's talk about that. Yeah. Yeah.
Super fun. Yeah. What was it called? One Eat a Lake? Yes.
Challenging parking situation. I wasn't a fan of. That's okay.
We got through it. But it was nice to have everybody together ultimately. Right.
Even though I don't know that everybody loved being that together. Because we realized when we're together in one house, how very different we all are. And that's okay.
The people who like to go to bed when dinner was just over. And then the people who want to get up. And then there's people like crazy, me and you and Jess and Janet even.
Laura. Yeah, Laura, who stay up late. And then here we are up with a butt cracker of dawn.
Right. I'm like, oh, I got five hours. Let's go.
I don't have to get in bed in time for my senior citizen's nap. Yeah. So that was a little interesting.
Because, of course, we'd all try to be quiet so that the people wanted to sleep in. And so I would say that was the only challenging part of it. Yeah.
But it was a beautiful selection for a place. Yeah. It was big enough for all of us.
I loved cooking all together. Yeah. That was probably the most fun we had.
Yeah. Our little mini dance party. It just turned into a dance party.
Right. And cooking and having fun. And everybody moved around real good in the kitchen.
We actually didn't burn anything. We had to even cook a turkey in a stock pot in the oven. Yep.
And it came out great. You know, have we ever cooked a normal turkey, though? I think it's two years of trash can turkeys and then a stock pot turkey. No.
No, actually, that's funny. No, we've never actually cooked a turkey in a roasting pan. So, yeah, I guess leave it to us, right? Yeah.
So Juanita Lake is, what did we say? It was about two hours and 30 minutes about? 215, 230? Yeah, 215. So it's located in between Keuka and Seneca Lakes in the Finger Lakes region. Again, you and Laura, you know, like the work that you put into finding a place like this, it really worked out nice.
And an affordable place. That's the thing, too. That's the key.
I mean, money is not an object. There's a million places. Right.
I mean, having three nights of that place to ourselves. Right. Yeah.
So it was fun. Yeah. So we carpooled with Janet and we made a stop out at Twisted Rail in Geneva.
So Twisted Rail Brewing Company in Geneva is in an old, is in an old theater. Kind of like a, what would you say? Like a, where were we just in North Town, Juanita? The Riviera? I think it's a little bit like the Riviera. Oh, you feel like the Twisted Rail is? Yeah, a little bit.
I mean, not like the whole, I think the Riviera is a very nice looking building. Yeah, I feel like this is just one of those like little local theater places that you would have had. Right.
Like back in the day where you might have been able to have a few rows of seats and see a play or whatever. Yeah. And speaking of Riviera, right before we went, we got to see Dina Carter and Terry Clark for the second time.
Dina, Terry Clark the second time. I think that was right before we left for Ohio, not for Thanksgiving. Oh, okay.
Well, then it was right after. And that was at the Riviera in North Town, Juanita, but that was fun. Yeah.
My favorite song of all time I got to hear live. Yeah. So that was really cool.
Yeah. It's like one of the highlights of my year for real. And she learned a lot of things that night.
I know. We found out that her father, all those claymation animation hits of Christmastime, Frosty, Rudolph, he was the guitarist for a lot of that. Yeah.
So her husband plays on stage with her. Yeah, it was a fun performance. So if you guys are old and remember MTV's Unplugged, it kind of reminded me of that.
I feel like Dina just came out and she was like, let me just be part of the crowd. Yeah. Yeah.
So I thought that was neat. She just had her guitar and her husband had his. And yeah, she just played and sang and story told.
Yeah, it was a lot of fun. So it was really cool. Learning some things.
I guess her husband, she considers him kind of a saint because a lot of her old stuff is written about exes. Oh, my gosh. But come on.
What musician does not? Everybody does. Right. I mean, listen, they're all like, I wrote this one about my ex-boyfriend, my ex-husband, my, my, my, my, my, my, my.
There is no Taylor Swift without exes. Sorry. Oh, yeah.
There you go. Everybody teased, don't date her because you're going to get a song written about you. They said that about Miranda Lambert, too.
I don't know her, but I know Taylor Swift. Yeah. And then Terry Clark, we got to see her the first time with Clint Black.
At the fair. And oh, gosh, I forget who the. But the problem was, is when you have that, it's just a small set, I feel like.
So maybe she played like five songs that evening, I want to say, because she wasn't the headliner. And so now she was the headliner. So we got to like.
90 minute full on concert. Yeah, I loved it. And I found out if you want to go see more of her, she does a show right over in Canada.
Yep. She has a place about two and a half hours away, she said. Yeah.
So she does whatever the Vegas thing is where you're like a headliner for whatever, all these months at some place. She's that in Canada. So that's cool.
Yeah, we'll have to check that, check that out for sure. But it was good to see her in a headline role. She was always somebody in the 90s.
And I have no idea how you keep scoring these tickets. So every time we go to the Cary County Fair, Jay gets us like in the first three rows. So then we go to the Riviera and I was like, oh.
And by the way, we snagged one of those, those sets of tickets while halfway up a mountain in the Adirondacks. Oh, yeah. Without a credit card.
Yeah, I know. Shout out to Carla. Right.
Forever our savior. So but this time then we go to the Riviera and I've only been one other time. And of course, you know, I'm like, oh, this is where Kieran and I sat.
And it was kind of in the back of the bottom because I didn't even know they had a top. Yeah. Like and then we're walking, walking, walking, walking, walking.
And we're in third row. Yeah. Yeah.
Snag those. That was fun. Yeah.
Yeah. So it's definitely worth, you know, Terry Clark. She had some great hits in the 90s.
Yeah. And she is entertaining for sure. Funny.
Oh, my gosh. She's funny. And where did we go to dinner before then? District 37 in North Tonawanda.
So it's kitty corner across from the dockside. Across from where the old Elks Lodge building used to be. Yeah.
So, yeah, it was that was a lot of fun. They have 37 taps. Yeah.
Tons of deer choices. Anything that you can imagine. Plus the food I thought was fantastic.
Yeah. I really want to go back. There was other things I wanted to eat.
The place is big and, you know, got us seated right away. Managers, you know, was kind of coasting around for a little bit. Well, it's a Wednesday.
So I'm sure they didn't have, they probably tried to have more staff, but they knew there was an event. So they were like, who wants to work? It's going to be like a Friday night here, guys. You can make all your tips.
Yeah. It's definitely a place I want to go back to again. I think it's for sure.
I think it's really cool there. Again, 37 taps and every imaginable style that you can find there. They've got something for cocktails and wines and NA drinks and, and, and so.
Yeah. Yeah. All right.
So now we go circling back to Friendsgiving because you kind of you took a left turn. We were talking about so Twisted Rail. We had Janet with us and we stopped at Twisted Rail for a little bit of lunch.
Oh, this is how we got on. Yeah. It's because it's like the Riviera is nicer, but this is, yeah, it's an old theater.
Kind of like the Riviera was one of those marquee theaters. That's the term I'm looking for. Marquee theater.
Like the North Park or something like that. Right. It has to be something small.
There you go. Yeah. So that, that was that was our first stop.
A little bit of lunch. Have a, have a little something to drink there. So got to have some laughs with Janet.
I love when I can talk to any member of the tribe at length. I felt like I got to, you know, spend, I spent a pretty good amount of time with a lot of them this weekend. Well, yeah, because we were all in one house.
So that was very nice. Yeah. Like our little version of Big Brother.
I think we call it, we call it Big Brother Chimauy tribe or something like that. Something crazy. Yeah.
Yeah. Then from Twisted Rail, we met, we had, we jumped over to War Horse Brewing. Well, we had a quick stop.
For wine. Ventosa. So I really enjoy the rosé at like two wineries, Ventosa and Bellhurst.
Yeah. And I noticed that we were passing it and I was like, can we pull in the parking lot? And I swear I will run in for five minutes just to buy wine. And come to find out, our wine was on sale.
Our wine was on sale. Got some pictures in front of the backdrop. Yeah.
Back in the car we go. Yeah. Got over to War Horse and met Jess and Laura who carpooled together.
They had never been, so they were really excited and they thought the place was really cool. War Horse Brewing is my favorite brewery anywhere. It's just, it's the World War II theme.
It's the, they'll have a conversation with you. They talk about what they have. They'll talk about what they don't have.
They'll tease you with what they don't have, such as the gingerbread stout that we had picked up at Wegmans. Right. The winterberry cider is coming off the line this week.
Yeah. And then they have one more cider. I forget what it was called, but it's coming out in a week or two here.
So they didn't have any of those available. Trust me, I was trying to schmooze some gingerbread stout, but they said it wasn't even canned yet. Well, the girls definitely saw why you love it so much.
Yeah. Because there's just so much choice. It's a really cool atmosphere.
Everybody's pretty laid back. And everybody got to keep their cup. Yeah.
So if you're a veteran, for those listening, if you're a veteran and you go in and you show your veteran ID, not only do they give you a free pint, but they will let you keep the glass. And they'll clean it and wrap it for you and let you keep the glass. So I have a collection of War Horse glasses.
That'll be awesome. I'll be able to make a set and give them away to people I know. So it'll be one of these days.
But going in there, they have such a great collection. Their cider collection is amazing. Well, that's my problem, right? So when we go, there's beers I want to have, but then I'm like, oh, the cider game in this place is so good.
And that's where I can't drink beer. I feel like I have to go cider. I had the fall spice.
The fall spice was good. So we're rotating the cooler out. The girls had a cranberry orange.
We're rotating the cooler out right now. We found out that we have an excessive amount of beer and cider. I'm staring at you like that's a problem.
And you know what I said to him? Just drink more beer. Yeah, I'm going to have to. So there's an idea that I've got brewing that I'm going to have to play with.
I'm just always like, just drink more. I don't understand. This is not a problem.
So whenever I have beer in my fridge, the beer is gone. I don't know how the beer lasts so long. You must never drink beer unless you have somebody to drink beer with.
No, I don't. No, I don't ever do it by myself. But again, like I said, I got an idea brewing.
Do you have a problem drinking alone? No. Because my life turns into a country song. I got an idea that's brewing that will be at least being able to get rid of some of the older stuff that we have.
Because we have a lot of one can of this, one can of that stuff floating around. I feel like there's things that just get shoved to the back. They do.
They do. We found that Hardywood gingerbread stout and it was fantastic. It was for a birthday gift that I got last year, so about 11 months old.
Right, but it stayed in the fridge. I don't think it ever went bad because it was delicious. And last night I had Mary Jane's Vale from Upstate, which is always a dessert treat.
What did you end up having? I drank a holiday ale from Aldi. Yeah, so that's another one. One of these days we're going to have to do an Aldi episode.
Aldi's beer game is not... I mean, some things, eh, but this holiday ale was pretty good. It's good. And I have to say when I was camping with the girls, there was a brunch pack of seltzers that mimicked the one that Truly does.
So it's very similar to the brunch pack. I'm doing quotes that nobody can see. Anyways, $18.99 for Truly.
$11.99, I think, or $10.99. Something ridiculous. It was less than a dollar each at Aldi. And the Aldi ones tasted better.
It might be worth a blind taste test. I was shocked. Well, we were doing it because we had Truly.
So we were drinking Truly and then we were drinking the Aldi. Because there's three of us, so who cares if you open two at once, right? We were doing the taste test, and honest to God, we liked the Aldi one better. So it was fun.
And I was like, wow. Now the bad news is you can't always get the stuff at Aldi. Right.
Right? So you can't just be like, oh, I saw they have holiday ale out. Let me go get it. I mean, look at what you did for that cider pack that you picked up.
Literally a cider 12-pack advent calendar. Yeah. But it says when they're going to get released, you have to go see if they have it on that day or the very next day.
Oh, yeah. So that was an experience. Holy hell.
And then they don't have it or, oh, already sold out. So yeah, that day I was recording for Magic Bear. Barely getting started at Magic Bear.
So I don't usually go there until like 11, 1130 to record. And it takes us about four, four and a half hours to do the four episodes. So they're about 30, 35 minutes apiece.
Then we kind of set up the next one, compare notes. There's a whole thing that we do. So Jay goes to Aldi.
Yeah. So I go to Aldi on that release day. It happened to be a release day for the Christmas stuff.
Yeah, the advent calendar. Advent calendars are freaking huge this year. Yeah, there's like hot sauce and cheese and chocolate and dog things and cat things and whatever.
And if you're listening and you're in a state that Aldi serves wine, there's a wine advent calendar. It may not be available anymore, but that was the case. Well, I haven't seen a single one of these advent calendars now.
The last time I was at Aldi, there was nothing. No. And as I'm walking in at, they open like a half an hour before.
There's people walking out with arm loads and cart loads of advent calendars. Because they had like Pokemon advent. And they had like scented candle advents.
And like they just went nuts with it this year. It's crazy. I mean, it's fun, though, if you think about it.
I would love a candle advent calendar. You could have it. Oh, what's the new scent? Oh, what am I going to get? Are you going to burn a candle a day? No, but it's just fun to see what the scent's going to be on your countdown.
I mean, you could burn them throughout the year. But I mean, it'd be fun. And depending on how big they are, what if they're just like a votive size? I think they were a votive size.
And that's only 12 hours of burn. Okay. Yeah.
So you're just burning a different scent every day. Yeah. All right.
Pretty much. I don't know. I like it.
If you have small children or animals, maybe think twice. But, you know. We got cheese and chocolate.
And we're going to work with that. So the back of the chocolate advent calendar says which of the cheese advent calendars go with it. Like the cheeses in the cheese advent go with it.
That's cool. So maybe they lined it up so that they can line up one, one, two, two, three, three. I haven't looked at it to see how they compare, though.
Well, it is Aldi. They do some cool stuff. So probably.
Yeah. All right. Well, now we're out on another tangent again.
That's okay. So circling back to Friendsgiving. I like tangents.
We were at War Horse. Yeah. War Horse.
And so, yeah. They let everybody keep their glasses. Yeah.
Because, I mean, with the exception of you and I, nobody else had been there before. Right? Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Just me and you, kid. Yeah. And I know a couple of them got some half pours.
And they got the little half pour glasses they got to keep. Yeah. And they got some t-shirts and hats.
And, I mean, the Three Brothers Campus, anyway, is worth a drive out there. Not just for War Horse. I mean, War Horse is fantastic.
Yeah. But if you like sweeter wines, you can go to Bag Dare, which is kind of this Louisiana, Cajun, by the... Yeah, they do some moonshine over there, too. By the pond.
Yep. Some moonshines there. And then they have the winery that's on the hill that overlooks the... That's for your drier selections that are fancier.
Right. And then they also have the winery that is next door to the brewery. Yeah.
What is that one called? I don't know. But that one has all the cool furniture you could sit in. Yeah.
And that is a variety. And then they also have Iron Heart sodas, because they do their own soda brand. Yeah.
They have some sweet wines in there, some dry wines, some wine slushies. It's just like a big variety. Yeah.
It's a place to hang out, for sure. And they also do, like, coffee and tea as well. Yes.
Yep. And they have snacks, food. It's a one-stop place, and you can hang out there for a while.
I mean, we had never had food there, and those people came out with that pretzel. And it was bigger than your head. Yeah, that was crazy.
It was in a large pizza box. I would say medium. Medium pizza box.
Legit. Not even exaggerating. I could not even believe it.
And they even said that they were like, we had no idea it was going to be this big. It was pretty big. It was pretty big.
So that was cool. Yeah. Yeah, then after that, we made the trek down to the Airbnb.
We get settled in. Other people are coming in over the course of a couple of days, you know, without going into too much detail. Huge shout-out goes to, you know, Mike and Jane over at Toast, who actually helped with our logistics.
You know, so. Without them, it was not going to work. Saturday morning, we were supposed to have more people meet us at the winery, which, that was the problem.
Then everybody had to drive separately, and da-da-da-da-da-da-da. So we only could have four vehicles. And yes, they were super, super accommodating to let us leave some vehicles in their parking lot.
Even though it was a 20-minute drive, we didn't know what else to do. But, you know, even with the Airbnb host, who allowed us to have a fifth vehicle there. Only because we had small enough vehicles besides the bigger vehicle to squish them in.
It was just. Yeah. I'm just glad that things logistically worked out the way that they did.
Yeah, so our friends got to meet our friends at Toast. Yeah, let's talk about Toast. And we had a bunch of wine, which is obviously always a winner.
Always. And now our friends totally understand. Because everyone went home with boxes of wine.
I feel like I was hauling multiple boxes of wine for folks. Yes. Yep.
It wasn't just ours. I was like, here, can you carry this out for me? Yes, I will. Yeah.
So I feel like every single person walked away with multiple bottles of wine. I know that. I know Deb had a pretty good haul.
Because she was enjoying some things there. Deb and Jess both had the cups too. The mugs that we had gotten.
I was shocked they still had mugs. I know. I was shocked.
So they had those. And I think Laura bought one of those mugs too. And then she did a whole bunch of wine.
She was just loving it. She was like, why is this so good? And I said, I know. I know.
They do a fine job there. At Toast Winery, if you're ever out on Seneca Lake, they're on the southwest corner of the lake. Maybe five or six miles north of Watkins Glen.
I think maybe a little further. But I'm really bad at that. Yeah, I don't know.
But they're right there in Rockstream, just north of Watkins Glen, up the west side of the lake. Plenty of room. Oh, yeah.
Now that they've really expanded, you can be at the bar, there's tables. If you have a large party, they have big spaces in the back room. Merch.
You've got to see the bottle tree that's in there. Right. It's a unique point of interest.
They just have everything there. Well, and what's cool and not cool at the same time is, when you go, you'll have new stuff. And you'll be excited to try all these new things.
But the bad news is, is it goes quick. Right. Right? So if you love it and you want to take it home, take it home right then.
Because we had been there when? Did we drive out there in September? Yeah, I think we were out there in September. Yeah, we stopped in for a hot minute. Got a little curation from Mike.
Yeah, I feel like we were hiking out that way. Or something, I don't know. But anyways, we were out there just on a whim.
And it was the, whatever, the hopped wine. Oh, yeah, the Citra. Oh, I wanted more of that.
Already gone. Gone. Gone.
It's the wine for beer lovers. Yeah. Yeah.
So it's so crazy. And yeah, so really, you just, you can, so the good news is, is every time you go out there, you're going to get something that changed. Yeah.
The bad news is, get it while you can get it. Because then you can't get it. Yeah, because, you know, and Finger Lakes are known for their Riesling.
So their Riesling will fly. And I feel like everybody's, depending on your taste in Riesling, will fly. Yeah.
Theirs really goes quick. Theirs is amazing. Yeah.
Because it's a perfect balance of, like, dry and sweet, I feel. Yeah, well, you go out there, the bougie's already gone. So don't think you're going to get any bougie.
The MJ's good. What was the other one that they did? This is where we stare at each other like we never remember names. I don't know, but this is why we buy all the time.
It just happens. Every single time we go, Jay's like, are you serious? Do you really need this much wine? And I'm like, yes, we do. Because it's going to be gone.
It's going to stock up on the wine shelves. You know, you got, literally, you got like a wine rack. I don't want to talk about it.
I need a wine rack. You need a wine rack. But unfortunately, I'm renting.
And I would like to build, like, an epic wine rack. The way yours is set up right now with just boxes lining on the floor, it's good. Your only enemy right now is a basement flood.
Knock on wood. Oh, my God. Which, yeah.
Yeah, so, you know, toast. We'll be back out there for Deck the Halls in two weeks. Two weeks, yeah.
Next Friday. Oh, gosh, less than two weeks now. Yeah, it's next Friday.
Yep, we'll be back out there again. Yeah, we're going to try to, we might play around with a little live stuff. See what we can do.
I think it's going to be a lot of fun to be able to go there and just really enjoy. Because everybody's going to be decorated for Christmas. It's such an experience.
I think it would be fun to try a little bit of live. Or we should maybe even entertain doing some recording here or there that we can, like, patch together. I don't know how that works.
Because I just talk on a microphone. I could edit that together, yeah. I mean, we've got the pin-ons that we can use and just record.
I feel like we always take notes and we come back and we try to remember everything for you guys. And then, you know. We try.
We keep little, like, notebooks in your purse. Sometimes I put them in my pocket. Most of the time I forget.
And I'll, like, write them on the back of a tasting sheet. And then I just take a stack of tasting sheets and I try to, like, make the timeline come together. We'll get better at that stuff.
But, I mean, we have fun writing episodes and talking about these cool things. But, yeah, because we, you know, notice that we've been talking. We're up around here.
Pretty close to a half an hour. And they're like, you don't have a beer for today? Oh, yes, we do. Oh, we do.
Because our next stop after toast was... This was where we went just up the hill. Not even two miles from... No, it was like you barely got going and you were already pulling in. Tin Barn Brewing, which is originally from the Hudson Valley region.
But they put a location in the Finger Lakes. And what's great about Tin Barn is that they are ranked among the top ten in all of New York State. So it's definitely a great place to go.
We had never been there before. We'd passed by it several times. And I didn't even know that was the place.
Do you know what I mean? Right. It's beautiful. It has a gorgeous view out up on the... Oh, we got a little there on the... Oh, now it's going to smell like beer.
I can't have nice things. Can't have nice things? Just do that. That'd be great.
We're recording over at my place. Right. So Jay doesn't know how to pour beer here.
I should have put the microphone up to that. Here, I'll do it to yours. That's the million dollar sound right there.
Delicious. All right. What are we drinking, Bree? Well, this is a Fruited Sour.
And I don't have it facing me, but I feel like it was pear, apple, and something. What was the other flavor? It was pear, apple, and peach. Yeah.
Which I can smell the peach. I should have smelled it first, and then I could have just... So this is their Fruited Sour called Orchard. It came out in late October.
And as of minutes before we hit the record button, they don't have it there. So I'm glad we got some. Which is crazy.
This was probably my favorite. And I tried... I was not disappointed by any of the beers that we tried. No, it was great.
We tried multiple ones. Their IPAs were great. I was very happy with it.
But this, by far, was my very favorite. The Tin Barn Brewing, founded in late 2015 as a farm brewery with a focus on bringing you the juiciest, hazy IPAs in the Northeast. A proudly female-owned and operated business.
Oh, I didn't know that. That's cool. All right.
Cheers. Cheers. Yep.
Delicious. Yeah, that's good. And you know what's bad about these kinds of beers? Well, they're trouble beers because they go down so smooth.
You'll get drunk. Yeah. 5.4% ABV.
Yeah, you get all three flavors in that, too. I know. A little peach prominent for me, but I tend to taste peach more.
I get peach right up front when I taste it. So your first sip is definitely peach. And then for me, it's like that apple-pear combination that lingers on my tongue.
Kind of like those apple-pear juices that you get. Exactly. Or like the Celsius.
I think the Celsius has the apple-pear, right? Yeah, it's like that mix. Yeah, it's delicious. Yeah, that's really good.
That's my favorite. So did you have written down the ones that we tried or no? I have the list. I don't have all of the ones that we had tried.
I was a pretty big fan of a couple of IPAs. And it was funny because Jay and I both are IPA drinkers. But he will tend to like something.
Some of them that are very different from how I like them. So I feel like you're like a lighter, hazier.
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