Santa Cruz Mountains Gin Columns Food & Drink 

Mountain Fermenter: Making Your Own Gin, Santa Cruz Mountains Style

By Greg Roe and Mike Desmidt How can I make gin at home without a still, you ask? Well, you can skip that part, because someone’s already done the distillation for you. It’s called vodka. Gin is pretty much a vodka with botanicals added. Gin distillers extract most botanical flavors using the distillation process, but you can simply steep the… Read More
Fermented butter, ripened butter Columns Columns: Tom Andersen Food & Drink 

A Better Butter

By Tom Andersen Fermented butter? Who’d have thought, but yes indeed it is. Nowadays they call it “cultured” butter and it is a premium, but in my grandma’s notebook from 1917 it is called “ripened.” Ripened as opposed to “sweet cream.” She typically cooked and baked with sweet-cream butter because it had a lighter flavor and was usually not salted,… Read More
Lynda Sisk Felton morning Welcome 

Resolution

By Julie Horner and Mary Andersen The still of winter is a conscious thing. In the lee of Ben Lomond Mountain shadows are resolute, the treetops shrouded in mist. Crisp walks beneath dripping boughs bolster the imagination, and there is much to look forward to as we enter this new year. Each of us has a chance with this symbolic… Read More
Business Food & Drink 

A Call to Gathering: BaleFire Brewing Opens in Live Oak

By Julie Horner Craft beer lovers will be stoked to notice that a new brewer has come to town in the Live Oak district of Santa Cruz. Former Boulder Creek locals and KBCZ 89.3 FM Community Radio alumni, Leslie and Matt Buchanan and business partners Stephanie and Nate Murphy have signed the lease in the East Cliff Village Shopping Center… Read More