In early October, I received a random message from a friend (let’s call her Emm) who I haven’t seen in at least a decade. The veterans’ charity on whose Board of Directors she participated was celebrating its five year anniversary with a gala in historic Plymouth, Massachusetts. And Emm thought it would be a great idea to turn the gala into a reunion of those of us who worked together in the late 1990s through early 2000s. So she sent out the message to see who was interested and available. And she asked each of us to try to track down our mates who she didn’t reach with her message. In turn, I reached out to about five others with whom I was in contact to see if any of them were interested and available. Long story short, I made my reservations, arranged my outfit, and planned for a day off from work without knowing whether I would know anyone else aside from Emm.
When I was first evaluating how many days I wanted to commit to this adventure, I turned to my best friend Google and asked her to pull up the Massachusetts Craft Distillers website. That’s where I found the Berkshire Mountain Distillers at the end of August, so I knew it was a reliable source. Sure enough, there were two distilleries listed for Plymouth: Bradford Distillery and Dirty Water Distillery. And there was Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower ship and assorted shops… basically enough entertainment to warrant staying in town on Saturday before heading up to see my brother’s family on Sunday.
As I was doing my research for my visit, I decided not to go to the Bradford Distillery. They only produced two products - one gin and one vodka - and they were over 20 miles away from my Plymouth waterfront hotel. Since my visits to both Berkshire Mountain Distillers and Waypoint Spirits both taught me that gin can be made from the same base spirit as vodka, I didn’t think that visiting the operation would be worth the drive. Especially when it was so cold out and I was struggling with a chest cold.
On the other hand, Dirty Water Distillery was about a mile from the hotel - on the same street even! So a visit there was a no brainer. Even if it turned out to be just a storefront, it wouldn’t be a huge effort to get over there. I could even visit Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower en route back to the hotel. Of course, even with the simple directions from my GPS, I drove right by the garage that housed the distillery because there was no obvious signage until it was too late. Fortunately, there was a small parking lot on the street behind the distillery near the 7-Eleven. So I took advantage of my misdirection, parked in the lot, and walked to the distillery.
I had mixed feelings about my visit, as the distillery operations were behind the tasting counter so that they were unable to be toured. However, I had the excellent fortune of having both the head distiller and the head brewer working the tasting bar that stood between the store area and the operations. I had such excellent conversations with the master distiller about their processes and their products. Much to my surprise, this operation started with purchased spirit, which they then ran through their pot stills to remove the heads and tails to have a purer base for their flavored vodkas. And they had such a range of flavored vodkas, that I had to limit myself to only tasting a few of them, including the horseradish and coffee vodkas that I ultimately ended up purchasing. Of course, I also tasted their limoncello, which had only been bottled the weekend before. I didn’t purchase a bottle of their excellent limoncello because I had one and a half bottles of local limoncello in my cabinet already, and I had also a batch of buddhacello infusing in my kitchen. So another bottle would just be too much!
Approximately two weeks after the visit to Plymouth, I took two days of vacation to prepare for my traditional Winter Solstice Dessert Party. For almost as long as I have lived in my house, I have hosted my friends for a dessert party in honor of the winter holidays. I typically host it near the Winter Solstice (21 December) to have some symmetry with the Summer Solstice Party that I also host on an annual basis in late June. And also so as not to offend my friends who don’t celebrate the Christmas holiday as seriously as I do.
Of course, with everything that was going on at work, two days was not enough to full prepare the complete menu that I had planned. On Thursday, I was able to do the grocery shopping and to make the chocolate haystacks. On Friday, I made more cookies - including the three ingredient coconut cookies, the wonder bars, and the dough for the sambuca cookies - and the candies - the dark chocolate hazelnut fudge and the batter for the chocolate truffles. Which left Saturday to be the crazy day! I had to wake up early to make the cheesecake - with a peppermint swirl and a gluten free crust - and the chocolate mousse. I was in such a rush to get things done that I forgot the sugar in both the whipped cream and the meringue for the mousse! All because I wanted to be out of the house by 1130am to make it to the local distillery in time for the distribution of their inaugural batch of bourbon barrel aged birch liqueur so that I could give it as a Christmas gift to Bea’s bourbon loving sister. Fortunately, the line went quickly, and I was back on my way home by 1215pm. That gave me a few minutes to run through the grocery store for pomegranate seeds, raspberries, and blackberries to add some freshness to the table.
Of course, things moved super quickly once I returned home. The sugar cookie dough got scooped out onto the tray, dusted with colored sugars, and baked in the oven. Once the oven was free, the ham went into it while I made the macaroni and cheese from my sister’s recipe. Unfortunately, the internal temperature of the ham was a mere 64F degrees when I pulled it out at the regulation time. It should have been closer to 140F degrees. So, that wasn’t ready by the time my first guests arrived. In fact, it took about another 90 minutes to approach the desired internal temperature.
Fortunately, my really good friend Bea and her crew were the first guests to arrive - and they brought real food (crockpot chicken and broccoli), cookies, and a beautiful batch of bourbon balls. Bea’s sister wasn’t too pleased with the bourbon balls because they should have been frozen prior to coating with melted chocolate, but the recipe didn’t specify that. Shortly after they got settled with their warm spiced wine, the remainder of the guests arrived. A friend from graduate school with her twins. Friends from a recent work project. More of Bea’s crew with their two year old. Friends from a previous work life. More cookies, more fudge, a luxurious flan, and some small pastries were added to the already groaning table. About a dozen friends had gathered at the peak of the party, and then they gradually said their good byes after each making several trips to the table. After all was said and done, I was in bed well before midnight.
It was a good thing that I managed to go to bed early after the Winter Solstice Dessert Party, because the Gingerbread House Construction Party was scheduled to take place at Bea’s house the very next day! Fortunately, all I had to do for that was package up leftover cookies, fudge, and cheesecake, put the bag of candy decorations in the car, and get myself washed and dressed to leave the house. Bea and her sister had been making, shaping and baking the house components throughout the preceding week.
Even though I arrived at Bea’s house a little past the target time, the craziness of the Gingerbread Construction Party didn’t actually begin until our gentleman and his lady friend arrived a few minutes later. Then Bea’s baked potato bar lunch kicked into high gear; it was so good! My baked potato had garlic, broccoli, cheddar cheese, sour cream, and bacon; however, other options included chicken, pulled pork, corn, black beans, and caramelized onions.
After lunch was cleaned up, Bea’s sister started on the royal icing, which we needed to cement the gingerbread pieces together for the house. Once she finished the first batch, she loaded it into an instrument that looked like a caulking gun so that our gentleman could properly manage piping the royal icing. The first year we built the houses, his bag of icing exploded all over his house because he squeezed the bag from the middle without holding the end closed. I was the second to last to build the base of my house because I wanted to watch what the others were doing to ensure that I did mine correctly. Once all the houses were built, Bea and her sister switched places in the kitchen: Bea took over the KitchenAid to soften and tint the buttercream frosting that we would use for decorating the houses.
And then disaster struck! We put the roofs on our houses in the same order that we constructed our houses, so I was second to last. Unfortunately, because the gingerbread for my sides had spread in the baking process, there was a large gap between my front tile and my roof. I applied the royal icing to the top edges of the house very carefully, and then balanced the roof tiles on top. And then it happened. Very slowly, one of the sides started to cave in, taking the roof with it. It was like Snowpocalypse had dropped too much snow on the roof! Undaunted, I straighten out the caving side, applied more royal icing, and rebalanced the roof. And very slowly, both sides began to simultaneously cave in, taking the roof with them. Snowpocalypse struck again!
I went into the kitchen to seek Bea’s advice, and her sister came out with me to try to address the problem. In the end, we disassembled the entire house, wiped off all the royal icing, and reassembled the frame with the sides placed outside - not inside - the front and back tiles. This shortened the base by a few critical millimeters and gave the sides something to lean up against. So as everyone had moved on to decorating their fully assembled houses, I waited for my royal icing to dry again. After a few minutes, I attempted the roof again, which still had a fairly large gap to the front tile. This time, thanks to help from Bea’s sister, the roof held! And after some time drying, I moved on to decorating as well.
The roof was the only part of the house for which I had a solid decorating plan. Last year, I tiled the entire front of the roof with Hershey squares, which looked super cool but was very time consuming. So this year, I decided to only partially tile both sides of the roof with Hershey squares and then cover the rest of the roof with white buttercream so that it looked like there was some roof tiles showing out from underneath a pile of snow. Just to make it look pretty, I dusted the buttercream with translucent edible glitter.
Among the plethora of candy, I spotted some pinstriped peppermint candy sticks, so I thought that might liven up the roofline. And then I ran out of ideas! To cover up the gap in the roof, I decided to pipe some red buttercream along the front of the roof. But the red buttercream was a little too soft, so it started to drip from the front of the roof onto the front tile. It looked a bit of a mess! But I got struck by a bolt of inspiration, and decided to just paint the front tile of the house with red buttercream. Since I had some leftover Hershey squares, I decided to build a window with shutters right above the door to give the house an old fashioned Bavarian look. Or at least that’s what I saw in my head. Finally, I decided to frame the door with miniature thin candy canes and to paste down some licorice all sorts to make a pathway to the front door. And then I was truly out of ideas.
After I declared defeat on my house, I looked around at the other houses. All the other houses were beautifully designed. Our gentleman had an intricately piped roof and a beautiful front walkway. His lady friend had created snow covered holly bushes out of chocolate bells and sugar decorations. One of the crew created an igloo out of red licorice, fruit roll ups, white cotton candy, and mini marshmallows. Bea piped some green gables and other coordinating designs on her house. Her sister did some delightful piping to create an elaborate Christmas tree and a wreath over the front door. Yet again, my house was the plainest of the group. But it was more creative than last year, so that made me happy!
The Verdict
The fun with my friends was just the icing on the holiday season. My brother, his wife, and lovely children joined us at our parents’ house for Thanksgiving, so there were multiple games of CandyLand, dance parties, and several other games of the kids’ own invention. My other brother, his wife, and their baby joined us at our parents’ house for Christmas Eve through Boxing Day, so there was a lot of family fun to be had with them. My sister even ventured north from her big city to join us all for both holidays, which made the holidays awesome. And there were even Mason jar cocktails to be shared!
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