WIDOW JANE, RED HOOK, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

October 21, 2019

I was on my way back to Barcelona, with a stop over in New York. The fires of Catalonian succession reignited, my flight canceled, I stayed home, spending an extra day in Brooklyn, the couch at a friend’s surprisingly comfortable, their apartment close to the river and the waterfront districts of Brooklyn.

As usually happens, seeking out unique food experiences, is central to my travels, the extra day in Brooklyn no exception. I had a ready-list of places to walk to in the Red Hook neighborhood.

 My first stop was with old friends from early Market Place days, Michael and his wife Lynn. After breakfast, I headed towards STEVE’S KEY LIME PIE on Van Dyke, for a taste of only “one of two places in NYC making Key Lime Pie from fresh key limes, none of this frozen juice stuff. To get there, I walked past the Queen Mary 2, a massive ship, impressive and ugly in her lines. Entering STEVE’S, displayed on the back counter was a computer with a CNN replay and commentary on Mick Mulvaney’s press conference, admitting Trump’s complicity in pressuring the Ukrainian president.  “Get over it” he says, it happens all the time.

The clerk and I caught each other’s eyes and just shook our heads.

Steve’s pie is classic key lime pie - buttery graham cracker crust and silken lime custard. If the Queen Mary wasn’t visible from where I was sitting, I’d have to say this was Key West.

After my pie, true key lime, passing again the QM2, I ducked into WIDOW JANE, a Brooklyn bourbon & rye distillery. The distillery started out as a “bean-to-bar” chocolate factory and morphed into a bourbon distillery. They are working towards bourbon reflecting a local New York influence. This starts with water sourced from the Widow Jane Mine in upstate New York, a mine that produced the limestone for the foundations of the Brooklyn Bridge. This water is used to proof their bourbon. A second initiative is a local corn variety, Wapsie Valley, grown in the small town of Hurley, 10 minutes drive from the Widow Jane Mine.

I tasted all seven of the bourbon and rye whiskies they were tasting. Of particular note for me were the three made from the heirloom corn - Bloody Butcher, Wapsie, and Baby Jane; an offspring of the former two. Bloody Butcher, a variety also grown in Western North Carolina has a sweet oak nose and reminded me of graham crackers, a middle note of spice and a sorghum molasses aftertaste. Wapsie Valley has a nose of almonds and chocolate, middle notes of orange and bergamot and honey on the finish. Baby Jane, the cross of Bloody Butcher and Wapsie is corn, corn, corn, with hints of allspice and cherry. The Baby Jane is my favorite.

It is curious, as I try to “distill” my vision and experience of food and people, that I should find myself in this mix of bourbon distilled in Brooklyn, Catalonian protest, Steve’s Key Lime Pie, my Suicide Mission, and a president bent on the destruction of American democracy,. What “flavor” of story am I trying to extract?

As I was sipping, reflecting, and writing, I circled back to a previous “distillation” – one that I need to commit to paper – which is my understanding of the Conservation mindset. I came to this comprehension through the words of William F. Buckley, Jr. So off I went searching for his words again, trying to make sense of things. I did not find the original interview with Buckley that I was looking for, I found new words, better suited to this day:

“The best defense against an usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry”.

In my life as a restauranteur, a man of Hospitality, I have never openly “taken sides”, but now is not the time to stay on the sidelines. And this isn’t about taking sides for one political agenda or another, Right or Left, Red or Blue. There is “no side” to standing up for moral and ethical exercise of power, integrity in leadership, or protection of the Constitution.

 At an alarming and ever accelerating pace we have a president acting with impunity – witness his own words in the Access Hollywood tape, or his comments in Soiux City, Iowa, or about Charlottesville, or hundreds of other instances where he declares his intent to be king, a destroyer of law.

 And now, the admitted selling of American democracy.

This is not the fine whiskey of WIDOW JANE talking. It is time to be an “assertive citizen”. No, Mr. Mulvaney, I WILL NEVER GET OVER IT. The most dangerous man in America is the man you are trying to defend.