The Pumpkin Patch

Wonderful farm that has a pumpkin festival every weekend during October.  We got some terrific pumpkin soup and picked up a few beauties for this year's display.

Bube's, Beer, And Ghosts

Established in 1876 by German immigrant Alois Bube, Bube's Brewery (pronounced boo-bees) in Mount Joy, Pennsylvania has something that sets it apart from most breweries - a catacomb...  a big dark creepy catacomb, 43 feet underground.  Initially used to store beer, the catacombs are now used for dining.  We ordered some drinks and took a tour of the incredible cellar.  The massive wooden distilling barrels still stand down there, each with their original timber from the 1800's.  Bube died suddenly onsite at the brewery in 1908.  He was 57 years old.  The tour guide mentioned the possibility of a haunting, which the brewery plays up in their ghost tours and paranormal investigations.  

As we finished our drinks at the bar, we asked a server if she knew of any spooky goings on and she told us about a shot glass that flew quickly off the bar, and how one time the restroom door locked from the inside, requiring the door to be removed from the hinges.  They found no one inside.

We will definitely be heading back to dine in the shadowy catacombs.  

Below are some photos that we took.

The Coffin Bar

On Friday the 13th, we drove to Lancaster, PA for the grand opening of The Coffin Bar.  We had been waiting for this place to open for almost a year after first hearing about its construction.  We had high hopes this would be something dark and interesting, with amazing cocktails and food.  We wanted it to be a bar for Halloween and horror fans.  

We left work early and headed off, playing the new Halloween at High Noon album the entire way.  We got there right before 4pm and figured the place would be pretty empty.  It wasn't.  Every table and every spot at the coffin-shaped bar were taken.  I asked the host how long the wait would be and she said a couple had just gotten up to leave.  She told us Table 13 would be ready in a minute.  Table 13, on Friday the 13th.  It was kind of perfect.

The menu was impressive and the cocktails were phenomenal.  We started with some shots:  The Heaven shot (blue and smooth and mildly sweet), and the Hell shot (dark and bitter and spicy).  The Beet Red cocktail is served with a small pickled quail egg.  It was stellar.  

The food was terrific, and the service was fantastic.  Can't wait to return.  We're definitely going to be regulars here.

Here's their IG.

Better Late Than Never

A current theme in my life:  Late is definitely and absolutely better than Never (you might recall this old blog post.)

This past weekend I got to experience Alice Cooper being beheaded in a guillotine, the Satanic doo-wop sounds of Twin Temple, Behemoth's Blackened death metal, and Danzig.  We drove two hours to Scranton Friday afternoon right after work to see Alice Cooper, where he and Rob Zombie were doing their Freaks on Parade tour.  If you told me back when I was watching him on the Muppet Show as a kid that I would one day see him in person, my young bashful self would probably have silently thought you were bananas.

At 75 years of age, he has the exact same voice and an insane amount of energy.  His set was absolutely incredible and the crowd, and us, ate it up.  He did so many of his classic songs, ending with the greatest version of School's Out that I've ever heard.  We blew out of there before Rob Zombie took stage and headed back where a summer night sky lit up the entire way home with massive flashes of lighting.  

On Saturday, we headed to Atlantic City to the Danzig show.  Twin Temple and Behemoth were amazing opening acts (and polar opposites celebrating a common theme - Satan).  I think my biggest surprise was how much I loved Behemoth.  It's harsher than anything I have ever listened to ... extreme metal.  

I've only recently become familiar with the sound of Danzig, but just when he was singing with the Misfits.  I can't think of a better way to encounter Danzig for the first time - a live concert with a crowd that worshipped him.

Below are some photos and some videos from this wonderful weekend.  

And for anyone curious about Behemoth, here's a video of theirs of a song that was played at the concert.  Definitely my favorite song by them in the set...

Summer Orchard

Martin knew it was autumn again, for Dog ran into the house bringing wind and frost and a smell of apples turned to cider under trees. In dark clock-springs of hair, Dog fetched goldenrod, dust of farewell-summer, acorn-husk, hair of squirrel, feather of departed robin, sawdust from fresh-cut cordwood, and leaves like charcoals shaken from a blaze of maple trees. Dog jumped. Showers of brittle fern, blackberry vine, marsh-grass sprang over the bed where Martin shouted. No doubt, no doubt of it at all, this incredible beast was October!

- Ray Bradbury, The Emissary 

Now Playing: Seasons

By Forever Grey.

Already missing the weekend.

Click below...

Baldwin's Book Barn

After our visit to the Brandywine Museum, we stopped by a local bookstore in a massive old barn.  The five-story barn was built in 1822.  It's beautiful inside.  And quiet.  The air smelled of old wood, ancient mothballs, and an almost chocolatey scent of leather.  We walked on its creaking floors and moaning stairs and slowly explored every part of it.

I almost expected a book to float from one side of the aisle to the other, like in Ghostbusters.

Though at one point, a book did fall on its own the next aisle over.  It had opened to a specific page, of course, but there was nothing mysterious nor prophetic in there.  No augury to speak of.

Weekends

I've been mentioning Art in the Age on this blog for a while.  They make and sell the most peculiar and intriguing spirits.  We stopped in this weekend and the experience far surpassed anything that I was hoping for... the place is amazing.  

Shelves loaded with bitters of every kind.  Rows and rows of crafted liqueurs and spirits.  Beautiful labels with words like Damson Plum, Green Crab, Sierra Fig, and Bloody Butcher.

Their cocktails were small works of art, and the sampling flights revealed that these unique offerings were the real deal.  

I couldn't wait to try House of Tamworth's Crab Trapper.  I needed this peculiar thing to taste of the sea.  To be a summer whiskey.  Something you might take to a beach weekend.  A drink only sipped during the hottest days of the year.  

Crab Trapper turned out to be an intensely smooth whiskey that finishes with the subtle briny flavor of sweet crab.  It's the most delightful oddity.  

Definitely going to visit again soon.

Autumn Porch