GrandTen Distillery

We wanted something local and warm to do over the weekend, and having a fondness for craft distilleries (as well as their products) we decided to investigate one of Boston's. After a few quick Google searches we settled on GrandTen for two reasons: It was close, and it's free on Saturdays. Double win.

It's located in a more industrial part of South Boston, and thanks to plenty of signs it's not hard to find despite its less-than-obvious location. As soon as you enter you're aware of just how small an operation it is. You can almost see everything from the door. The staff were great, making the tour entertaining, and highlighting the differences between their distillery and one far more industrial. But the highlight of the tour, by far, was the tasting.

I have tried my fair share of spirits. And I'm not embarrassed to say that generally I really don't like them on their own. I have never enjoyed anything that smelled simply of ethanol and burned my mouth like antiseptic mouthwash. So, generally speaking, I haven't enjoyed a tasting at a distillery. So it was pretty darn surprising when I actually enjoyed the tasting at GrandTen. None of their spirits smelled simply of ethanol, instead I smelled banana, fresh carrots, almonds, chocolate and butterscotch. Instead of burning my mouth, it went down smooth and tasted delicious. I'm not usually a whiskey person, but I would drink their South Boston Irish Whiskey neat. I wanted to buy almost everything they sold, but settled with taking home a bottle of their white rum, sold exclusively (for the time being) at their distillery.

In short - you should go

Website: http://www.grandten.com/

Snow

Dear God when will it stop?

Admittedly this is my first real winter. Growing up in central California doesn't expose you to the same kind of winter experience that New England does. Sure, we visited the snow. But who would be so idiotic as to go live in it?

Ooops...

Well, it turns out that snow, while pretty, is a pain in the ass. My car is currently buried underneath it, the street hasn't been plowed in 2 days, and I find myself trapped indoors or stranded because public transit is no match for the whims of the weather.

Hilariously, one of my cats has decided to wait out the weather in the form of a burrito.

'Merica: The Road Trip

My mom recently pointed out that I've fallen behind on my blog. Reasonably so, since 2014 was probably the craziest year in my 26 years of life, which is now even more evident by the difficulty of filing our tax returns.

Just as an update, and as a promise of things to come, we moved to Boston. In August of last year, right after our wedding, we packed up as much as we could fit in two tiny cars and  drove across country so that I could pursue a graduate degree. Since then, I've been exploring Boston, surviving my first semester as a PhD student, and of course traveling whenever we get the chance.

Boston is proving to be lacking in certain respects - such as it's not as conducive to spontaneous backpacking trips as California was. There's plenty to see and do out here, it just requires more planning, something which I've never been very good at. Luckily I married a planner.