And so our McMenamins Passport quest continues, today at Edgefield.
Our first stop: Power Station. I’m noticing how amazingly I backlit Matt in this photo. That was totally planned. 🙂
Next we walked up to the Distillery, where we found out the Distillery tour was beginning momentarily. Score! That means another experience stamp, which got Matt a $20.00 gift card.
Our tour guide (who gave me a hard time for taking his picture when he had his mouth open) told us all sorts of interesting facts about the distillery process. I learned that whisky in the US is aged in oak barrels and most of those oak barrels are then sold to Ireland or Scotland because they reuse the barrels, because the US doesn’t. At McMenamins, they do reuse the barrels, but not for whisky. The law requires whisky to be aged in fresh barrels. Instead they use them to age rum and then on down the list until eventually they become planters.
I also learned that McMenamins whisky demand is high enough that it’s one brewer’s job to make enough beer wash to make McMenamins whisky. Below is a picture of the second still. It can make a lot more whisky than the first one, which was in the photo above.
Look! Whisky barrels reused!
We forgot to take some pictures outside of a few locations, so here we pick up at Jerry’s Ice House, which had some great tucked-away tables hidden inside.
My favorite sign of spring was coming into bloom.
The winery tasting room.
And then we had to find the artwork in the hotel that matched this description.
Check!
Current prizes:
I went for the opener. Matt went for the chocolate drops in the decorative tin.
The view from the front porch. I still have the plan to vacation here, hike in the Columbia River Gorge during the morning, soak in the soaking pools every day, hang out on the porch all afternoon and eat a good dinner every night.
Front porch self-portrait.
A failed attempt to look stern and grumpy.
Lilacs! Be still my heart. That distillery tour sounds super interesting. Did he explain why there’s a U.S. law that whisky has to be aged in new barrels? Just curious. The failed serious pic is ADORABLE.
I think it has to do with rules. Like champagne can only be called that if it’s made in the proper region of France. I’m actually curious to do an American Whisky/Irish Whisky taste test to see which I like more. I’m sure that will eventually happen. Like in the next 50 years.