Dust and Snow - The Maine Chronicles.

[funknik]

Went skiing and dusty hunting yesterday...visited 5 stores and one mountain...skied for about 4 hours...beautiful fluffy powder stashes!!!

No bourbon stashes, however. After visiting a multitude of stores in the past month and only scoring 6 dusties I'm getting a little discouraged. I think the liquor control state is huge factor and maybe a lot of the stores I'm visiting have had a recent overhaul and/or makeover and all of the old stock has been eradicated or re-located. I'm going to stick with it, but I'm trying to lower my expectations.

When the wife & I returned home from our quest there was 8-10 inches of snow to deal with in the driveway which needed immediate attention. I skipped the end of the Cardinals/Eagles game to take care of this, dreaming all the while of the ER10/101 I would pour myself as a reward. The ER was fantastic, it's warming abilities were significant (thanks, Oscar!). Waking up this morning to find another 3 or so inches of powder in the driveway was okay, but I wish I could've played hooky again today to hit the slopes and the stores!

[MJL]

Interesting read, especially since I am sitting here in the backyard typing on my laptop wearing shorts, T-shirt and no shoes. I reckon it is in the upper 70s at the moment.

[Buffalo Bill]

We got a double-hit in North Central Massachusetts over the past two days. Everytime I get this place plowed it costs me another bottle of bourbon, and I've got a good deal at $35 a sweep for clean-up. But twice in a weekend just cost me nearly a bottle of Pappy!

BB

[OscarV]

Hey Andy, we here in Mid-Michigan get the bad weather and the bad dusty hunting to.

Tony AKA ACDetroit would argue this.

He scores tons of great dusties in SE-Michigan and he likes to go snowmobiling.

[ggilbertva]

Interesting read, especially since I am sitting here in the backyard typing on my laptop wearing shorts, T-shirt and no shoes. I reckon it is in the upper 70s at the moment.

I hope a bird poops on your head.:smiley_acbt:

[BigCatMatt]

Hey Northerners, I know your pain, having spent most of my life in upstate NY. Just remember that while we Floridians are laughing now, you can bet we won't gloating so much during the 5 months of sweltering hell we face from May through September. I've been living in Tampa for 10 years, and you never get used to the heat.

Tonight we have a tornado watch...nice.

Funknik, me and the wife head up to Portland every year. We spend a couple of nights in Portland before heading up to Brunswick to see the parents. Portland's all about the beer for me. The Great Lost Bear the place I go to get my microbrew fix.

Tampa is a horrible place for bourbon fans. I am a newbie, but down here I haven't seen most of the bourbons that everyone here considers top notch. But, I keep trying everything I can find. Fortunately, my wife's cousin in Chicago brought me a bottle of Lot B last week. Actually, a Google search of that bottle brought me to this site. I spent all weekend reading old posts and learning a lot.

Matt

[ggilbertva]

Welcome Matt. It snowed today so that sucked. I wish for warm weather right now.

Hey Northerners, I know your pain, having spent most of my life in upstate NY. Just remember that while we Floridians are laughing now, you can bet we won't gloating so much during the 5 months of sweltering hell we face from May through September. I've been living in Tampa for 10 years, and you never get used to the heat.

Tonight we have a tornado watch...nice.

Funknik, me and the wife head up to Portland every year. We spend a couple of nights in Portland before heading up to Brunswick to see the parents. Portland's all about the beer for me. The Great Lost Bear the place I go to get my microbrew fix.

Tampa is a horrible place for bourbon fans. I am a newbie, but down here I haven't seen most of the bourbons that everyone here considers top notch. But, I keep trying everything I can find. Fortunately, my wife's cousin in Chicago brought me a bottle of Lot B last week. Actually, a Google search of that bottle brought me to this site. I spent all weekend reading old posts and learning a lot.

Matt

[funknik]

Funknik, me and the wife head up to Portland every year. We spend a couple of nights in Portland before heading up to Brunswick to see the parents. Portland's all about the beer for me. The Great Lost Bear the place I go to get my microbrew fix.

Hey Matt, welcome to the board. GBL is a good spot...next time you're up let me know and I'll have you and the wife over for dinner and tasting.

peace.

[BigCatMatt]

Hi Andy,

Thanks for the invite. I'll let you know when we make plans.

Matt

[ThomasH]

This is the equation one might use to correlate the hot summers in Ohio and Florida:

Ohio steel mill in July = HOT = Florida summer vacation

My version of the equation is as follow:

HOT = Florida summer vacation > Ohio steel mill in July.

Bring on the summer heat in Florida. I get to hang in the pool with a drink in my hand, something not genereally available in the local steel mill!

Thomas

[funknik]

Today was supposed to be the first of a two-day ski trip/dusty hunt, but our plans changed when some friends couldn't make it. Dejected, I trudged my self off into the snowy wild on a separate dusty hunting trip of my own.

A friend of mine also just a big Mac setup for his business and he lives in the area where I'm planning to hunt, which is also convenient. So I visit the 7 stores in York County, ME that are fairly centralized and score but one dusty bottle.....but what a one!

Weller Centennial 10/100 BHC Frankfort. Been looking for one of these, now have found it....got the WC, OCPR & VSOF...just need IWH and Dickel, but don't think they were ever sold around here. Anyway, more snow predicted and we're going skiing in NH tomorrow......NH home of the cheapest liquor prices imaginable!!!!

[funknik]

Skipped the ski trip to NH and went to a small mountain north of here instead. Hit 6 liquor stores and scored a RTV Maker's and a Dickel No.8. The Dickel No.8 is not supposed to be available in this liquor control state, so I was very surprised/excited to see it. It was in front of the EW Black which I guess is a similar looking bottle. It has an "Iowa refund 5 cents" sticker on it, so I don't if it just accidentally ended up there or what. It was the only bottle though at a very small and out-of-the-way grocery store in a tiny town and they also had a stockpile of JD green label (which I haven't really seen around here, either)....I stopped at two other grocery stores from the same chain but turned up nothing. Lucky me.

The skiing was very funny. We received a book of passes for our wedding from one of the doctors my wife, Shannon, works with -- it includes 2 tickets to every ski mountain in Maine. There are two major resorts and three medium sized mountains and then the other ten or so are tiny little spots. The place we went to today, Titcomb Mtn, has a 300 ft vertical drop, two t-bars and took us 60 seconds to ski down -- it was cute and amusing. Needless to say, we skied for a couple of hours and called it quits. Better dusty hunting than skiing today...usually it's the other way around.....been a good weekend for dusty hunting:

[funknik]

A balmy 1 degree this morning here this morning.....one lonely, lonely degree.

[dcb]

hey funk (or anyone else in the northeast), if you're near the NH border sometime soon, the EC18 is on sale for $26 this month, every year or so, it seems, they knock the price way down.

[funknik]

hey funk (or anyone else in the northeast), if you're near the NH border sometime soon, the EC18 is on sale for $26 this month, every year or so, it seems, they knock the price way down.

Thanks for the heads-up, I saw that on the NH liquor store website....planning a ski trip over there soon and will probably make a pickup.

[StraightBoston]

Andy--

Keep an eye out for the rest of your BHC when/if you come into MA -- they were definitely sold here. I've seen both of the bottles you're missing in the Merrimack Valley over the past 2-3 years (although someone has since sniped them.)

[funknik]

Andy--

Keep an eye out for the rest of your BHC when/if you come into MA -- they were definitely sold here. I've seen both of the bottles you're missing in the Merrimack Valley over the past 2-3 years (although someone has since sniped them.)

Thanks, Kevin, I definitely will.

[funknik]

Well.....got about 6" of snow on Wednesday, which amounted to about 25 minutes of shoveling, so no big deal. The mountains got plenty more...anywhere from 12-18", but I won't be hitting the slopes this weekend :frown:.

It's warmed up the last couple of days, too...now we're in the 30's somewhere, but with the Big Game tomorrow and some errands to do, Shannon and I elected to stay at home this weekend and cuddle to keep warm. Having a few friends over tomorrow, not sure how many or who, but I'd be happy just to watch it by myself if everyone decides to bail.

As far as dust, it was a very nice week. I picked up that Weller Centennial last Friday and have visited 5 more stores since -- have cleared nearly all of York and Cumberland counties. In Kennebunkport yesterday, summer home of the Bush Collective, I plucked 3 slope-shouldered OCPRs and 2 VSOFs all from the Bourbon Heritage collection. I knew this store was something different when I saw some very unusual bottles of rum on the top shelf. I turned the corner and some Wild Turkey Kentucky Spirit caught my eye, but soon I was distracted by the motherlode of BHC. I went back to the front door, got myself a basket, filled it and proceeded to the checkout where the little old lady checking me out was perplexed that the bottles wouldn't scan. A slightly younger lady went with me to check the shelf -- all the while my heart racing at the find. I'm all adrenaline as she asks me, "Is this good whiskey?" I was a little embarassed to admit that I hadn't tried it, but was buying them out regardless. I also had to hold myself back from spewing all the history of the BHC, etc. So I just said "yes" and paid for my score. As I was leaving, the store the manager came over and asked me if I owned a restaurant...I should've gone along, but I just muttered something about "hard-to-find, thanks again" and walked back to my car. This score gives me hope that there are other gems out there like this, but given the tourism & general demographic of people in this community, I doubt I'll find another score like this one -- I have my fingers crossed, though.

Now I'm just marinating a NY Sirloin in a mixture of Evan Williams Black, Old Overholt & Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce for my dinner...should be good.

[SBOmarc]

You insist on reposting pics of that very nice array of bottles.

I respond by saying it is in the low 70's here in SoCal.

If you stop, I will also.

[funknik]

You insist on reposting pics of that very nice array of bottles.

I respond by saying it is in the low 70's here in SoCal.

If you stop, I will also.

LOL, Marc....deal....I'm done.....I promise.....:deadhorse:

[funknik]

Today, eager beaver that I am, I went out dusty hunting before I even had my morning coffee -- not a wise decision -- I would not advise it. Anyway, I'm safely back at the house now, sipping on my morning joe.

I went south to visit the last two stores on the list in the southern part of the state. After driving about 45 min, the sun came out and I realized that I forgot my shades....that is very unlike me and probably due to lack of coffee. Anyway, about an hour in I stopped at the first place, a little gas station with a few liquor shelves...they had Ezra Brooks 90, JBW, Maker's and Knob Creek....I was unimpressed and forged ahead.

The road to the next place wound me round and round residential neighborhoods and past elementary schools and snowbanks until finally a view of the Atlantic Ocean opened up before me which was twinkling like a thousand diamonds in the morning sun. I finally caught sight of my destination, Frisbee's 1828 Market.

This place was a little general store on a corner in the heart of town with a hand-painted sign outside that claimed "The Nation's Oldest Family-Owned General Store, est. 1828". When I walked to the front door, however, I was greeted by a much different kind of sign. On florescent green paper, taped to the glass door was a sign scrawled in black magic marker that said simply, "closed after 180 years. thanks."

My heart sunk. Looking in through the windows, I could see wooden statues of old-timey carnies and clowns, wooden shelves with huge bags of popped popcorn and candy, old metal sign advertising Pepsi and such. It was depressing to see such a landmark shuttered and decaying, especially since I missed the opportunity to walk in through the front door like timewarp into the olden days. As I was leaving, I noticed another sign on yellow paper claimed "Closed Temporarily" but that may have been wishful thinking....peeking into the place I could see the liquor shelf and aside from a couple of single malts, all I could pick out was a Jim Beam and Maker's.

Feeling depressed, I set out for the homestead, but thought I'd stop into my honeypot from last week to check out a couple of Wild Turkey Kentucky Spirits that I'd passed on. Armed with new info, I picked out a 2002 WTKS and left two 2008s on the shelf. I also noticed that they had re-stocked on VSOF after I cleaned them out last week...I was almost worried that I would have to shell out for four more bottles when I noticed that they were all newer bottlings, not the BHC -- dodged a bullet there....sort of. Still, I'm interested in what the HH version tastes like, just not when I have so many BHC bottles sitting in the bunker.

When I went to check out the Kentucky Spirit, the cashier tried in vain to wipe the bottle down, muttering, "Dusty!" I replied, "that's how you know it's the good stuff." :grin:

[funknik]

Whew...I'm tired so I'll spare the details today, but I drove all over, visited 9 stores and saw nothing of interest. At all...

I have pretty much visited every store in a reasonable radius (and quite a few in unreasonable radii) and have to throw in the dusty hunting towel for a while...I'll stop on my way to places, but no more planned trips.

The one saving grace of the day is that I found myself near the NH border and to console me after all of the poor hunting, I stopped into the NH Liquor Outlet & bought their last two Handys.

I've come to realize that the only real dusties to be found around here are BHC and the majority of stores never bought any in the first place because they just don't sell anything in the $30-40 range. I'm visiting a couple of tourist communities soon that might have something, but other than that, I'm retiring for a while....but I am satisfied.

[cigarnv]

Hey Andy... been following your thread and may look you up this summer. I will be in Vermont judging the Harpoon BBQ Festival in late July and then will be headed up to Seal Harbor Me. to see family.... so you must be on the way... albeit not directly.

[funknik]

Definitely come by -- we'll have another BBQ!!!

[funknik]

Today Shannon and I went skiing at Camden Snow Bowl, the only ski mountain I know of with an ocean view! It was lovely....very small -- about 1,000 ft vertical drop and 11 trails. The US Toboggan Championships were being held there today, so it was unusually busy, I'm assuming (had never been there before). It was also unseasonably warm for February in Maine -- around 45 degrees!!! It was spring skiing conditions out there....the downside was that some trails had thin cover and it was like skiing on a mudslide. Also, the lifts were old and slow...in two hours we did four runs!

So we left a little prematurely, but it was fun nonetheless and free. Did some dusty hunting on the way but to no avail...hit probably 7-8 stores. What amazes me is how few liquor stores there are here....of the 150 or so stores I've visited that sell booze, only 7 have been liquor stores and all of the others have been either grocery stores, convenience stores or gas stations! That's less than 5%!!! Crazy....anyway, here are some photos of us with the ocean in the background.