New This Year
Adults can purchase tickets for tastings of fine wines, locally crafted beer and spirits while learning about their history, culture, and artistry.
Sniff! Swirl! Sip! Savor! Sit and enjoy nearby live music. Tastings are guided by local favorites Triple S Brewing, Lee Spirits and Soirée.
Beer and wine also available by the glass. – Must be 21 to enter.
Advance tickets Available Here
THANKS! Decorative Botanicals for Tasting Garden provided by Phelan Gardens. See what plants can do to enliven an outdoor space!
TASTING Tickets:
2 Tastings = $15 / 4 Tastings = $25
1 Tasting: 3 pours at a Beer or Wine Station / 2 pours at a Gin or Whiskey Station
By the Glass:
Wine = $5 / Beer = $5
FREE = Craft Beverage Education = FREE
GUIDES: Triple S Brewing Co. = Beer / Lee Spirits Co. = Gin / Soirée = Wine & Whiskey
Rules
1. You Must be 21 years of age to be in the Tasting Garden. No Minors Under 21. No Exceptions.
2. While tasting, please refrain from chattery phone calls, but social media updates are encouraged! #WhatIfFest, #WhatIfFestival
3. “Tastings” are classy – “Shots” are not. Today, are practicing our classy skills.
4. If the Folks pouring the tastings say you’ve had enough…you have!
5. Unless you have purchased beer or wine by the glass – this is a “tasting” and we serve tasting sizes.
We will not serve you more. No matter how good you are at winking or whimpering!
6. Have fun! Sniff! Swirl! Sip! Savor! And Yes, ask our experts all your beer, wine, gin and whiskey questions!
Beer – Wine – Gin – Whisky Tidbits & Tales
Beer
Born 4300 BC
1. The best way to taste craft beer is not in a frosty mug!
The chill constricts the flavor profiles, limits the aromatics and restricts your taste buds.
2. The oldest known recipe in the world is for beer. Early recipes included mushrooms, poppy seeds, butter, bay leaves, sugar, aromatics, honey, and bread crumbs.
3. Beer was first sold in bottles in 1850. It was first sold in cans in 1935. In 1962, tab opening beer cans were testmarketed; in 1970 over 90% of all beer cans sold had tab openings!
4. In Medieval England, beer was often served with breakfast or was breakfast (as a staple like bread).
5. “Mind your P’s and Q’s.” In English pubs drinks are served in pints and quarts. In early times, bartenders would warn rowdy drinkers to mind their own pints and quarts.
6. The word beer comes from “bibere,” which means “to drink” in Latin.
7. Before thermometers were invented, brewers would dip a thumb or finger into the mix to find the right temperature for adding yeast. Too cold, and the yeast wouldn’t grow. Too hot, and the yeast would die. This thumb in the beer is where “rule of thumb” comes from.
Wine
Born 325 AD
1. The best way to taste wine is giving it a little time to “breathe”! “Letting a wine breathe” means exposing it to oxygen before drinking. The simplest thing is to just open the bottle an hour or so before you plan to start drinking it. Pouring it into a glass will quicken the process; the agitation of pouring and the greater surface area exposed to air in the glass helps.
2. A “vertical tasting” involves wines from the same vineyards or winemakers but from different years…not tasting wines while standing up!
3. It takes about 2 ½ pounds of grapes to make a bottle of wine.
4. Over 10,000 wine grape varieties exist! Move over Chardonnay and Merlot…we love you….and we have some exploring to do!
5. In ancient Greece, a dinner host would take the first sip of wine to assure guests the wine was not poisoned, hence the phrase “drinking to one’s health.” “Toasting” started in ancient Rome when the Romans continued the Greek tradition but started dropping a piece of toasted bread into each wine glass to temper undesirable tastes or excessive acidity.
Gin
Born 1689
1. The best way to taste gin is at room temperature, first neat, then diluted with an equal measure of water. This reveals both qualities and flaws.
2. Gin’s primary flavor is the sweet pine and soft citrus of the juniper berry. All other botanicals are added to highlight nuances of these complex and sophisticated flavors.
3. The “bathtub gin” that was made in the United States during Prohibition had dangerous (blindness), even lethal (poisonous), effects due to the fact that it sometimes it contained methanol to keep up with supply demands.
4. But…we do have bathtub gin to thank for many classic cocktails (Bee’s Knees, Negroni, Aviation), as the initial recipes were created to mask the task of the low-quality alcohol. We encourage using classic recipes and craft gin and ingredients…skip the dangerous and lethal part! 5. Because of James Bond’s famous “shaken, not stirred” line, martini and gin sales increase dramatically when a new Bond movie is released!
6. You can not bruise gin when shaking it! Stirring cocktails prevents small ice fragments from breaking off into the drink; thus diluting it. Some cocktails are built, some stirred, some shaken…all are crafted!
Whiskey
Born 1590
1. The best way to taste whiskey is at room temperature, first neat, then diluted with an equal measure & temperature of water – allowing for “whiskey bloom” which reveals both qualities and flaws.
2. In order for a whiskey to be scotch, it has to be distilled in Scotland and aged for at least 3 years in oak casks. In the U.S., a whiskey can only be called bourbon if it was made in America from mash that’s more than 50% corn.
3. As whiskey matures in its barrel, 2% to 4% percent of it evaporates every year. This evaporation is the “angel’s share.” Similarly, the whiskey that is absorbed by a barrel’s wood is known as the “devil’s cut.”
4. The word “whiskey” was derived from the Gaelic term “uisce beatha,” which translates to “water of life.”
5. Spelling Lesson. Whisky = Scottish only (no “e”). Whiskey = Everyone else. Maybe Scots spell it without the “e” because more vowels is a waste good drinking time?!
6. The Scots claim they first to created whisky. Technically, whisky does not seem to have been a recognized product in Scotland until after the Union, whereas the Irish were distilling spirits from malt as early as 1590. Legend that says Irish monks introduced whiskey to the Scots…we suggest staying out of that debate!
Enjoy Responsibly!