It’s that time of year again – when the perfect way to spend an evening is cuddled up by the fire with a good book and a great beverage. Oh yeah, it’s also (all things) pumpkin spice season too! If you’re anything like us, that beverage often contains bourbon. We’re always trying to come up with new and tasty combinations. We really think this bourbon apple cider cocktail is perfect for the fall, plus it is incredibly easy and quick to whip up. The recipe below is for one cocktail but it can easily be expanded to as many beverages as you need. (Think a pitcher full for you and your friends on football Sunday).
In a rocks glass, combine bourbon, apple cider, ginger beer and soda water. Add a dash of bitters and a dash of pumpkin spice. Top glass with ice and stir. Garnish with a cinnamon stick.
Recipe Notes
If you don't have any pumpkin spice, then nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger or allspice will work as a substitute.
We’re super excited to announce that Archie’s Acres LLC has finally opened a store on the online craft market, Etsy! (The link to our store is shared at the end of this post)
As our last blog post mentioned, the process for selling canned salsa, giardineria, bourbon pears etc online will take a bit, but in the meantime we have a variety of bath/shower products, dried herbs, honey and crafts for sale! You know, in case you’re looking for Christmas gifts…
We will be adding new products regularly. We have 3 new products waiting in the wings as I type this that will be added this week! (They just need to be tested (by us) then proven to be excellent (also, by us).
Maybe you’ve wondered why we don’t have an online store yet. And why we aren’t selling our awesome canned products yet. Well it’s not because we don’t want to, it’s because we can’t. Yet.
If you follow our Instagram feed, you’ve probably noticed that we love to can our produce and have really gotten adventurous with our recipes. It’s funny how so much changes in a year. A year ago I found the idea of canning to be terrifying. Terrifying for it’s tediousness, it’s time-consuming steps and, oh yeah, that whole botulism food poisoning thing. It took some internal cheerleading but we took the initial plunge into the world of canning and it turned out to be a ton of fun! We’ve more than got the hang of it and we love it! We’re always on a search for new and fun canning ideas, we’ll can pretty much anything at this point.
Guinness Stout Jelly.
Many of our friends and customers ask about purchasing our canned goods. And after some quick research we learned that we had a ton of paperwork to do before we could even think about selling our products online. (Well, that’s not true, we think about selling our products all the time. Ha)
Our dried red pepper flakes.
Rules, Rules, Rules!
The Illinois Cottage Food law allows us to sell some canned goods directly to customers at farmer’s markets, but that is it. Online sales or sales to retailers are strictly prohibited. So our friends and family have been really benefiting from all these rules. Haha.
Our peach habanero hot sauce.Our vanilla bourbon pears.Homemade Chicago style giardiniera.
Next up, hot sauces, giardaneria, Bloody Mary mix, bourbon pears, salsa verde etc…has to go through and pass a rigorous process before it’s ever sold.
All our recipes must be be pH tested by an accredited lab and then submitted to a “process authority” with the pH test results. This person reviews the recipe, test results and steps we detail for producing the canned good and sends back to us an “official” process. We then register that process with the FDA. Each product and each variation of that product (change in container size, container closure, recipe adjustment, change in commercial kitchen location, etc.) MUST go through all these steps.
Safety is important to us
The process is very involved. But it makes sense, farms and businesses need to be required to prove that they’re doing things the healthy and clean way. People can become very sick or even die. So we get it. And appreciate the process. We just want it to move a little quicker so we can share our delicious goodies! We’re shooting for early January. Obviously, the timeline isn’t completely up to us. We will create an Etsy store and also list our products in the Shop page of our website. Stay tuned!
Hello from Archie’s Acres. We know it’s been a while since we’ve posted but we’ve been busy preparing the garden and our critters for winter!
The first order of business was to remove all remaining produce from all plants before the first frost, which was about 3 weeks ago. We still had a surprising amount of peppers, tomatoes, tomatillos, zucchini and cucumbers which was a pleasant surprise!
A portion of our last harvest for the season
The produce that didn’t make the cut for humans were given to the chickens and the goats, so everybody on the farm won. Especially the chickens.
Then we had to remove all remnants of the tomato and pepper plants. Leaving them around would invite disease to the soil that would effect our productivity next year. It’s a tedious job, but the reward is being able to have a big bonfire with all the dried plants. So that’s fun!
In the next week or so, we will then spread compost and chicken manure onto the garden before the first snow to help rejuvenate the soil. Our current chicken coop setup is basically that of a giant litter box. We filled the entire interior of our coop with sand and ag-lime (aka crushed limestone). This allowed us to scoop out chicken droppings with a manure form (think giant cat litter scoop) to collect for fertilizer. It’s working wonderfully.
As for the critters, we moved and re-positioned the goats’ and Tilly’s
The goats were not very helpful while we were trying to move their shelter
shelter to face the south east in order to protect them from the harsh winter winds from the west and the north. And we covered their favorite hangout area with pine chips to create a barrier between the cold ground and their feet and we put a fancy new coat on Tilly!
Tilly looks fabulous in her new coat
Winter Coop Preparations
We’ve been collecting all fallen leaves and shuttling them into the coop. We’ll also add grass clippings, pine savings and shredded paper. We’re aiming to get about 3-4 inches of material covering the entire coop floor. It’s called the “deep litter method” and worked well for us last year. Basically, the deep layer of organic material absorbs the chicken dropping and slowly composts throughout the winter. The material on the floor provides some insulation from the cold ground, and as it breaks down (composts) it releases some heat into the coop. Added bonus – in the spring, we have great fertilizer waiting for us when we clean out the coop. So far we only have about an inch deep layer throughout; a few of our large maple trees are stubbornly holding onto their leaves. We’re really hoping they drop them before the first snow or we may have some damaged trees!
So as you can see, we’ve been busy! As this season winds down, I promise to post more. I mean, what else am I going to do with all the free time we have? 😉
