Sunday, May 20, 2007

Local Wine + Chipotle Chicks = A Darn Good Time

Ahh, we went to the Northern Kentucky Wine Festival last night and sampled a surprisingly good array of wines grown right here in our state. Most of them were sweet wines, which I am not as fond of, but we found an excellent Merlot that both Jason and I loved. We sampled multiple wines at five different booths, and I was in pretty good spirits (har!) by the end of the night. If I hadn't bought a couple of my favorite bottles, I wouldn't have much of a memory of the evening. But, oh, I do remember the Chipotle Chicks.

The Chicks are these two women from Falmouth (represent!), which incidentally is where Jason and I spent the first year of our married lives. They grow jalapenos and use them to create something they call the "Kentucky Chipotle". They let their peppers ripen to red and then smoke them with Kentucky hickory. Then they combine their chipotles with home-grown tomatillos and habaneros and make a great smoky hot sauce as well as a variety of salsas. The kicker? A habanero jelly that made me want to cry with joy (and heat.) They're a small operation now and aren't available at retail markets yet, so I just had to buy some of their stuff right there at the festival. And I may just have to make the 45-minute trek to Falmouth to stock up again when that runs out. It's some awesome stuff.

I am really proud of my state. Move over, bourbon and horses. Here come the Chipotle Chicks.

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