The key is having fresh apple cider, though. It's remarkable how much acidity and pure apple flavor is retained in this easy to make syrup. Strain and return to the pan, add a little sugar until it reaches that syrupy consistency and cool before storing up to 3 weeks. I brought the cider and traditional apple spices, (cardamon, ceylon cinnamon, allspice, and clove), just to a boil and simmered slowly for close to an hour until it was almost reduced to syrup. Rather than making up a batch for infusing in a bottle of alcohol I wanted to really concentrate the apple flavors, so I got some fresh pressed cider from, Dustin, in the preservation kitchen for this idea. I love those flavors and with our region bursting with fresh apples this time of year it gets me thinking about a new cocktail based on those ingredients. Whether it be spicy sausage and eggs in the morning, or that pork roast at night, it just worked. Maybe that it was in a more savory element, not saved for dessert, but eaten right beside the rest of your meal. We're basically talking apple pie filling, but I've always favored fried apples. Sliced apples with cinnamon and spice, cooked down in a pan with a touch of sugar, we had them all the time. Lunch we'd have them, too, and for dinner they were always beside some pork chops and corn bread. In the words of the tall gentleman, Apple Jacks is a place to be a human being.As a child, every Sunday we would have fried apples(country apples) with our breakfast. Where drinking your beer and making conversation with the person on the barstool next to you is favored over taking a picture of it and putting it on Instagram. All we had to do was cut our teeth in a game of liar’s dice.Īpple Jacks is an old soul trapped in an even older log cabin. “Be a human being.”īy the end of the night, the principled veteran had told us all about his adventures riding motorcycles around the country, owning a bar at age 17, and had even invited us over to his house for a two-day party. “Come in and have a drink first,” yelled a tall, elderly man in a stern and affirmative manner. As my girlfriend tried to take photos of the front of the bar after we pulled up, she was immediately shouted down. But don’t worry, you’ll be accepted if you can adhere to their way of doing things. The interior looks were almost unchanged from when it was built over 140 years ago.Ī tight-knit community of bar patrons will immediately know you’re not from around there. But Apple Jacks has a certain trait that the new-fangled industrial gastropubs in the Mission and Financial Districts only attempt to recreate: it has authenticity. It might seem silly to make a trek all the way out to a secluded bar just for a basic drink. It has all the qualities that encompass a good dive as well: a rugged pool table that’s missing the cueball, a classic rock-churning jukebox, a food menu of assorted candy bars and chips, and a no-frills beer and liquor selection that is meant to get you drunk, not expand your flavor palate. With its secluded setting, an adornment of vintage license plates lining the roof, and the reputation for being a resting spot for various groups of bikers throughout its history, Apple Jacks is more of a roadhouse than a dive bar. But for the locals, groups of bikers out on their weekend runs, and the occasional tourist coming home from a day near the coast, Apple Jacks is more than just a random stop along the highway. If not for a small, red, illuminated sign attached to a rugged wooden pole outside, you might just pass by the moss-covered log cabin that houses Apple Jacks in the small town of La Honda. Driving along the winding roads of Highway 84, through the lush green enclosure of the Santa Cruz Mountains, a relic stands untouched by the sweeping wave of modernity brought about by the tech boom in the Bay Area.
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