Bottling our Cherry Cordial late 2023.
A sample of our Smoked Cherry Bounce while bottling in December.

Where Does The Time Go?

Happy New Year! It’s hard to believe we’ve made it yet another year. For us, 2023 was a whirlwind! I began the year with good intentions to get back into many of our hobbies, including sipping whiskey and updating our site regularly. However, as often happens, the responsibilities of work and life often take away from the pursuit of our passions. After rolling over into the New Year, I found myself asking, where does the time go?

One of the last posts we made was a recipe for our annual batch of Smoked Cherry Bounce. This year was one of the best batches we’ve made and we were happy to share it with friends over the holidays. If you are interested in making a batch for yourself, you can find the recipe here.

2023 Recap

At the Parliaments in Iceland.

Over the past year, we have gone through several changes. We sold our house and moved at the end of 2022, although we didn’t officially close on our new home until early 2023. Our new home created a lot of new projects. We repainted the exterior of the house, which took me nearly a month to complete. We installed new fencing and planted some roses. We added garden beds and planted numerous vegetables. We’ve rearranged and reorganized many times to make the space functional for us. It’s exhausting! But, at least our house is starting to look like it belongs to us.

We were able to travel a bit during the 2023 calendar year. We took a trip to Lake Tahoe, California in June to visit family. Although it was brief, we were both happy to check out a new place. The highlights included kayaking on Lake Tahoe and trying out pours of High West’s A Midwinter Night’s Dram.

In October, we finally got to take our trip to Iceland. We’d planned it for the fall in hopes that we’d be able to see the Northern Lights. However, the weather didn’t cooperate. Despite being skunked by the clouds, we did get to enjoy the scenery, do some hiking, and check out Iceland’s only whiskey distillery, Eimverik Distillery to try samples of Floki Icelandic Whiskey. If you find yourself in Iceland, don’t leave without checking it out!

For Christmas, we made the trip back to Arizona to visit family. This trip is something I look forward to in the winter. There is something about escaping the cold and snow in Colorado and getting down to the desert to enjoy the sunshine and warmth. While we were there, we finally got to check out Whiskey Del Bac in Tucson. We left with a couple of bottles of their spirits, which I look forward to writing about soon.

Looking Ahead

Dispersed camping in the truck.

Although winter is still in full force, we are looking forward to our spring adventures. This year, we have a few nearby trips planned with Spaceman Spiff. We also spent a little time dispersed camping in the truck. We are hoping to truck camp a few times this summer to get back to our roots of escaping into the forest.

We look forward to sharing these adventures and highlighting the new whiskies we hope to try in the New Year.

Happy Exploring!