If you haven’t visited downtown Holland in a while, you’ll want to stop by on the way to your next beach adventure. The quaint small town is still as delicate as you remember it, but with a new edge. Developments have lengthened 8th Street past River Avenue — all the way down to the recently renovated Civic Center — and its additions include multiple restaurants, a movie theater and The Cakabakery, a custom order and retail bake shop.
Like a mouse trying to out-squeak a hamster with a megaphone, the Brut IPA has had trouble fully making a name for itself under the New England IPA’s tutelage. This comes as no surprise.
If you’re going to open a new restaurant in West Michigan, you better stand out. The Friesian Gastro Pub understood that from the start
It’s a sunny spring Saturday and your crew is unnecessarily stressed — scouring Yelp, texting friends, looking for a place to day drink that satisfies everyone’s tastes. The abundance of quality watering holes in West Michigan all begin to blur together.
Cocktails can be a little intimidating, to be sure.
When you pick up a menu and see words like amaro, falernum and aperol for the first time, it starts to feel like a foreign language textbook. You could always take a gamble and assume any word you don’t know is some sort of herbal liqueur — you’d often be correct — but isn’t it better to actually understand what’s in your drink?
I’m up north, bopping about a peninsular wine trail, when I find my schnozz inside another tasting glass, sniffing the day’s fifth Merlot. The menu proposes such scents as “bramble jam” and “tanned leather.”
You may not know it, but here in West Michigan, wine is all around us. Whether you’re out in the vast orchards of the southwest or up in the rolling hills of Traverse City, there’s no shortage of grapes to be found. Our whites and bubbly are especially notable, but maybe even better is the simple pleasure of sitting around a table with friends, tasting your way through the winery’s flavors while overlooking the winding vineyards on a beautiful day. We’re here to help you find new vintages and tasting rooms alike — here’s your guide to just some of the great wineries the mitten can proudly claim.
Mead, cider and wine are all cut from the same cloth.
In fact, mead is sometimes referred to as “honey wine,” though that’s a bit misleading — there’s a big difference between white wine with honey added and true mead, made from fermented honey, with no grapes involved.
Whether you’re out at dinner or at a bar with friends, you know you have that favorite, classic cocktail. Maybe on the weekends you try your hand at it, with poor ingredients and little direction, and it never tastes quite the same.
