The first part of our Fargo trip includes a delicious, local meal at the HoDo Lounge in downtown Fargo.  One of the drinks we had included a locally-sourced rhubarb vodka.  I had already planned on visiting this winery, so this just added another reason to visit.

We headed out west, about 15 minutes from Fargo, to Casselton, ND.  While speeding along, we saw some plane doing maneuvers over the highway and adjacent fields.  It wasn’t crop-dusting, but flew what appeared to be maybe 10 feet from the ground and then climbed rapidly as it approached the highway.  Megan snapped this picture from the passenger seat.  I have no idea what this plane’s purpose was… maybe just having fun flying around on a beautiful North Dakota day?

We pulled in to historic downtown Casselton, home of the world’s largest can pile.  This thing is a towering 45 feet of old oil cans.  We didn’t get a picture, since it’s set back from the road and we had no idea what it was at the time.  Go to the site and learn all about its almost 80 years of history.

We pulled into some parking spaces outside of what ended up being the location of Maple River’s offices and retail operation.  Inside the small storefront was a single employee (maybe another in the back?) who greeted us warmly.  Along with their wines, they also sell a wide range of local products, including jams, jellies, honey, and all sorts of pickled things (we picked up some spicy pickled quail eggs).  We introduced ourselves and embarked on a tasting of most of the wines they produce.

Maple River specializes in fruit wines.  In fact, they only make one wine with grapes.  I’ve been consistently disappointed (and often disgusted) by fruit wines in the past, so I braced myself for the first taste.  Instead of cloying, sticky-sweet juice, it really was wine.  Yes, almost all of their wines are “sweet,” but by using great, local fruit and natural ingredients like honey, they achieve the complexity and maturity that other fruit wines seem to avoid.

Regarding their fruit, their rule is that 90% of their ingredients have to come from within 90 miles of the winery.  Their honey is locally produced, and they get a wide range of fruits from North Dakota and Minnesota, like mango melons, chokecherries (the North Dakota state fruit), and rhubarb (which I guess is a vegetable).  I asked about their production schedule, since their growing season is shorter than ours.  He said they freeze everything when it comes in, and that way they are able to produce wine all year long.  I don’t recall how many fermentation tanks they have, but it was a much larger operation than I expected.

But back to the wines!  We tasted everything, from the aforementioned chokecherry wine, to elderberry (one of my favorites).  They have some unique selections as well, including pumpkin wine, dandelion wine and lilac wine.  If you could imagine a wine tasting like the aroma of lilacs… amazing.  They do strawberry and raspberry wines that have the rich, deep flavor of the ripest berries.  They have so many more on their site with very well-written descriptions, and they do ship their wines if you are so intrigued.  We brought home a great selection, but this is a winery we’ll keep in the back of our minds for when we want something delicious and unique.

You may remember mention of the Maple River rhubarb vodka in the cat’s meow cocktail in the HoDo Lounge in the previous Fargo post.  Well, a couple doors down from the winery is the Maple River Distillery.  It’s a bit more sparse and the selection is smaller, but then again they just opened the distillery in December, 2009.  We didn’t go through a tasting, but we picked up a bottle of chokecherry brandy and their rhubarb vodka.  They also make some cordials, but we opted to not pick up any.  Sadly they don’t/can’t ship their spirits to individuals outside North Dakota, but you may be able to convince a local liquor store to order some in for you.

If you find some rhubarb vodka, here are some suggestions.

Go the strawberry rhubarb route:

• 2 oz. rhubarb vodka
• .5 oz. strawberry schnapps
• .75 oz. ginger-infused simple syrup
• juice from 1/2 lime

Stir everything together with plenty of ice, or shake and strain into a cocktail glass.

Our attempt at reproducing the cat’s meow had something like

• 2 oz. rhubarb vodka
• 1 oz. ginger-infused simple syrup
• orange juice, to fill

Fill a rocks glass with ice, add vodka and syrup, then top off with orange juice.  Roll the drink, or shake briefly, just enough to mix.

While at Maple River, we were also told about another drink that wasn’t on the HoDo menu.  It was called the Rubix cube (maybe Rhubix cube?).  We haven’t tried to replicate it, but it’s also made with the rhubarb vodka, some ginger ale, and strawberry-rhubarb ice cubes.  It was good, that’s all I remember.

Tags: distillery, drinks, Fargo, fruit, local, rhubarb, vodka, wine, winery

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 17th, 2010 at 1:49 PM and is filed under recipe, review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.