Museum | SocialVino

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Hops & Props was a beer festival that was held on February 8th. The event took place at the Cradle of Aviation Museum which is located on Charles Lindberg Boulevard in Garden City, Long Island.

The event featured 100+ craft beer and cider scattered throughout the galleries of the museum.

The Cradle of Aviation Museum is dedicated to the history of flight with galleries showcasing exhibits from the first hot air balloons to the space program. The museum houses many restored World War II fighter planes as well as an authentic Apollo-era lunar module. That lunar module was built by the Grumman Corp. which is based in nearby Bethpage and was scheduled to fly to the moon on the Apollo 18 mission. That mission was cancelled and the craft is now on exhibit in the museum. It was a cool venue to have a beer fest.

The museum sits on the Hempstead plains, a flat and treeless (at the beginning of the 20th century at least) part of central Nassau county on Long Island which made it a natural airfield. At the dawn of the aviation age, many flight schools and flying clubs made their homes in the area. Charles Lindbergh’s took off on his famous 1927 transatlantic flight from nearby Roosevelt Field which is now a shopping mall.

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This Past weekend I attended a couple of wine and cocktail events. Saturday evening I made my way to the Cradle of Aviation museum in Garden City Long Island for the Taste of Flight wine expo. It’s promoted as the “largest wine event on Long Island”. I attended the event last year which was held in the afternoon. It’s a great space for an event, the museum is full of real military aircraft, many from World War 2. This was a consumer event and like a lot of consumer events, the wines were at mid-level range.

On Sunday I attended the Bloody Mary Festival held at Industry City which is a very minimalist event space on the waterfront in Sunset Park Brooklyn. A dozen local bars and restaurants poured their versions of the drink. It was a young crowd who where enjoying themselves though I have to say that this Bloody Mary event wasn’t as polished as the Bloody Mary event I attended at L’Apicio restaurant last February.

Some of what I sampled: At the museum

Angry Orchard “Strawman” Farmhouse Cider. From the Ciderhouse collection of this company’s cider lineup, in a Champagne bottle with a cork with wood aging and special fermentation techniques. Drank like a nice white wine.

Bernard-Massard Brut. Sparking wine from Luxembourg. A first for me and not too shabby, dry and crisp.

2013 Notorious Pink Grenache Rosé

2013 L’Escargot Rosé

Bocelli Processco

2013 Matanzas Creek Sauvignon Blanc

2013 Cambria Estate Chardonnay “Katherine’s Vineyard”

2013 Cambria Estate Pinot Noir “Julia’s Vineyard”

2012 Freemark Abbey Merlot

2011 Freemark Abbey Cabernet Sauvignon

2011 Matanzas Creek Merlot

2006 Bertani Amarone (Outlier wine)

2010 Fontanafredda Barolo Serrralunga d’Alba

2013 Pietro Di Campo Barbera “Silenzio”

2011 Masciarelli Montepulciano D’Abruzzo

2013 Borsao Garnacha

At the Bloody Mary Event:

My favorite of the day a Bloody made with White Pike Whiskey, it had a nice tang to it with a touch of heat at the end. Others I sampled from local eateries:

Travel Bar Catfish

Cain’s Tavern Char No. 4

Lucky Luna Mominette

Bloody Mary Liberation Party

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Hops & Props

Aviation Wine & Bloody Mary’s