Welcome to our collection of recipes, lore, and favorite stories from all of us at the Smokehaus. We hope you find something interesting and useful to add to your food journey.
So, you've got yourself a beautiful fillet of smoked salmon, and your guests are scheduled to arrive soon. What next? Time to score that salmon! Here's a simple way to get the perfect bite-sized portions.
With a serrated knife, cut horizontally along the side of the salmon fillet.
With a serrated knife, cut vertically from top to bottom of the fillet.
Garnish salmon fillet with herb, citrus, & crackers.
All flat-rate continental shipping outside the Midwest is now $58. The secret is out—nationwide, people have recognized the excellent quality of our smoked fish and meats. For as long as we have been able to, we’ve offered the lowest possible flat-rate shipping prices we could—often less than the true cost of shipping the packages. The reality is, we’re not a large corporation, with shipping centers nationwide; we’re a small, family-owned company in the Midwest. In order to keep shipping our products coast to coast, we’ve adjusted our shipping rates to reflect the distance and means by which they must travel. As of October 14th, 2019 our flat-rate shipping rates are as follows:
Minnesota $18
‘Midwest’ $24
Continental $58
Hawaii, and Alaska $65
Non-perishable items $16
This week has been one of triumph, of heartbreak, of new beginnings.
To get the heartbreak out of the way, I misinformed our readers last week, this Monday was not the return of D&D to the Smokehaus. I know you are all super invested in this, so I'm sorry for playing with your emotions like that.
Please accept this photo of assorted battle miniatures as an apology—
And some ketchup exploded in our dry storage. It fell, for unknown reasons, although there is some speculation that our former General Manager Mary's visit—which eerily coincided with the fall and resulting explosion of the ketchup—dredged up feelings of abandonment from the DeWitt-Seitz ghost.
Messy as it was, it wasn't an entirely bad occurrence—it inspired a deep clean of the affected area, which was probably due. A good deep-clean is rarely a bad idea.
Now on to the triumph and new beginnings!
We've come to the last leg of our 2019 Sandwich Lab Journey! The G.O.A.T. debuted on Wednesday, October 2nd. We've sold a grip of them already. For more words on this, check out the announcement post.
We also launched our Fall Wine List. Read more about our new wine offerings here. As someone who most often buys bottles of wine based on the aesthetic value of their labels, I would probably buy at least three of these. In the flavor category, however, these are all winners. TK is dedicated to bringing a unique selection of fine natural wines to the Smokehaus each season, so dedicated grapeheads (that's what they're called, right?) should take note.
Who made this salad? Whose salad is this?
Next Monday (10/7), we officially launch our New & Improved Happy Hour. Monday through Friday, from 4-7pm, we're offering $2 Pabst Blue Ribbons and $1-off any craft brews, ciders, and adult-seltzers. Technically, you can grab a happy hour drink at those prices today, we're just waiting until Monday, October 7th to go crazy on the cross-platform promotion.
Patricia made spicy cheddar crackers using Gochugaru chile flakes, a component of our kimchi recipe that offers a warm spice with fruity and smoky tones—The Smoky Tones is also the name of our in-Haus vocal jazz group, coming eventually to an orchestra hall near you. The heat of these crackers has a slow onset, with a lingering mild burn on the back of the tongue. Patricia is still cranking out plain cheddar crackers for our Study Buddy gift box, but has also been experimenting with bacon cheddar crackers, and now these. If you haven't yet, give our haus-baked crackers a taste. As long as they keep flying off the shelves, we'll presumably get more variations on the classic recipe.
Pay no attention to the byline. This primer to our new seasonal selection of natural wines is the work of TK, our wine guy, unfiltered, with no added sulfites.
La Patience, Blanc is a blend of grenache blanc, chardonnay, and vermentino grapes (all white grapes). It comes from the Rhone River Valley in the south of France, close to the Mediterranean Sea. This wine is certified organic in its farm and cellar practices. 2018 Vin de France.
Tasting notes of golden raisins, ripe pear, and honeysuckle, medium acidity.
Great with the Great Summer Caper, Saucisson Sec, Whitefish & Herring, Pork Lion, Big Dipper, Spring Roll, Comté cheese, Hidden Falls cheese, Prairie Breeze cheddar.
Served chilled. $7 BTG / $30 BTB—750 mL bottle
Pullus is made from 100% pinot gris grape and is a dry wine. Pullus is a skin-contact white wine, meaning that during maceration (the crushing of the grapes while the juices start to ferment) the skin of the grapes are left in with the juice for up to 72 hours, giving the wine a hue ranging from copper to hay. This process is characteristic of central Europe and over the past few years has seen a resurgence in the natural wine world. Pullus is produced in the oldest winery in Slovenia, Ptujska Klet winery, in the city of Ptuj. Wine produced in this region dates back to the Romans. 2018 vintage.
Tasting notes of crisp citrus, pear, dry minerality and complexity coming from the extended skin contact of the grapes.
Great with the Cold Turkey, Clubhaus, NWS Salad, Fuzzy Bunny, Gorilla, any of our dry cured salumi, Whitefish & Herring, dill salmon, Bent River Camembert, Sogn Tomme.
Serve chilled. $6.5 BTG / $28 BTB—750 mL bottle
La Boutanche Gamay. You may be familiar withLa Boutanche from the Trollinger, a wine we carried from August into the early Fall. Welcome—from the Beaujolais region in the Rhone River Valley of west central France (just north of Lyon)—La Boutanche’s Gamay . This is a 100% gamay grape and very much an all-day drinker (glou glou). Each winemaker from the La Boutanche collective has their own animal “deity” as their labels. The Hawaiian shirt wearing-sweaty pig belongs to French winemaker Olivier Minot. 2018.
Tasting notes that are light to medium bodied, tart fruit forward cherries, while soft tannins of black tea round out this delicious gem.
Pairs excellently with the Sitka Sushi, Spring Roll, Fuzzy Bunny, Slammin’ Gordon, Bahn Faux Mi, Big Dipper, and the Hedonist. Also fantastic with all of our salumi, especially the pepperoni and chorizo. As for cheese, goes great with our Blue Earth Brie, Hidden Falls, Friesago, Camembert, Comté.
$7 BTG / $43 BTB—1 L Bottle
Tamí is 100% Nero d’Avola, an idigenous grape from Sicily, Italy. 2017. Where to start with this one? Arianna Occhipinti made her first vintage in 2006 at age 24. She debuted at a wine expo in Italy and blew everyone away. Super long and great story short, she graduated from university then went back to study viticulture and found herself arguing against all her professors. At this time in the early 2000’s, it was very common practice to use pesticides and non-indigenous grapes in the wine world. Rewind a few years back, her uncle had been making wine the natural way for his whole life and when she was 16 she helped him during harvest and since then, she understood that growing grapes naturally and being in-sync with nature, the grapes would produce the most reflective terroir possible.
Arianna has become a prominent figure for a new generation of winemakers in Sicily and furthermore globally.
Tasting notes of juicy, cooked black cherry and berries with a little bit of woodsiness. Refreshing and medium bodied with nice acidity, salinity, and soft but prominent tannins.
Pairs extremely well with the Big Dipper, Italianesk, salamini & all dry cured meats, Black Pepper and Coriander salmon, Great Summer Caper, Pastrami Mommy, Purple Range, King candy. Cheeses it would complement include Sogn Tome, Camembert, and Friesago.
$7.5 BTG / $34 BTB—750 ml bottle
Looking for natural wine in liquor stores in Duluth? Check the bottles for one of these three importers: Selection Massale, Jenny & Francois, & Louis/Dressner.
