It looks like a road to nowhere.
You check your GPS more than once, "can this be right?"
We were checking out some foodie places on Maui, and following directions to the organic vodka and award winning goat cheese farm.
However, this road is decidedly rural... nothing but fields of sugar cane, a couple trees, mountains ahead and clouds above.
Wait a second...
Ah ha, this looks promising.
Turn in!
Driveway curves around with lots of fun signs.
This is looking better all the time.
The view of the distillery gardens and outdoor tasting room.
Fresh pineapple.... wait...
It's not much bigger than a hand grenade. Seriously, the smallest pineapple I have ever seen.
The view from the top is spectacular as you look towards the center of Maui from the slopes of Haleakalā.
Over 50 kinds of sugar cane grown here, who knew there were so many?
They won't tell you which varieties they use to make their vodka, or their rum.
I guess that's a good idea, but really I can't even grow tomatoes, I hardly think I will be making a batch of vodka any time soon from sugar cane grown in Washington state.
Thomas, the distillery cat.The nicest cat ever. What a love.
Inside the bottle house, filling the little bottles. Fun to see the operation.
Not sure about this contraption, corker and plastic seal... I think.
But better than any fancy machine:
Here's one of the recipe's they hand out:
Firecracker Cocktail
1 1/2 oz Ocean vodka
2 oz mango juice
1/3 inch red jalapeno, diced
Squeeze of lime
Muddle the jalapeno in the bottom of a glass. Fill with ice. In a shaker (also filled with ice pour mango juice, vodka and lime juice. Shake and strain into an ice filled glass with the jalapeno in it. Serve.
Their statement bottle, such a pretty color.
Just up the street, not far from the middle of nowhere, is another place worth a stop.
Surfing Goat Dairy. We had a little cheese tasting, ordered a couple of grilled goat cheese panini's and enjoyed the sun. We arrived too late for a tour, but thoroughly enjoyed ourselves anyway.
Some little goats in the nursery area.
This lady was exceedingly popular with the kids.
Today, I am embracing my inner lazy girl and shamelessly plugging my cupcake idea using ALL MIXES.
Yep, I'm okay with it.
I needed to bring treats... and I was DOG tired.
I could have stopped for a Costco sheet cake, but that's not the same.
I had the Ghiradelli brownie mix (the big one with 6 mixes from Costco), a strawberry Duncan Hines cake mix and two tubs of cream vanilla frosting.
Here's what I did...
Brownie bottoms
Strawberry cake tops
Fluffy Vanilla icing
Make up brownie mix according to instructions.
First, a small scoop of brownie batter. I used a 1 oz cookie scoop, but you could "eyeball" it. It should be roughly 1/3 of your batter.
Make up strawberry cake mix according to instructions.
Next, top with your strawberry cake batter. I used a 2 oz cookie scoop.
Bake at 350 for about 20-25 minutes. Set the time for about 10 minutes and rotate the pans, reset your timer for the remaining 10 minutes and check again. Give it another 5 minutes, if needed. If you have a convection oven, use that as your cupcakes will bake more uniformly.
NOTE- Make sure your cupcakes are cooked through. Because I didn't rotate my pans mid way, I ended up with the top pan with some undercooked cupcakes.... bummer.
Let cool completely.
Whip up the tub of frosting until they are light and fluffy... you could use it right out of the tub, but it's kind of solid and too sweet. If you whip it up, it seems not so sugary. Or make your own frosting, I like this Stable Whip Cream Frosting.
Decorate with sprinkles, or even a slice of strawberry.
Need some other ideas for cake mixes?
German Chocolate Dump Cake
Thomas, the distillery cat.The nicest cat ever. What a love.
