Food Guy: Cocktail Classic is back with 2 new spots; Taste of Appalachia delivers

Newcomers Hagy’s Irish Pie Pub and The Volstead Room join returning participants Sam’s Uptown Café and Fife Street Brewing for this annual fundraising event presented by Fund for the Arts, an organization that supports 11 small local arts groups.

Ticket holders that night may visit all four locations at their leisure between 4-7 p.m. to sample a signature cocktail paired with a small plate of food at each place. At the end of the night, they cast their votes to help select this year’s winners for Best Cocktail and Best Tapas.

I sampled all four pairings. There’s not a bad option in the bunch.

Newbie Hagy’s Irish Pie Pub (908 Quarrier St.) will offer a bite-size Reuben pastry stuffed with corned beef and sauerkraut served with a side of Russian dressing. It will be paired with a sweet “Rusty Plum,� featuring Drambuie — a spiced and honey-spiked Scotch liqueur — blended with allspice and plum juice that has been cooked down, pureed and strained, with a dried pear garnish.

Just around the corner, The Volstead Room (209 Dickinson St.) will answer with a plate of creamy spinach, goat cheese and ricotta toasts with lemon, parsley, garlic and prosciutto served with a “Pear Fire Revere.� That lovely light libation mixes housemade toasted pear and rosemary syrup with prosecco, club soda and expressed lemon oil with a rosemary sprig and sliced pear.

While those are two noble additions this year, they’re up against some stiff competition.

Fife Street Brewing (180 Summers St.) is back for its second year with a tahini and honey-marinated grilled chicken thigh and charred veggie kabob with lemon and garlic confit over orzo. That Mediterranean-inspired dish is accompanied by a bright and nutty “Orzata Spritz� with Tito’s vodka, almond syrup, lemon seltzer and fresh lemon.

And the O.G. Sam’s Uptown Café (28 Capitol St.) will attempt to defend its 2024 Best Tapas crown with a hard-to-beat beef tenderloin smothered with mushroom sauce over a crispy potato cake with glazed carrots and toasted bread. This hearty fall beef dish was great, and it paired nicely with the “Kalimotxo� served alongside it.

Known as one of Lady Gaga’s favorite drinks and made famous on TikTok, this mix of red wine, Coca-Cola and maraschino cherries (which Sam’s replaced with lemon) is a popular way in the Basque region of Spain to make a quick sangria.

So after sampling all four food-and-drink pairings, what’s The Food Guy’s verdict?

Sam’s savory beef dish and Fife’s bright lemony cocktail will be hard to beat. But the real winner will be the 11 local arts groups that benefit from the funds raised that night.

“It’s such a fun way to help support the arts,� said Sarah Wright, executive director for Fund for the Arts, who joined me for the tastings. “I think people will be really excited about the new offerings.�

West Virginia products in the spotlight

I also had fun tasting old favorites and discovering new flavors at Advantage Valley’s Taste of Appalachia food showcase at J.Q. Dickinson Salt-Works in Malden last Thursday.

Designed to support local food producers, guests sampled, purchase and ordered specially curated gift baskets featuring West Virginia-made products from nine counties.

During the event, I spoke with owner Michael Ervin from Coal River Coffee Company in St. Albans, roasters of one of my absolute favorite coffees: the “Hello Darkness, My Old Blendâ€� collaboration sold and served at Mea Cuppa locations in ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä.

I made new friends like Rick & Connie Martin, owners of We B Fryin Snacks in ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä, makers of one of my new favorite snacks: WheatOs! Looking and tasting like pork rinds, their pork-free alternatives are made with wheat, giving you all of the crunch and flavor without a greasy aftertaste.

They come in lots of flavors — smoky bacon, BBQ, hot and spicy, ranch, cinnamon and more — but I was intrigued how the new pizza version finishes with the distinctive taste of that last bite of pizza crust.

I munched on meatballs baked in original and spicy dark sauce made by Dark Hollow Foods in Dunbar and nibbled on chicken bites slathered tasty barbeque sauces made by Tipsy Roo’s in ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä.

And I sipped on a zippy peach thyme spritzer made with Alderson’s JarHead Farms peach syrup and enjoyed an Old Fashioned with Alum Creek’s Ronk Family Farms cinnamon-infused maple syrup.

Plus there was an array of jams, jellies, sauces, salsas, honeys, butters, fruits, snacks, salts, mixes and more. So in addition to enjoying a nice evening, I got a great jump-start on my holiday shopping. Win-win!

Gift boxes filled with products featured at the event range in price from $30-55 and can be purchased online through Oct. 17 at tasteofappalachia.com.