Monday food and liquor news
By OWEN MORRIS
Some random news from over the weekend:
— Less than a month after filing for bankruptcy, Mother Archway Cookies has declared it’s selling off all its assets and closing down for good. Mother Archway Cookies was the parent company of Archway Cookies, whose goods are currently sold in all major grocery stores in the area.
This news hits especially close to home for me because Archway made the iced oatmeal cookies that were a staple of my school-box lunches. Sure, other companies made them (I could tell how tight my parents’ budget was by if the cookies were Always Save or Archway), but Archway’s were the best — crispy without being dry. Archway made a variety of timeless children’s classics such as the original circus animal cookie, which is what the The New York Times is lamenting today. It says people are already starting to order online and stock up on favorites.
I just went to my local grocery store, where Archway circus animals and iced oatmeal were both on the shelf. I grabbed two bags of each. I am well-positioned to make a tidy profit if these things — along with the half-eaten bag of the circus animal cookies in Halloween colors I got on a midnight whim last week — ever become valuable. If not, I can go to the nearest elementary school and trade them for a couple of juice boxes and pb&js.
— KC Beer Blog is reporting that Boulevard Brewery winter seasonal Nutcracker Ale is now available in local liquor stores. This creates a wonderful little window where stores start stocking up on Nutcracker while the unsold inventory of Bob’s 47 remains on the shelves as well before the last of it quickly gets bought up.
In Boulevard Smokestack news, my liquor store source(s) are saying that after several delays pushing back the Bourbon Barrel Quadrupel, Boulevard is now pushing up the release date to sometime around Thanksgiving. No official word from the Brewery and since this release has changed dates more times than a Neil Young concert, I wouldn’t count on it being at the Thanksgiving table.
On a brighter note, it appears that the Saison-Brett roll-out is nearly complete in Kansas City. Picking up a six-pack of Zima on Friday (it went with my costume) I checked to see if the liquor store had the Saison-Brett. It did and was keeping it in two locations: on the beer rack at room temperature and with the chilled white wine, where it did not look out of place. After all, it is 750 ml — the size of a normal bottle of wine.
