Some Yoga, Some Healing, Some Learning, Some Tasting

Typically my eats are pretty standard: a green smoothie for breakfast, a salad for lunch and something fun for dinner with a glass or two or wine. But this day? This day was weird.
First, the night before my stomach wasn’t feeling so great, and I woke up to some serious unpleasantness. (Details aren’t necessary, but I’m guessing I had gluten somewhere … ) So, I decided to have something pretty basic and bland — and starchy. Gluten-free bread with an egg to the rescue. And, yes, the only way to make gluten-free bread tasty is to drown it in olive oil and then brown it à la grilled cheese. It’s fabulous this way.

Following a few hours of work, I took a little break from writing and editing and popped in one of my favorite yoga DVDs. You can never go wrong with Rodney Yee. Ever. And this Power Yoga routine is 30 minutes — just long enough to zen, but short enough to fit in your day. I’ve done it easily 100 times and pretty much have it memorized, even the super hippity-dippity parts (Lie in the ocean … lie in the sand … be with those you love … be with the earth).

Seeing that I just got this, I haven’t been able to do any workouts that require socks or supportive footwear of any kind for about a week. So lots of yoga it has been, which has been really nice. Gotta let my ink heal!

After yoga I was a little hungry. Good thing I had “make a video with dog where we both try an energy bar” on my to-do list. The full review is to come up on FBG tomorrow for Fit Bottomed Pets Week, but Siena and I both thought that these were pretty darn good. Especially the Banana Peanut Butter flavor. I had a few more bites of that one after our “work” was over.

After doing a little more work, it was clearly lunch time. After the FBG retreat, I had a lot of odds and ends in the fridge and in the pantry, so lunch was a little bit of everything! Cucumber, grape tomatoes, turkey, avocado and some wickedly good dried Fuji apples that were a total impulse purchase that totally worked out.

After lunch, it was back to the grind, and then knowing that I was going to a special event with Karen in the evening, I decided to nosh on a protein bar just before leaving the house late that afternoon. At different events you just never know what they’re going to have for eats, and I certainly didn’t want to be ready to chew my arm off.

And the event was awesome! It was at Dark Horse Distillery in Lenexa, Kan. I’d never toured or tasted at a distillery before, so I was pretty geeked.

Karen always goes to the coolest things — happy I get to tag along! This one was all about taking charge of your financial power. Roar.

The distillery doubles as an event space and tasting area, and it was seriously cool.

We grabbed a cocktail made with the house (Dark Horse) vodka and soon started a tour of the facility.

I’ve done some beer and wine tours before, but it was fascinating to learn how they make craft liquors. So much thought and testing goes into it. Truly a science — and an art. These guys were passionate about what they do.

They answered tons of our questions, too. Three of my favorite facts about Dark Horse Distillery: They’re a family-owned business local to Kansas City (yay — love that!); they distribute mainly to the Midwest but are now getting interest out in New York; and they can confirm that although they use grains and corn for their alcohol, there is no gluten in the end product. Victory. Especially since I had already had one of their cocktails.

After the tour, we got to taste!

We tasted all of these, plus their Rider Vodka. All of them were good, but Reunion Rye Whiskey was definitely my favorite. It was so smooth and almost creamy with a spiciness to it that was really nice. Definitely not a mixer — have it neat for the full flavor experience!

Feeling pretty good now, Karen and I hit the buffet and settled in for the presentation on Women, Money and Power.

I sadly scarfed mine down before remembering to snap a photo, but I snagged the meat from the mini sandwiches, some tapenade and artichokes with some tortilla chips, and a couple of massive chocolate-covered strawberries.

Yep, quite the random day of meals and snacks, but I was happy that my stomach issues were just a morning blip! And I left feeling more empowered about my finances and with a new favorite local whiskey!
Have you ever been on a distillery tour? Into your local craft liquor scene? —Jenn