Welby Family On Fleek – Pacific Northwest Fall 2017 – Day 1 (9/22/17) – Seattle (travel day)

Patrick flew in from Chicago and Jim, Laura and Allison flew in from Minneapolis and we amazingly showed up at the SeaTac baggage claim at the same moment. We took an Uber to our hotel (Crowne Plaza) in downtown Seattle. Our room had a pretty cool view – 22nd story helped that out.

We were pretty hungry so we headed to lunch at Ferry Noodle House – a Thai restaurant. Food was good, but the Thai Iced Coffee was the best!

We walked to the Seattle’s Pike Place Market. We had a snack/dessert from Piroshky Piroshky. What I like about their treats is that they are not too sweet and they are original.

We then headed over to Cloudburst Brewery for a cold beverage. I had an Everything’s Pine which was a nice flavorful IPA without tasting like an arm pit (Welby family code for too hoppy). Per the web site it is an IPA with Chinook, Cascade, Idaho 7 and Simcoe hops. The space has a shabby chic ambience. It was crowded on a Friday afternoon, but that gave it a festive feel too. We then headed back to the hotel for some quiet time.

Once rejuvenated, we headed over to Westland Distillery for some fine American single malt. Westland’s gimmick is to make the American equivalent of Scotch. They do a fine job with it. Their space is quite amazing. We hit them at a quiet time and so it was like having a private tasting. We each ordered a flight of whiskey neat and Laura ordered a flight of their cocktails. Everything was great, but my favorite was Cask #448 which was their equivalent of an Islay. Per our bartender it is made with 100% Baird’s heavily peaked Scotch Barley and aged 4 years in a Buffalo Trace (Bourbon) cask. It was cask strength at 117.2 proof. It had a nice smoky flavor and despite the cask strength it was smooth. We had some pretty cool snacks: smoked salmon, some kind of shredded pork held together with bacon fat – it was kind of pork pâté (pork rillettes), cheese and crackers. It paired beautifully with the whiskey. If you are a fan of the brown juice, I highly recommend the Westland. This was by far the highlight of the day.

We headed to Von’s 1000 Spirits Gustobistro for dinner. We had a couple of pizzas and some mac and cheese. Their speciality is sourdough. Both the pizza crust and the mac was sourdough based. The food was great and we were all stuffed. Their other speciality is small batch spirits, but after Westland we chose beer with dinner. After a long day and knowing we were going to have an early morning, we hit the hay.