DAY TRIPPER TRIPPER I was fascinated when I heard about Katonahgrown Chris Weld. Son of a teacher at Rippowam Cisqua, Chris recalls “It was such a great area to be a kid, and it seemed like a different time. I was always getting my hands dirty; gardening with my father and making grape jelly with my mother. My dad used to take us fishing and hunting on his friend’s large property in South Salem, where 10 acre gravel pits had filled with water - and some pretty big fish! At 14, we had a family rule: don’t drive more than five miles from home, and do not cross route 35.” Chris attended Millbrook, and then Skidmore College, and went on to a 15 year career as an Emergency/Trauma Physicians Assistant in California, working in the ‘knife and gun club’ emergency departments’ of the Bay area.
DAY TRIPPER TRIPPER THE BERKSHIRES
BY Casey Kaplan
CASEY TOURS BERKSHIRE MOUNTAIN DISTILLERS AND THE PASS, A LEGAL MARIJUANA RETAILER, IN SHEFFIELD, THEN VISITS STOCKBRIDGE TO SEE THE NORMAN ROCKWELL MUSEUM AND HAVE DINNER AND AN OVERNIGHT AT THE RED LION INN 70
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...Then, in 2004, he and his wife Tyler and kids moved just north of the Connecticut/ Massachusetts border to the Berkshires, to live on a farm with historic spring waters, to enjoy things like hiking on the Appalachian trail and the fruit trees - both right in their backyard. Although Chris had dabbled in spirits in the past (an 8th grade moonshine project that his mother had shut down), in 2007 Chris became a pioneer in the craft distilling movement, and started Berkshire Mountain Distillers...which, almost 15 years later, is a renowned small-batch craft distiller of gin, vodka, whiskey and bourbon. Among other accolades, Berkshire Mountain Distillers has had their Greylock gin named the #1 craft gin in the Country by the New York Times, and won Jim Murry’s gold medal for their bourbon, been named a James Beard nominee, and has even made custom gins for Blue Hill Stone Barns, and Union Square Hospitality Group (Danny Meyer’s restaurant group). ...And in 2017, when recreational marijuana was legalized in Massachusetts, and taking advantage of Sheffield’s just-over-the-border closest-drivingdistance-to-Fairfield/Westchester/NYC location, Chris co-founded The Pass (just three miles up Route 7 from the Distillery)...which is now a vertically integrated business (they grow, process, produce, brand, market and sell their own products, as well as selling other branded and licensed products in their Sheffield retail location) selling marijuana flower, oil, tinctures, and edibles (gummies, chocolates, etc.) in a wide variety of strains, flavors and potencies.
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