Cuisine
DECEMBER 2020
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HOW MUCH
T H E A R T FA R M
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SUGAR & SASSAFRAS
PUT IN YOUR GUMBO?
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“When you’re walking through the farm, you hear the cows and horses hollerin’ at ya, saying ‘feed me!’” John described, “It takes the blood pressure JUST DOWN THE ROAD, AN IMAGINATIVE ESCAPE AT SUGAR FARMS’ ISTROUMA BREWERY down.” The couple also keeps a pen Story by Jordan LaHaye Fontenot • Photos by Alexandra Kennon of goats and sheep, visible from the brewery’s courtyard atop a three-story playground. Though the farm does reside in the heart of sugarcane country, less than five miles away from the LSU Audubon Sugar Institute, John’s focus is primarily on raising livestock, and the name comes from a place more sentimental than strategic. “Growing up in our families, when we get a lot of love and kisses, we call it sugar,” he explained. “People think sugar cane, but it’s really just some lovin’.” The brewery was born as a combination of John’s interest in homebrewing and cuisine, and the couple’s desire to share their beautiful property with others. “We wanted this to be a place where people can create their own stories,” he said. Officially opened on October 16, the Sugar Farms complex includes the Feed & Seed eatery, a farmto-table pizza and taco kitchen operating out of a 1955 Spartan Royal Mansion trailor; the Cattle Drive-In “Moovie” Theatre, which debuted with a showing of Dracula (1931) on its thirty-foot screen on Halloween; and of course the Istrouma Brewing Company, a familyfriendly taproom and courtyard scattered n perhaps one of for our Thursday afternoon reunion LSU Football experience. Together, they with local art, antiques, and yard games. South Louisiana’s was the opening of the region’s newest also created a Louisiana children’s multi“We feel that we have created an ‘art most gorgeous days brewery: John and Joanna Haynes’ media platform called The Gumbo Gang farm,’” said John. “The arts take place of this godforsaken Istrouma Brewing. Creative brews on Boogie Bayou, which uses animation, in many ways—painting, photography, year, the four members of the Country made with locally-sourced ingredients television, and video games to educate on film, food, beer.” With bocce, a lifeRoads editorial team convened in the we expected—this is hardly our first nutrition and exercise. sized chess board, Connect Four, a ping little river town of St. Gabriel. Though microbrewery feature. But the longhorns “We loved telling stories together pong table, a couple of screens to check it’s just enough off the beaten path to were a bit of a surprise. through our art and our film and the local scores, and a Bark Park, Sugar convince someone they’ve wandered “We wanted our children to grow television projects,” said John. “We Farms—John emphasized—is meant to far, far from home, Sugar Farms is up on a gravel road,” said John, a Baton wanted our children to have the space to be a place for “kids of all ages.” only a twenty-minute drive from our Rouge native best known for his work create their own little stories.” As for the four kids aged twenty-three Baton Rouge office. Of course, in this as a nationally-renowned contemporary Moving to Sugar Farms ten years ago to fifty-one sitting out in the courtyard year’s move to work-from-home, it’s painter. With his wife Joanna, he also was a dream fulfilled for the couple. that Thursday night—after ogling a become increasingly rare for the four founded Wish Picture Shows, producing Since the move, John’s paintings, piano-turned-table with five vintage of us to gather in person at all, and on several documentary films, including a which have been described as “more barber’s chairs as seating and the clarinets this afternoon we each made around an feature (narrated by Trace Adkins) on the like memories of a place, a sound, or used as light fixtures—we were ready to hour’s drive from our respective home 1960s boxing champion Billy ‘The Kid’ motion,” have shifted in subject matter get our hands on the beer. Three of us offices in St. Francisville, New Orleans, Roth called The Dance (2003) and Ole from motifs of clotheslines, ceiling fans, started with sours, my cohorts ordering Mandeville, and Scott. War Skule: The Story of Saturday Night and pianos to tractors, chickens, oil rigs, the POG (standing for Passionfruit, The occasion, or perhaps excuse, (2011), which details the history of the and—naturally—longhorns. Orange, and Guava) and the Lena Lei,
Gimme Some Sugar
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