Pennsylvania: the Vodka Capital of Pennsylvania

Last year around this time, Pittsburgh-area distillers Barry Young and Prentice Orr busted out their Boyd & Blair Potato Vodka to uniformly positive reviews.  The key to Young and Orr’s delicious results are the local potatoes they use to create Boyd & Blair. They’ve been shipping out cases for a year now, and can be [...]

JEO’s PA Google Challenge #1: no matter where you are, PA is right there.

Pennsylvaniaphiles, please pardon again our pause. It’s not that my love of the greatest state ever has waned, it’s just that I’ve been wildly busy. I was talking today to our loyal PA blogger JEO today, and he issued the following challenge: he gives me a page/entry Google coordinate, and I load “Pennsylvania” into Google [...]

Marysylvania? No, I prefer Pennsyland.

So, you may have noticed the cavalier attitude I’ve taken lately when it comes to antagonizing other states. I assume you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have, so I’m going to keep going with it. Today’s mark: Maryland.
You may know Baltimore as a land of murder (2nd in nation – 1st in 2004) manslaughter [...]

Pennsylvania is for Railfans!

I recently paid a visit to West Brownsville to make a pilgrimage of sorts. West Brownsville is home to one of the longest stretches of street running in the US. Street running is the term used when a section of railroad operates right on a regular street, sharing space with automotive traffic. In West Brownsville, [...]

one for the PA map-o-philes

If you are a big map nerd like me, you might enjoy browsing the map files at Historical Maps of Pennsylvania. The site contains scans and photos of maps of the general region going back to the 16th century, before Pennsylvania was actually Pennsylvania, as well as post-statehood maps. There are road maps, geologic maps, [...]

Hiya Coal Cracker Brudders!

Well, not to try to one-up the yinzers, (is that even possible?) but I had a similar dialect collision this summer. The ill health of my great-grandmother had me making a lot of visits to coal country earlier in the year. For those of you who don’t know the area, the only thing harder than [...]

Having a Cow, Man.

So, you may have seen the “Happy cows come from California” commercials, where the cows talk and flirt will bulls and argue with ducks and whatnot. Yeah. I’m sure you’d agree it’s one of the most ridiculous premises around. No, not the talking beasts and fowl – the fact that anyone would argue cows in [...]

Fungus Amongus

Other than the dead of winter (though even then, sometimes), if you look hard enough, Pennsylvania is crawling with edible fungus. From morels to chanterelles, hen of the woods to pheasants back, oyster mushrooms to lobster mushrooms, Penn’s Woods are a mycophagist’s smorgasbord.
First, the business end of the operation: DON’T EAT FUNGUS IF YOU DON’T [...]

Sam vs. The Pony

“From the glass lined tanks of Old Latrobe, we tender this premium beer for your enjoyment as a tribute to your good taste. It comes from the mountain springs to you.“
Pure poetry, or a web of lies?
Like the gritty steel workers in “The Deer Hunter,” I remember my grandfather kicking back a few greenies after [...]

The Amazing PA Game Living In Your Wallet

Bored? Distracted? In a meeting? Maybe this is time to test your Commonwealth skills. You’ll need paper (or in a pinch, your arm), a writing implement, and a PA drivers license.
There are 67, yes, 67 counties in Pennsylvania. (Of course, I didn’t need to tell you, as you still remember that fact from fourth grade.) [...]