Wed 9/6 – 4-9 PM – In keeping with our Thursday Native American Cocktails, we will be offering a Native American Punch $5 special: Fresh Cranberries, Fresh Rosemary, Sparkling Moscato topper, and CB Frost. A wonderful early fall drink with notes of fruit and spice.
Thurs 9/7 – 4-9 PM – Wealthier folks from the Charleston (formerly Charles Town) area found the Western North Carolina mountains to be the place to visit in the summer months. The mountains offered cooler summers, less mosquitos, and other insects, as well as beautiful greenery and mountain streams, all making their summer stay the place to be in hot weather. But generations before their entry, the Cherokee had discovered this paradise and developed their own path from their coastal villages into the cool and inviting mountains of Western North Carolina. They followed trails worn by bison, bear, deer and other wildlife searching for food, water, salt licks and shelter. Later the trails will be followed by the early colonists as they also trekked the 300-mile trail from Charleston to Western North Carolina and into their Cherokee hunting grounds in Cherokee, NC. The trail also was intersected by other trails of the Cherokee from Tennessee, Virginia, and northern Georgia. The game was plentiful, and the mountains offered a safe haven but that will also change later as the Colonists continued to intrude into the Indian lands and ignore the many treaties that followed, leaving the Cherokee with a small portion of their summer hunting lands which today we call “Cherokee.” One of the areas of the trail around Ninety-Six, SC became an important meeting place where Chiefs and Government officials met, negotiated, signed treaties or deeds. Ninety-Six became a major trading and political center, protected after 1779 protected by a garrisoned fort called Fort Star with many forts sprouting up between 1740 and 1800 into the mountains. In 1968 Duke Power flooded Keowee Town to create a power station on what is now Keowee Lake, and the Cherokee path was lost. The information offered here was the result of the amazing couple, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Hale, who had retired to area and Arthur being an engineer with the Department of Transportation would each week explore the former location of the trail, trying to determine exactly where it ran and how much of it remains. Included is his suggestion as to the path. Their pamphlet was published by the Polk County Historical Association in Columbus, NC.
Native American drinks; Angry Indian – CB Frost, Calvados, Gin, Rum, Cointreau, lime-orange-cranberry juice; Cherokee Tea – CB Frost, Sassafras tea; Native Mint Tea – Leblon, Mint, Club Soda; Cherokee Cider – Keeper Apple Brandy, Lemon Juice, Simple Syrup, Maple Syrup; 1/2 Price on Fruit/Infused flight