CAMDEN—After all of the gifts are unwrapped, the leftovers are put away and the hoopla dies down, it’s time for the adult equivalent of that last little bit of chocolate or candy cane in the bottom of your stocking. It can be found in Old St. Nick, a deliciously frosty cocktail crafted at Hoxbill in Camden Harbor.

Beverage Director Marcus Carter collaborated on the invention of this drink just in time for the holidays.

Upon the first swig, it’s an arctic blast of peppermint, followed by the sweet crunch of candy cane and rounded out by creamy maple. Then, take a bite of gooey toasted marshmallow—the cocktail’s garnish. 

It is a jolly, jolly sip—and meant to be savored, preferably by a roaring fire.
This cocktail takes a bit of preparation. First the rim of a martini glass is dipped in melted chocolate. After putting a candy cane in a Ziploc bag and smashing it down to granules with a hammer, Carter then dips the rim a second time, so the glass comes away coated with chunky, swirly bits.

“People are loving it,” said Carter.  “It is a dessert drink, however, not typically one you’d start out with. People are coming in after they’ve had dinner at home and giving it a try. Or after a meal here,  instead of dessert, this caps off the night with a sweet finish.”
Watch the video to see how the cocktail is made. You’ll need:

• 2 oz grain vodka such as Ice Pik
• 1 oz. Vermont Ice Maple Créme
• 6 drops peppermint extract
• ½ oz. simple syrup
• ½ oz. chocolate sauce
• Toast a marshmallow and spear with garnish pick
  

 Add components into a shaker full of ice. Shake until ice crystals form and pour the drink neat, into the martini glass, and present with marshmallow.

Make the cocktail yourself this holiday week or have it made for you. Hoxbill is not open on December 25, but will be open the following day.

Related: See some of our past holiday cocktails.

Kay Stephens can be reached at [email protected]

ROCKLAND—On Wednesday, December 18, a classroom in Rockland’s  South School looked like a book sale with 4,600 children’s books filling every available table and box underneath.

The best part? Every single book was given away for free.

This is the fifth year educator Jenny West got to feel like Oprah Winfrey and do the “Favorite Things” Giveaway, in which every student from South School got to pick 10 books to keep and bring home.

“I started the Books in Every Nook program years ago because I’m a reading teacher here at South School and I was finding that many students didn’t have books in their homes,” she said. “So, to solve that problem, I came up with the idea of gathering new and used children’s books and then re-distributing them to students once a year.”

Not many people realize how much work goes on behind the scenes to do this giveaway. West spends her time year-round collecting books and a number of volunteers help her to set it up. “I get books everywhere,” she said. “I collect a lot over the summer from library book sales. I go to yard sales. I get books from local publishers and authors who donate books every year and then I get people who donate money for me to go out buy books.”

“In past years, we’d typically allow students take five books home, but we have 300 students this year, and with so many to give away,  I’m allowing them to take home 10,” said West.

In 20-minute increments, each grade assembled inside the classroom where West explained how to select a book and how many could be taken. The reaction from the students when they discovered they could select 10 this time, was to simultaneously throw their hands up in the air and cheer or jump excitedly up and down. And then, like an episode of Supermarket Sweep, the kids swarmed the tables, looking for books that interested them.

“We carefully planned this to get the books in their hands right before they took off for Christmas break,” said West.
Asked what types of books she knows how to buy for the students, she said, “They love nonfiction. They love reading about real things, especially animals. I don’t think I have a single nonfiction book about animals left and I bought a good 300 of them.”

The older grades tend to like the chapter books and more fiction titles.

The entire room organized like a library: in fiction sections, nonfiction, picture books, chapter books, poetry, biography, even a Christmas section.

At one point a 2nd grade boy walked up to West. “Do you have anything scary?” he asked.

She instructed him to search the far table. “There’s a bunch of Goosebump books over there,” she said. Delighted, he found a couple of R. L. Stine’s best sellers.

“We’ll probably give away 3,000 books today,” she said. “At the end of the school year, we do an open house and I give away the rest then for the summer break.”

Dressed like a Christmas Elf, West said, “This is my favorite day of the year. It’s so great to see that kids still love books. The first group of students that came in this morning only to discover they could keep 10 books this time—they went wild. One little girl asked me, ‘We get to keep these forever?’”

For more information about the program contact [email protected]

Kay Stephens can be reached at [email protected]

SEARSMONT—Every Saturday, Bob MacGregor, founder and president of Waldo County Woodshed, can be found with other volunteers in Searsmont from 8:30 a.m. to noon, cutting, splitting and stacking wood for the benefit of other people. For the last six years, this volunteer-run, nonprofit has made sure families in Waldo county get through the winter with enough firewood to heat their homes. Last year, they gave out 170 cords worth $40,000.

On Saturday, December 9, the group held a Wood Processing Day, a volunteer event, to make it easier for families to pick up free firewood.
Local arborist, Travis Hamilton, of Arbor Tech, contacted MacGregor and asked him if he could use ‘a bunch of arborists with saws, splitters, tractors and trucks volunteering for a day.’

MacGregor was thrilled.

“We try to have several volunteer days each season, but this time, having a group of arborists who are trained in chainsaw safety come to us—that was something new,” he said. “It was a great help to have them out there working on their own without supervision.”

Hamilton arrived with his crew of five, and 10 volunteers in all put in about six hours that Saturday sawing the wood, splitting it with three wood splitters, and stacking it into wire racks.

“We cut as much wood as we could process,” said Hamilton, noting that some people who came to collect firewood for their families  hung around afterward to help chop and stack more wood for others.

“People that need wood can just come and grab some in these quarter-cord bundles stacked up in these wire racks,” said Hamilton. “The idea is that if you take some wood, in return, just spend a little time fill up the rack for the next person. There’s a big pile  of loose cord wood nearby.”

“I had a guy mention to me the other day, ‘If I only refill one rack, you’re not getting ahead; I should fill two racks,’” recalled MacGregor.  “That’s the kind of thing I like to see as we are just a bunch of volunteers ourselves. ”

Even though there’s no pre-screening, Waldo County Woodshed has some sensible rules in place for those in need of wood to ensure that the wood distributed evenly. Those rules can be found on a pinned post on their Facebook page.

“The most important thing is to call ahead,” said MacGregor. “We have a volunteer scheduler that takes all the phone calls and directs people to the right site on the right day. By knowing how many people to expect at each site we can make sure we have enough wood and volunteers at the sites.”

You don’t need to qualify for anything,” said Hamilton. “It’s on the honor system. He’s not charging people; he’s not screening anyone. I think a couple people may have taken advantage of that in the past, but if someone needs wood that bad, Bob just says, ‘Go ahead and take it.’”

“Sometimes, we have people come each week, sometimes just enough to get them through before LIHEAP kicks in, but we just want to make sure we have enough to distribute out to everybody,” said MacGregor.

“This is the first year my crew and I volunteered,” continued Hamilton. “I would bring Bob my surplus wood from job sites. I have all the wood I can shake a stick at, literally. So, I try to give it away to people who need it, whether it’s my friends, or someone in the community.We’re a wood-rich community and people shouldn’t have to worry about staying warm. It’s important to give back, especially during the holidays. It makes us feel good that we’re able to do it.”

MacGregor said he doesn’t want to take business away from loggers and people who sell firewood for a living, so they fund-raise to buy wood from loggers and to process it, keeping everyone in business. “We do get a little bit of wood donated, but for the most part, we just prefer to buy it from loggers whatever the going rate it,” he said.

MacGregor isn’t looking for a lot of accolades. Formerly involved in the wood industry, he knows a lot of people who rely on wood heat as their primary source each winter.
“I just do it because people need help and we’re able to provide it,” he said.

Waldo County Woodshed has eight distribution sites around Waldo with Searsmont at their main yard. They will be opening another facility in Knox Count early next year at the Warren Transfer Station.

MacGregor encourages people to volunteer if they have a few hours on a Saturday morning.

“You don’t have to call ahead,” he said. “Just come out to Searsmont and we’ll find you something to do,” he said.
Donations can be made online or mailed to P.O. Box 401 Belfast. for more information visit: Waldo County Woodshed.

Kay Stephens can be reached at [email protected]