In Canneto sull'Oglio, a small town in the province of Mantua, there is a small church where the walls are covered in thousands of photographs of the dead. 

The Church of Santa Croce was built between 1697 and 1745, as an ex-voto following the plague of 1630 that halved the population of the village. In 1810, to comply with Habsburg laws prohibiting intra muros burial, a new cemetery came into operation, depriving the inhabitants of the proximity of their dead. However, the latter decided to bring their memory back inside the village to the Church of Santa Croce.

The first tombstones to be placed there were those of wealthier families, while the poor used simpler and less expensive things, often built by themselves. The church became filled with embroidered pictures, drawings, and wreaths of flowers. 

Around the end of the 19th century, they began to display photographs of the faces of their loved ones on the walls. There are old people, children, and even whole families. Over time, the building became a large album of everyone who had lived in the village. Gradually, the space occupied by the pictures became so large that the church became known as the "Church of the Dead." These photographs remain in place today as an everlasting reminder of the village's former residents.

Tashkent is home to dozens of museums of varying quality, but one of the most obscure and downright bizarre is the Islam Karimov Museum. Established in 2017, it commemorates the life of an ultra-authoritarian ruler who passed away in 2016.

For context, Karimov served as the President of Uzbekistan for 25 years during its transition from being a Soviet state to an independent republic. He has been accused of being one of the worst dictators in modern history, with a litany of accusations including rigged elections, censorship, repression, torture, political incarceration, and even a massacre.

The main building, better known as the Ok Saroy Presidential Palace, is off-limits to tourists. However, the annex at the back of the grounds contains a couple of exhibitions and is free to enter.The exhibitions contain no mention of Karimov's alleged crimes, instead documenting his life through photography and portraits. The photo exhibition is fairly mundane, featuring a collection of mainly black and white images of his life starting from childhood. Some of the notable photographs include meetings with figureheads such as Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and King Charles (who was Prince of Wales at the time).

The art gallery, however, holds a collection of around 30 portraits, almost exclusively of the former president, with a couple featuring his wife. Walking into the room gives an overwhelming sense of his cult of personality, with multiple paintings of the strongman staring back at you. Some of the portraits are downright bizarre. Karimov donning a shirt and tie, sitting calmly beside two snarling tigers, against the backdrop of a solar eclipse is certainly one of them.

The whole gallery presents a striking juxtaposition, showcasing an idealized image of the leader that sharply contrasts his reputation as an authoritarian dictator. Uzbekistan has thankfully moved on from the days of Karimov, but even after his death, this small, eccentric museum seems designed to obscure his dark past.

David Černý's Lilith is a provocative and captivating art installation in Prague, Czech Republic. This striking sculpture depicts a larger-than-life female figure hugging the external wall of a modern residential building. The steel statue is 24 meters tall and weighs 35 tons.

The statue takes its name from the mythological figure with the same name. Lilith is often depicted as a powerful and enigmatic figure, associated with femininity, rebellion, and independence. In some traditions, she is portrayed as a demon or supernatural being, while in others, she is seen as the first wife of Adam, predating Eve in the biblical narrative.

Lilith was installed in October 2022, created by the Czech artist David Černý, author of many other permanent pieces in Prague such as Babies, Embryo, and Trifot. Lilith is part of the project FRAGMENT, focused on the construction of a modern residential area including 140 housing units distributed over 10,500 square meters.

The colossal woman is not the only element of this art installation. By wandering around the building, visitors can spot also a gigantic arm and a leg, coming out from the ground to sustain the building, and a huge hand also comes out from a sort of well.

David Černý is typically cryptic about the meaning of his pieces, but Lilith could symbolize female independence. Since Lilith is part of FRAGMENT, all the gigantic body parts sustaining the building could also be linked with the concept of building a community where everybody helps each other. According to an early draft of the project, a male giant was also supposed to be hugging the building.

At one end of San Canciano Bridge, perched atop a pillar, hang two small iron hooks (also called "anchors" by locals). According to legend, touching them is believed to bring good luck.

In the past, the location where the hooks reside was the main landing point for boats heading to Murano, Burano, and San Michele Island—the latter being the cemetery. Despite their current auspicious quality, the small anchors have a dark origin: they were the hooks on which the two-quarters of the bodies of quartered criminals, sentenced to be cut into four parts as punishment, were hung for all to see.

Originally, these small anchors were situated at two locations within the city, each hook facing a specific direction as dictated by law. The four parts of the condemned person's body were to be oriented towards the cities of Padua, Mestre, Chioggia, and the Lido, corresponding to the four cardinal points. Additionally, the head of the condemned was prominently displayed in Piazza San Marco, the main square of Venice.

So why would touching the hooks bring good fortune nowadays? Perhaps because those who touch them are lucky to still be alive, and their time to be ferried to the silent San Michele Island has not yet arrived.

Tucked away in the majestic Rila mountain range of Bulgaria lies a forgotten gem of the past—a sanatorium that once stood as a beacon of leisure and relaxation. Constructed amidst the tranquil beauty of the mountains in the 1930s, this retreat was a cherished destination for the residents of western Bulgaria seeking respite from the hustle and bustle of daily life.

Perched at 1,050 meters above sea level, the sanatorium boasted a wealth of amenities to cater to its esteemed guests. From a grand ballroom to a thrilling casino, from a serene library to its very own bakery, every corner of the resort was designed to provide a haven of comfort and enjoyment.

Officially inaugurated in 1934, the rest station quickly gained renown for its stunning location and luxurious offerings. Yet, as time passed, the fortunes of this once-vibrant establishment began to wane. Today, the sanatorium stands in a state of heartbreaking decay, a mere shadow of its former glory.

Roofs have collapsed, rooms have been reduced to rubble, and the haunting specter of ruin now permeates the property, contrasting sharply with the breathtaking beauty of the surrounding mountain landscape. Despite its dilapidated state, the remnants of this forgotten sanctuary serve as a poignant reminder of a bygone era, silently whispering tales of opulence and decadence amidst the serene wilderness of the Rila mountains.

Even if he weren’t dressed in a black jumpsuit studded with gold sunbursts, even if his thick black hair wasn’t combed back, a single strand hanging roguishly across his forehead, Collins’ voice would still be instantly recognizable. The Nashville-born Elvis impersonator has been channeling the King since age five.

Elvis Presley left an indelible imprint on the world, and nowhere has the impact of his legacy been more powerful than in Las Vegas, Nevada. In Sin City, Presley is more than a rock legend, he’s a wedding day essential. And, despite an attempt by the company that licenses the musician’s likeness and music to crack down on the tradition in 2022, for now at least, it looks like he’ll stay that way.

The real Elvis had already passed away by the time the first Elvis-themed wedding was performed in Las Vegas in 1977. While the real Presley never actually officiated a wedding, he was responsible for planting the seed around which an entire industry now grows.

It happened one night in 1967, says Rod Musum, general manager of the Graceland Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas. Roused by an unexpected knock at the door, Ollie McKee, the chapel’s first owner, went to greet his visitors. On the stoop stood the King with his entourage.

“I pass by all the time and I always wanted to stop in because it reminds me of home,” Elvis told McKee (according to Musum). Presley was in search of a venue to wed the love of his life, a striking beauty with long dark hair, pale blue eyes, and porcelain skin named Priscilla. Gobstruck, McKee, a big Elvis fan, gave the musician a tour of the quaint home-turned-wedding venue, which was then known as the Gretna Green Wedding Chapel.

The sanctuary was beautiful, Presley admitted, but unfortunately too small for the party he and his fiancé were planning. Disappointed, McKee asked Elvis how he’d feel if they changed the chapel’s name to Graceland. Elvis, probably flashing his million-dollar smile, apparently gave him his blessing.

When Elvis Presley died in 1977, the chapel’s new owner didn’t hesitate to cash in on the legend. Although performers had been impersonating Elvis since the mid-1950s—the first known Elvis lookalike, Carl “Cheesie” Nelson from Texarkana, Arkansas, even performed with the King in 1954—it was the newly minted Graceland Wedding Chapel that introduced the Elvis impersonator to the wedding game.

That same year, they performed the very first Elvis wedding in Las Vegas. Other chapels quickly followed suit, introducing Elvis-themed weddings up and down the Strip. Today, the King appears at ceremonies at dozens of chapels, from the Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel and the Elvis Chapel, to the Las Vegas Elvis Wedding Chapel and the Little Chapel of Hearts.

“Every chapel has, at the very least, the option to add an Elvis,” says Musum. “They’re all connected to Elvis impersonators in the city.”

Every Elvis in the Vegas wedding game is a little different. Some dress in high-collared white jumpsuits and perform the musician in his paunchy, middle-aged era. Others, like Collins, who currently officiates at the Las Vegas Elvis Wedding Chapel, do a younger, sleeker, more coiffed version of the sideburned singer. Some are legitimate musicians in their own right, with guitar skills that help to sell the character. Others, not so much.

Charisma is the only thing that’s not negotiable, says Musum. “It’s hard to find an Elvis impersonator that actually looks like him [but] being able to sing and sing well, and knowing a lot of the library of Elvis’ songs” are essential.

For Collins, who won the 2013 Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist Contest, and who performs regularly in tribute shows around the country, it’s a “magnetic personality” that sets the good Elvis’ apart from the bad ones. “There’s a lot of bad ones, and very few good ones,” he says. “Don’t let a bad Elvis impersonator influence your opinion on all Elvis impersonators.”

The types of ceremonies and packages a chapel offers are just as important as the man performing them. Since the 1930s, when Las Vegas got rid of its three-day waiting period for a marriage license and axed requirements like blood tests, the city has been an attractive destination for couples. So many couples had wed there by the 1950s that Las Vegas was declared the Wedding Capital of the World.

Today, around 80,000 couples exchange vows in the city each year, including celebrities like Frank Sinatra, Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, and Elvis himself. Elvis weddings make up a significant portion of those ceremonies but no one is keeping track of exactly how many. Collins typically officiates between 80 and 100 weddings per month as Elvis.

“Occasionally I’ll forget what costume I’m wearing, Chad or Elvis,” he says.

At Graceland Wedding Chapel, the most frequently performed Elvis ceremony has the King belting out three songs from his repertoire for $329, a price which includes round-trip limo service, professional photography, and a copy of Elvis and Priscilla’s marriage certificate.

“Elvis will walk the bride down the aisle with the first song,” says Musum. “He’ll do some vows and then a second song, then he’ll do some fun Elvis-style vows. At the end, he’ll do the third song, usually something upbeat like ‘Viva Las Vegas.’” “Can’t Help Falling in Love” is one of Collins’ favorites to include at his ceremonies at the Las Vegas Elvis Wedding Chapel.

But the standard ceremony is just a starting point. The affianced couple can choose from packages like the Blue Hawaii, where Elvis sings three tropical tunes and gives a gift of silky leis, and the Famous Dueling Elvis Package, simultaneously officiated by both a young Elvis decked out in gold lame fabric and an older Elvis in a flashy 70’s-style jumpsuit.

There are drive-through Elvis weddings, in which the King rides with the couple in a pink Cadillac, and Elvis-helmed ceremonies held in front of the famous “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign. There are “Miss Elvis” weddings officiated by female Elvis impersonators, and Mini-Elvis weddings performed by a little person in full Presley style.

Most of the ceremonies chapels like Graceland perform are not legal weddings. Of the more than 10,000 couples that came through Graceland Wedding Chapel’s doors last year, most were there for vow renewals or commitment ceremonies. “The product we have appeals to more than just people getting married and we’ve embraced that,” says Musum. “It’s a Vegas-born activity and there aren’t many Vegas-born activities. We’ve become a ‘tour,’ if you will.”

That vital relationship between Elvis and the Vegas wedding industry may be why the Authentic Brands Group, the company that licenses Elvis’s estate, backed down from threats to halt the unauthorized use of “Presley’s name, likeness, voice, image, and other elements of Presleys persona in advertisements, merchandise and otherwise.”

They reversed course just months after issuing cease-and-desist letters to some chapels in 2022—although Graceland never received one, a fact Musum chalks up to the fact that they take their ceremonies seriously. “Everyone that walks through our doors knows they’re going to get a good Elvis and it’s not going to be a joke. We want everyone to feel special.”

Although Authentic Brands Group didn’t respond to requests to explain their decision, Musum says that the company agreed to officially license chapels for “a reasonable fee.”

“We were pleased that the estate backed down,” he continues. “Everything that we’re doing in Vegas is actually keeping that brand alive. I think they realized there was a value to that. Someone even said the Elvis estate should be paying these chapels instead of vice versa.”

Indeed, around four percent of all visitors to Vegas come for a wedding, Elvis or otherwise, generating $2.5 billion in revenue each year—and they’re not just from the United States.

Elvis “speaks to a lot of different people in a lot of different places around the world,” says Musum. “Half of the business we do is people from outside the United States. Elvis never performed outside North America so when people from Spain or Brazil, when they come here, it’s just amazing that his brand and his music and his legacy transcends time.”

One of only three slot canyons in New Mexico, San Lorenzo Canyon is fantastic for hiking, camping, and general observation. And although it's not an official Dark Sky sanctuary, the stargazing here is supreme.

Like other slot canyons, San Lorenzo was formed over hundreds of thousands of years by water flowing through the sandstone, carving out steep narrow channels. In the middle of San Lorenzo Canyon, there are 200-foot cliffs that are the product of some 200,000 years of stream erosion. Outside of the main canyon, you can spot distinctive geological features like hoodoos and rock towers. 

The canyon's primitive recreation area is jointly managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management. Although there are a few designated trails, this is a free-use area. While you should be careful to leave no trace exploration and hiking is completely free form. There are a number of campsites established by previous visitors, although none are designated official sites, and there are no bathrooms, water, electricity, or WiFi.

Found in North Nibley on the famous Cotswold Way footpath, the Tyndale Monument, also known as Nibley Monument, is situated deep in the Cotswolds on a steep hillside overlooking the Severn Valley. After scaling a steep uphill footpath and each of its 121 steps, the Tyndale Monument provides the ultimate reward for your hard work to get there with a viewing beacon providing virtually unparalleled countryside views, stretching past the two Severn Bridges and deep into the Black Mountains in Wales.

The monument was built in honor of William Tyndale, a biblical scholar and Reformation figure born nearby over 500 years ago. Tyndale was most famous for translating the Bible into English. (He is credited with bringing the term "Jehovah," a translation of the Hebrew word "Yahweh" into the English vernacular.) But in 16th-century England, translating the Bible was considered a crime. In 1536, Tyndale was convicted of heresy, executed, and then his body was burned at the stake.

More than 300 years after Tyndale's death, this tower was erected in his honor. A plaque on the front noting that it stands near his birthplace and notes that he was martyred in Flanders.

The tracks leading to the monument itself all weave through beautiful woodland on well-trodden footpaths that are safe for all ages. Just ensure you have walking boots if you plan on visiting outside of summertime or after it has rained, as it can get very wet and boggy.

If you prefer longer walks and want to visit another top viewpoint on the same day, carry on along the Cotswold Way for about 45 minutes and you will reach Wotton Hill.

This strange limestone sculpture has a prominent place in the collection of the Archaeological Museum of Madrid. It has been dated between the fifth and the sixth centuries B.C. and depicts a hybrid creature with the body of a bull and the head of a human with animal features.

The piece was discovered in June 1879 when a resident of Balazote near Albacete, Isidro López, gave the city's Archaeological Commission a strange figure that was already called bicha (a popular word for a grotesque and ugly being) because of its singularly strange appearance. The body was shaped like a bull (though it was previously thought to be a deer) and the head was that of a bearded man, turned towards the viewer and slightly raised. On the head were a set of small horns and bull ears. 

It presented a challenge, since the style was not in harmony with the types of sculpture that prevailed in the Iberian Peninsula. Its meaning and the purpose for which it was sculpted are also not very clear. It is believed to be the personification of a river. In classical Greece, the deity Achelous, who embodied the Peloponnese river of the same name, was depicted as a bull. It has been thought that the Bicha's mustaches are reminiscent of waves or winding river paths. Its smooth back also indicates that it was adjacent to a funerary monument, where it perhaps was meant to ward off evil.

Tokoname is a city adjacent to Centrair, the gateway to Central Japan. While many visitors head straight to Nagoya, which is within easy reach, the city itself is an attraction famed for its pottery ware, made since the 12th century.

The tradition lives on to this day, though its prime peaked in the last two centuries. Tokoname ware is especially known for teapots, sake bottles, clay pipes, and lucky cat figurines. They now decorate the tourist trail called Tokoname Pottery Footpath, an ode to crockery culture.

Along the street called Manekineko-dori is a collection of lucky cats made by local artists, each themed after a specific type of good luck, such as health, money, safe travels and childbirth. Their designs, charming and quirky, range from typical wish-inviting poses to something a bit more bizarre, including a Superman-inspired cat and kittens suckling on human breasts.

Up on the hill, at the end of the street, is the centerpiece of the pottery village: a 12.5-foot-tall lucky cat nicknamed Tokonyan, a massive maneki-neko overlooking the town. Around it, there are many sloping alleys with walls covered with clay pipes and sake bottles, as well as old chimneys and kilns that once produced the famous Tokoname ware.

Within minutes, gale-force winds were whipping through the air. They created massive waves, causing the bow of the ship to pitch upward and then slam back down. A series of loud booms accompanied each pounding, the sounds almost deafening. The entire ship was shuddering and vibrating. Dorning, who spent his teenage years working on clamming boats off the coast of Long Island, rarely got seasick. This was an exception.

“First, my stomach started feeling queasy,” he says. “Then I noticed this little layer of cold sweat on my face.” About the same time, Dorning became aware of the ship’s barf bags, discreetly placed beside the elevators and stairways. “Once I started looking, I saw them everywhere,” he says.

The Atlantic Ocean between Southampton and New York City is a notoriously rough stretch of sea, especially during winter months, when heavy winds and rains can seemingly whip up in an instant. But despite this being the final resting place for the RMS Titanic—which sank in 1912 about 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland—most marine professionals wouldn’t deem it to be the world’s most dangerous body of water. More likely candidates would be the infamous Drake Passage, a deep waterway that lies between South America and the Antarctic Peninsula, the seas around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, and those off Cape Horn—the southernmost headland of South America’s Tierra del Fuego archipelago. But when it comes to nailing down which of the world’s seas are the most dangerous, the answer gets complicated quickly.

“Factors like weather, water depth, and currents are all a part of defining rough or dangerous seas,” says Lindblad Expeditions’ Heidi Norling. As captain of the company’s National Geographic Resolution, a Polar Class 5 ship built for extreme high-latitude conditions, Norling has seen her fair share of maritime challenges. These include the ice-laden waters around Antarctica and in the Arctic. There, says Norling, a combination of unusual conditions—such as low pressure systems with high seas and strong winds, which can cause a ship to roll or pitch up and down—can really wreak havoc on ships.

Ocean crossings are also well known for rough seas, like those Dorning experienced, because there are no large landmasses to slow or redirect winds and currents. “I’d say the North Atlantic is the roughest of the northern oceans, for sure,” says James Griffiths, general manager of ocean operations for Scenic Cruise Services and a captain with more than 20 years of at-sea experience. “Those very strong prevailing westerly winds, paired with low pressure systems that often start in the Caribbean, move up and curve over the North Atlantic Drift, staying very strong over a prolonged period of time,” he says.

In addition, dangerous waters exist where the current moves in one direction and the wind blows in another. This can give rise to so-called freak or rogue waves, terrifyingly large waves up to 100 feet high. “They are quite unusual,” says Griffiths. “But they do happen.”

One such place is the waters around the Cape of Good Hope, a rocky promontory at the southern tip of the African continent. It’s where the Atlantic and the Indian oceans meet. Here, the warm waters of the fast-flowing Agulhas current, moving east from the South Indian Ocean, and the cold and wide Benguela current, traveling west, create the perfect storm for these unpredictable ocean monstrosities to occur.

Winter weather brings its own set of issues to already precarious seas. It might be exceptionally strong winds caused by a greater pressure difference between air masses, or freezing sea ice that makes navigating waters nearly impossible—conditions that have challenged mariners throughout history.

The Age of Exploration (1492-1607) is especially full of tales regarding sunken ships and stranded sailors, particularly in the most notorious waters, such as around Cape Horn. English explorer Sir Francis Drake (for whom the Drake Passage is named) found himself navigating this place of fierce winds and massive waves, where ships had to contend with stray icebergs, rocky coastal shoals, and the Southern Ocean’s circular current, which flows unimpeded by land. Before the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, sailing around the Horn was the primary maritime route between New York and North America’s west coast. It was a costly one, too. At least 100 sailing vessels were lost around Cape Horn between 1850 and 1900, including some carrying prospectors and supplies to the California Gold Rush.

Then there’s Drake Passage, which stretches approximately 600 miles just south of Cape Horn. “When you get further and further in latitude toward the poles, you get higher winds and in turn, higher waves,” says Daniel Wagner, chief scientist at Ocean Exploration Trust, a nonprofit dedicated to ocean exploration. “You also get more unpredictable kinds of patterns. In turn you get a lot of shipwrecks.” The Drake Passage has seen more than 800 of them, claiming the lives of some 20,000 sailors.

For anyone considering travel to Antarctica, crossing the Drake Passage is often the biggest obstacle standing in their way. Norling believes that this body of water is worthy of its fear-inducing reputation, due to its potential for 30-foot-plus waves and gale-force winds. The area’s waters are so unpredictable that passage through them is often referred to as the Drake Shake or—during unexpected periods of eerie calm—the Drake Lake.

One of the world’s most notorious stretches of water is the Bermuda Triangle, a 500,000-square-mile area of the Atlantic between Bermuda, Puerto Rico, and Florida’s southern tip. At least 50 ships are believed to have vanished here, leading to some wild speculation. The truth is more mundane: Many Atlantic hurricanes and other severe storms travel through the loosely defined triangle, which is also heavily trafficked by vessels of all sizes. More storms and more ships mean more wrecks. There is also some research that suggests the region is home to localized magnetic anomalies—a phenomenon found in several places around the world—that could cause errors in older navigation methods. It’s no coincidence that the number of vessels reported as lost fell as both weather prediction and navigational tools improved. But while most mariners agree that the Triangle is safe, its legendary status lives on.

According to veteran mariner Griffiths, the reputations of the North Atlantic, Drake Passage, and many other notorious waters are all well deserved. However, the safety of traveling through them has improved dramatically. For instance, purpose-built vessels plying Antarctic routes have features such as strengthened hulls and oversized stabilizers that help steady the ships in high winds and battering waves.

Advances in weather forecasting and satellite navigation systems have also changed how sailors view the world’s roughest seas. “These days you don’t often run into weather that hasn’t been forecasted,” says Griffiths. Well ahead of extreme conditions, crews also complete severe weather checklists to prepare vessels, including closing watertight doors, securing open decks, and prepping the engines to handle any required major changes to course or speed.

Despite all the modern technology and safeguards, rough seas can’t be avoided completely. And some people actually seek them out, such as members of the Cunard Winter Crossing Club, many of whom are repeat passengers on the line’s mid-December transatlantic voyage, which often encounters wild weather.

“They’re like storm chasers, but with martinis in hand,” says Dorning, who was not dissuaded by his initial transatlantic crossing. Since that 2004 experience, he’s done it nine more times, and confirms the Atlantic has earned its “not for the faint of heart” reputation.

Regardless of the reputation of any particular body of water, veteran mariners know the most dangerous stretch of sea is the one you underestimate.

As Norling, an experienced captain, puts it: “Even in a beautiful location where things appear calm, anything can happen on a dime.”

Tucked away at the end of an industrial parkway, Trammel Fossil Park is a place to explore the deep history of the eastern United States. It features a large exposure of fossil-bearing limestone that formed about 440 million years ago, during the Ordovician Period.

The park is completely open to the public and collecting fossils is allowed, provided you don’t dig any holes that could create a tripping hazard for other visitors. Fossils of several different types of ancient sea creatures, including trilobites, sea lilies (also called crinoids), brachiopods, and bryozoans can be found here.

Trammel Fossil Park has detailed informational signs, built in cooperation with members of the Geosciences Department at nearby University of Cincinnati, that explain the geological formations in the area and help visitors identify their fossil finds.  

Nestled away in North Berkeley lies a museum that claims to be the world's first and only totally dedicated to wingnuts. What is a wingnut, exactly? It's a type of nut, a common fastening tool with a threaded hole that allows it to screw onto something, often a bolt. Wingnuts have small projecting pieces (the namesake "wings") that make them easier to tighten by hand.

In the museum, you'll find a majestic display of wingnuts in all shapes, sizes, and materials from various hardware applications. Some highlights include the large decorative wingnuts from the front wheels of 1940s bicycles.

The capital of Indiana Territory was moved from Vincennes to Corydon on May 1, 1813. When the territory became a state three years later, the Harrison County Courthouse would serve as its capitol building, now celebrated as Indiana's first.

After the Illinois Territory was split from the Indiana Territory, opponents of former territorial governor and future President of the United States William Henry Harrison sought to move the territorial capital away from his political power base in Vincennes. The still-under-construction Harrison County Courthouse would be converted into the state capitol. Upon becoming the State of Indiana in 1816, the former courthouse became the first state capitol, just before construction was completed.

The first state capitol still stands among other structures from Corydon's time as the state capital city, such as the Governor's House and President Harrison's log cabin. Guided tours of the Corydon Capitol State Historic Site and other early statehood buildings are offered by a branch of the Indiana State Museum to show the state's early history.

This story was originally published on The Conversation. It appears here under a Creative Commons license.

Throughout the mountains of the American West, carvings hidden on the trunks of aspen trees tell the stories of the sheepherders who made them as they passed through with their flocks. Most of the men who etched these arborglyphs into the living trees were Basques who, starting with the Gold Rush of the 1840s, had immigrated from the Basque Country that straddles the Pyrenees Mountains.

Our experience of documenting arborglyphs—lertxun-marrak in Basque—has deepened over time. At first, we simply tried to decipher what was on the tree. It can be hard to tell what is scarred bark and what is a carving. Gradually, we got better at deciphering the carvings and now hope to spot the oldest and most ornate.

We also came to appreciate the different styles and themes, like in signatures and writing. One herder carves his name, the date and his hometown; another delves into politics; and another carves a hoped-for female companion.

Viewing the decades-old carvings, we’re surrounded by the quiet and solitude of the high mountain range, whether in the Sierra Nevada, Ruby Mountains, or Sawtooth Mountains. We literally stand in the footsteps of the herder who created the arborglyph.

These herders left their marks on the aspens, and now we are part of a research collaboration that aims to document and catalog as many of their arborglyphs and the experiences they record as possible before they disappear. About 25,000 arborglyphs have been documented over time, and there are likely at least as many more left to be recorded before they’re lost.

Beginning almost 200 years ago, Basques emigrated to the American West to pursue economic opportunities, escape compulsory military service or political persecution, and for other personal reasons. Most were lower class, from agrarian backgrounds, with little to no education or English language skills. As the sheepherding industry grew in the West, it offered these immigrants steady work, and Basques became synonymous with sheepherding through the 1970s, when the economy improved in the Basque Country.

The Basque immigrants practiced a seasonal form of herding called transhumance. The herders trailed the sheep up into the high mountains during the spring and summer for grazing, then migrated in the fall back to the valleys where they spent the winter. This annual cycle meant Basque herders spent their summers alone in the hills.

In Basque, Spanish, French, and English, they carved into living aspen trees to express their thoughts, dreams, wishes, and challenges. Their arborglyphs cover a spectrum of topics: their hometowns, sports, women, love, work, religion, politics, and more.

For example, they carved political slogans like “Gora Euskadi” (“Up with the Basque Country”), for which they could have been arrested at home. There are carvings of crosses that note the festivals of particular saints, boats depicted by those who hailed from fishing villages, and well-known verses and poems about longing to return to their country.

Sometimes you laugh when you get the joke or the saying that they share. Other times, it can be quite moving as they describe their lives and longings. These carvings reflect a variety of human emotions and experiences, with nostalgia playing a prominent role.

To document these disappearing cultural artifacts, we formed Lertxun-Marrak – The Arborglyph Collaborative, composed of Boise State University, California State University, Bakersfield, and the University of Nevada, Reno in collaboration with the Kern County Museum, the Basque Museum, and the Northeastern Nevada Museum, with the support of the National Historical Publications & Records Commission.

We also want to make connections with those who were interested in the carvings: family and friends of those who left the Basque Country for opportunities in the American West; those from local communities who wish to understand the experience of these immigrants; artists who see the aspen trees as a canvas and the carvings as a distinct art; researchers and governmental organizations, hikers, hunters, and runners who come upon them in the backcountry, and the greater public.

Unfortunately, age, grazing practices, more frequent and intense fires, and climate change as a whole threaten these carvings. The Arborglyph Collaborative aims to document as many tree carvings as possible before they are gone.

To do so, we follow the herders’ trails through the mountains. It’s easy to walk through an aspen grove and not realize that the bark of the trees are canvases. Having an understanding of the sheepherding area helps us identify groves where herders carved on the aspens. Mature aspen groves with springs close to them are better candidates to contain lertxun-marrak. If we find one arborglyph, we can assume that there will be others, since they are usually found in groups in areas with heavy sheepherding traffic.

The techniques used to capture and reproduce tree carvings have evolved along with the available technologies. The Earl Collection of tree carving rubbings, deposited at the Jon Bilbao Basque Library at the University of Nevada, Reno, represents one example of the early efforts.

Reno residents Jean and Phillip Earl first heard about arborglyphs during a lecture at the university in the 1970s. Intrigued, they began to actively seek out what they first termed “living galleries” and to experiment with methods of preserving the images they found; muslin and black rubbing wax proved the best tools for the job. The Earls devoted 40 years to developing an archival record comprising around 150 rubbings of the carvings that most captured their attention because of their visual appeal.

Along with rubbings, researchers used sketching, still photography, and, later, video recordings to document the etched bark of aspens. Another research collection in the Jon Bilbao Basque Library was compiled by one of the first scholars interested in arborglyphs, Joxe Mallea-Olaetxe. In fact, he coined the term lertxun-marrak—literally, “lines/drawings on aspen trees,” the name for arborglyphs in Euskara, the Basque language.

From the 1970s to the 2000s, he documented thousands of arborglyphs, including detailed descriptions, photographs, and video recordings, providing a comprehensive view of these cultural artifacts.

Now, we are able to document the arborglyphs with photogrammetry, which creates a three-dimensional model in realistic detail. We’re also able to recreate the carving and its setting in virtual reality, allowing a visitor to immerse themselves in a grove without needing to travel. Smartphones and tablets make it convenient for nearly anyone to engage with arborglyphs from anywhere, at any time, including creating and accessing 3D models of the carvings.

The need to preserve these human experiences transformed into artifacts is driven home by encounters like one that happened on a recent documenting trip in the mountains outside of Idaho City, Idaho. One student who was helping take photos and videos and noting GPS locations revealed that her father came to the U.S. from the Basque Country to work as a sheepherder. She’d joined our research team to learn more about his experience. When she found the carvings made by her dad, who had died when she was young, tears ran down her cheeks as she experienced a flood of emotions.

Stories like this demonstrate the value of preserving these artifacts that revive the voices and memories of these immigrants in the American West. Today, increased technological availability and reliable partners are key to achieving this goal. We have much more work to do, more arborglyphs to collect, ways to make them publicly accessible, and more communities to engage with.

Coauthor John Bieter is a professor of history, at Boise State University. Coauthor Cheryl Oestreicher is a professor and head of special collections and archives for Albertsons Library, at Boise State University. Coauthor Iñaki Arrieta Baro is a librarian and head of the Jon Bilbao Basque Library , at University of Nevada, Reno.

Neither the eggs in the egg salad, nor the apples in the apple pie were fresh from any farm. “Everything but the olives in the dry martinis was refrigerated,” says Nicola Twilley, who writes of the banquet in Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves. Twilley’s new book is a sweeping look at the ways in which cold-storage radically overhauled everything from our fundamental concept of flavors to the structures of our cities. And it all started with this most strange and controversial of feasts.

In his toast at the banquet, the secretary of the National Poultry, Butter, and Egg Association praised guests’ bravery in trying a meal that relied on the nascent technology: “What better example of courage could we have than their presence today, for it took considerable courage in the face of all that has been written in the newspapers to sit down to such a spread.” This was nearly two years before the first commercial refrigerators started appearing in American homes. And as is so often the case with new technology, there was rampant anxiety about whether or not it was safe.

A great deal of fanfare was made over the true age of the meats, eggs, and fish on the table—and that the ladies present had the bravery to ingest any of it. “Your capon received its summons to the great unknown along about last St. Valentine’s day,” Meyer Eichengreen, the association’s vice president, told the rapt diners.

“The thing that really struck me was that the printed menu, instead of saying which farm the chickens came from, as you might see on any Brooklyn farm-to-table [restaurant], it said which cold storage, which refrigerated warehouse,” Twilley says. Indeed, the menu describes a “Darne of Salmon—Moscovite” from Booth’s Cold Storage, followed by a “Roast December Turkey” from Monarch Cold Storage.

“This meal was held as this PR attempt to basically say, ‘Listen, you can eat a meal that has been made of refrigerated food and live to tell the tale,’” Twilley says. Some of the anxiety was warranted. The Jungle, Upton Sinclair’s explosive novel about rampant unsanitary practices in Chicago’s meatpacking plants, had come out in 1905. The Pure Food and Drug Act only came about a year later, and public trust in corporations to provide food that was safe was still low. As Twilley writes, the third largest cause of death at the turn of the 20th century was gastrointestinal infections and diarrhea.

“Congress at the time was considering putting extremely short limits on how long food could be stored in refrigerated warehouses,” Twilley says. “Because there was such an outcry from the public about this new technology that could make a chicken look like it had been slaughtered yesterday when in fact it had been slaughtered a year ago.”

All factions of the National Poultry, Butter, and Egg Association had incentive to curtail public backlash against refrigeration with a splashy banquet. As Twilley points out, prior to the invention of artificial lights in chicken coops—which stimulate the birds’ pituitary glands to trick them into laying—fresh eggs were largely only available in spring. “If you wanted an egg in October, when the banquet was held, that was a rare thing,” Twilley says. “Spring eggs were abundant and cheap—and there was no way to save them in their fresh condition until refrigeration came along.”

Until refrigeration came along, a lot of things that modern-day Americans take for granted weren’t possible. By the late 19th century, keeping America’s growing urban populations fed was becoming a logistical nightmare. In order to supply enough meat, farmers brought live animals into the heart of cities like Chicago and Manhattan. “You get these amazing descriptions of trying to herd a flock of turkeys on the road,” Twilley says. “They go about a mile an hour. And then they’d roost in trees in the evening, and people had to chase them down.”

In Manhattan, cowboys wrangling their herds toward the Meatpacking District became such a problem that city officials built a cow tunnel under Twelfth Avenue. By the start of the 20th century, refrigerated rail cars made it possible to move beef without all four moving legs attached.

“I went on this quest to see if there were still remnants, and the city archaeologist got involved,” Twilley says of the cow tunnel. If any parts survived the construction of the Javits Center and Lincoln Tunnel, they’re now inaccessible to humans—although the president of the archaeological consulting firm that coauthored the 2004 Hudson Yards/No. 7 Line study assured Twilley that they were very much real.

Part of the collective drive to figure out how to keep meat, dairy, and eggs safe to eat for longer came from a growing, if flawed, understanding of nutrition. After a Dutch chemist discovered protein in 1838, scientists quickly honed in on it as an essential energy source for a strong, healthy working class. “They were early protein bros,” Twilley says. “They were like, ‘God, this is a disaster, because we have all of these people moving to cities in all of our new factories, and they're not getting enough protein. They will become weak and our nation will become weak because of it.’ It was seen as this grave national question.”

Scientists experimented with other options including creosote coating—much like that naturally created when smoking meat—and dehydrated jerky to solve the perceived crisis. “No one thought that refrigeration was going to be the solution,” Twilley says. “Until we figured out how to use machines to make cold, we were reliant on this very ephemeral, unreliable thing that melted. [Ice is] great, but you can't base a food supply on that.”

As Twilley points out, reliable refrigeration also brought a host of new flavors into American homes. Ice cream, previously a luxury, became commonplace, as did molded gelatin creations. Coca-Cola, first invented in 1886, didn’t really take off until commercial ice became cheap and widely available. Cold dulls our taste buds, meaning that something that might normally seem sickly and cloying when warm becomes delicious when served in a frosty glass.

As Americans learned, soups, stews, and other dishes improved dramatically in flavor after a stint in the refrigerator. “The fridge slows [chemical reactions] down—that's how it prevents rot—but it doesn't stop them,” Twilley says. That means the lactose in a cream-based soup will gradually turn to glucose, giving it a sweeter, rounder taste, while the fat-soluble spices in a curry will disperse and bloom. “Stuff can be weirdly more delicious the next day, and there’s science behind that.”

The cold-storage banquet in 1911 was declared a success, yet critics at the time predicted dire consequences—and they weren’t entirely wrong. While our cities are currently more sanitary and—save the occasional urban farm—blissfully bovine-free, both our food systems and our fundamental concept of taste haven’t been the same since.

Twilley argues that we’ve become accustomed to bland tomatoes, peaches, strawberries, and other produce designed for transport rather than taste. “There's been this huge impact because the qualities that make a fruit or vegetable delicious are not the ones that contribute to its sturdiness in a refrigerated food system,” she says.

Immediately after the banquet, the Chicago Inter Ocean ran a scathing op-ed. The paper, along with others, decried the whole business, but said, “The one silver lining is that soon everyone who can remember what food is supposed to taste like, pre-refrigeration, will be dead, and we'll all just be used to this.”

That actually happened. “We do not expect to taste seasonality in our butter and milk, which people would have—the taste of summer milk, the taste of spring butter,” Twilley says. “We would have known those flavors. Those are gone.”

Each week, Atlas Obscura is providing a new short excerpt from our upcoming book, Wild Life: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Living Wonders (September 17, 2024).

Crafts made of capim dourado, whose name is Portuguese for “golden grass,” shine like they’re spun out of a fairy tale. Artisans in the Brazilian Cerrado use capim dourado to weave everything from gleaming hats and baskets to luminous, sun-colored jewelry. Despite its gilded look, capim dourado is a double misnomer: It’s not gold, and it’s not grass either.

“Golden grass” is actually the long stems of a small desert flower known as sempre viva. Lent its flash by the aluminum-rich soil in which it grows, the plant spends much of the year as a small rosette of leaves hunkered close to the ground, hidden under a canopy of taller grasses. But every July—springtime in the Cerrado—the flower stalk shoots up 2 feet (60 cm), blooms, makes seeds, and dries to a high shine in the sun. By September, it’s standing tall among the other grasses, glinting until it catches someone’s eye.

Although it grows all over the Cerrado, capim dourado is perhaps brightest in Jalapão, where the Mumbuca community has been harvesting it for nearly a century. Husbandry of the wild plant involves regular controlled burning, which keeps the crowded grass canopy open so that sunlight can reach the rosette. The plant, which thrives in wet grasslands, does its part by trapping humid air between the folds of its leaves, which improves its chance of survival during a blaze.

This careful relationship between fire, water, plants, and people was nearly undone by the success of capim dourado crafts. When demand for the golden goods skyrocketed in Brazil in the early 2000s, a new wave of harvesters unfamiliar with the environment poured in. At that point, the local communities and government called on scientists to help maintain the balance.

The researchers helped establish timing that allows the plant to complete its life cycle before it donates its stalk to beauty. “When you harvest it and it’s dry, the [rest of the] plant stays on the ground. If not, you’re going to take the plant with you,” says botanist Isabel Belloni Schmidt. A state law issued in 2019 forbids harvesting capim dourado before September 20 each year, giving the plant enough time to mature and fully dry out.

Given an official start date, the Mumbuca community of Jalapão began a new tradition: a festival that ushers in the harvesting season. During the Festa da Colheita do Capim Dourado, people gather for three days of food, conversation, music, and demonstrations, and to be dazzled by the latest ways in which weavers have transformed this beloved material.

Range: Brazilian Cerrado

Species: Capim dourado (Syngonanthus nitens), also known as golden grass

How to see it: This plant grows throughout the Cerrado, but handicrafts made with it are sold in Brazilian cities beyond the grasslands.

THE WILD LIFE OF: A Golden Grass Weaver

Nubia Matos da Silva is a journalism student, a craftswoman, and a member of the Mumbuca, a Quilombo community in Jalapão State Park. Members of the Mumbuca are descended from African people who did not accept the conditions imposed on them after they arrived in Brazil, instead choosing to build their own way of life in the Cerrado. Nubia’s family has been weaving with capim dourado for four generations.

Where does capim dourado grow?

Capim dourado grows in the vereda, a part of the savanna where the grass grows low to the ground and the earth is very wet. It exists just before the gallery forest, an area with larger trees that grow along the river. I have heard of people who tried to grow capim dourado from seeds, but it never worked because it did not produce its golden color. Capim dourado is very mystic, very unique, full of its own identity.

How long has your community been harvesting capim dourado?

There are no records of how long our community has been harvesting capim dourado, since the people here never thought about recording the times and events. But I can say that it is since the time of my great-grandmother Laurina. She was walking through the green field when she noticed something shining, and she thought that she could do something with that shining grass. She picked some of this grass and showed it to her husband. Then she made the first craft ever made with capim dourado—a hat that she gave to her husband to protect him from the sun. It was a very beautiful hat.

What do you make with it?

We can make capim dourado crafts for the kitchen for decorations, charger plates for the table, or fruit bowls. We can also make jewelry like earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and much more. Capim dourado is truly versatile, and we can do a lot with it.

Are there risks of harvesting capim dourado?

If it is harvested before the correct time, its seeds become sterile. That is why we need to emphasize that capim dourado can only be harvested after September 20. This practice is respected by the community.

What value does capim dourado have to your community?

Every time I work with it, when making an object by hand, it takes me back to my grandmother and my aunts, and I think about everything that capim dourado gave to us. Many people walked on this grass thinking nothing of it, but my great-grandmother saw its importance and saw that that grass could give us things that would be inaccessible without it. In our community, capim dourado is one of the main sources of revenue.

Capim dourado does not only have a monetary value, it has a sentimental value and a cultural value. When I weave with capim dourado, I remember my loved ones who are not here anymore, but who have left us something so precious that it makes us remember always all the possibilities nature has to give us.

Wild Life: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Living Wonders celebrates hundreds of surprising animals, plants, fungi, microbes, and more, as well as the people around the world who have dedicated their lives to understanding them. Pre-order your copy today!

Most summer camp souvenirs wear out and fall apart over time, from that camp shirt that no longer fits you to a macaroni necklace slowly decaying in a box in the attic. But the cool rock you picked up along a trail as you hiked will be around forever. It’s one thing to have it on your shelf, reminding you of a past chapter in your life, but what about its past life? What stories could it tell? We asked Atlas Obscura Course instructor Yinan Wang, geologist and author of The 50 State Gems and Minerals: A Guidebook for Aspiring Geologists, to help us learn what rocks might have to say.

Rocks are everywhere. You find them on paths, by the side of the road, by the shores of a lake, in a stream, everywhere. This summer you may pick one up and wonder, “What’s its backstory?” Every rock has a tale to tell about itself and Earth’s deep history. Here’s a beginner’s guide to interpreting that story.

Is your rock a single mineral or a rock type?

A rock can be a single mineral or made up of many minerals, and can be one igneous, sedimentary or metamorphic. If your rock is a single mineral, it may be an obvious crystal or look more worn and rounded. For example, when a quartz crystal is weathered, it turns into a milky to clear rounded crystal. Rock types are usually composed of multiple minerals and don’t appear as a single crystal. If you see a lot of larger crystals, your rock is likely igneous, where large crystals formed in volcanic bodies slowly cooling underground. If you see a lot of small crystals then it is likely from a volcanic body, nearer the surface, that cooled faster. If the crystals in the rock seem deformed, or they’re small and red (garnets), then your rock is likely metamorphic, which means it formed but then was melted again at some point in the deep past.

Is your rock light or heavy?

Most rocks you may pick up will feel neither light nor heavy for their size, because the typical rock you’ll come across is mostly quartz and your brain has learned to categorize its density as “average.”

However, if your rock feels heavy for its size, then it contains denser elements such as iron, lead, manganese, and others further down on the periodic table. This tells you your rock is likely from some place deeper inside the planet, where denser elements are found, and made its way up to Earth’s surface through plate tectonics or other massive geologic processes. If your rock is heavy and also feels like metal, it could be a pure chunk of a metallic mineral such as pyrite, silver, or even gold.

A rock that feels light will be made from less dense elements such as carbon, sodium, beryllium, calcium, and others. This suggests your rock was formed closer to the surface or even on the surface. Rocks that feel light because they are full of holes may be volcanic—the holes can indicate where gasses were trapped.

What color is your rock?

Color can tell you a lot about the history of your rock. Darker colors usually indicate the presence of denser elements such as lead and manganese—but if your rock is less dense yet dark in color, it could be due to carbon, and may be a sedimentary rock such as coal.

Lighter colors usually indicate elements such as calcium, silica, and others. It’s uncommon for a dense rock to have a light color. Blue and green usually indicate the presence of oxidized copper, while rusty reds usually mean iron. Color can serve as a warning: Bright yellow may indicate poisonous elements such as arsenic, while pastel shades of pink, yellow, and green can be a sign that radioactive elements are present.

Is your rock flat or round?

Rocks that were formed by layers of sediment slowly deposited over time tend to be flat. These sedimentary rocks will often break into flatter pieces if you drop them. If your rock makes for a very good skipping stone, chances are it’s sedimentary.

Roundish rocks tend to be rock types rather than single minerals, and are generally either igneous or metamorphic. This is because the individual minerals are bonded together well, allowing the rock to resist weathering.

Do you see any fossils?

Occasionally you’ll pick up a rock and see what looks like the impressions of shells, leaves, or other weird bits. Most likely you have found a fossil—the majority of which are in sedimentary rocks. Shells and crinoid stems, which are cylinder shapes that are parts of sea lilies and similar organisms, tell you that the rock you’re holding was formed under an ancient sea. Leaves and other plant bits indicate your fossil was part of a swampy or muddy area, or possibly near a lake shore. Occasionally you’ll find a rock that has a porous look to it; it might be a bone, most likely a fossil mammal bone or, rarely, a dinosaur. But before you pocket that fossil, make sure you know the local law. On most—but not all—federal land, for example, it’s ok to collect common invertebrate fossils for personal use. However, it's illegal to take vertebrate fossils—and that includes footprints, coprolites, or other fossilized material the animals left behind. State laws vary widely, and collection on private land is subject to the landowner’s permission.

Ready to rock? Check out my book, and consider downloading the app Rock’D, which can provide information about the geologic layers at your location, and what they might contain.

Learning how to tie knots is one of the OG summer camp arts and crafts activities, and was likely part of the very first American summer camp experience. We asked Atlas Obscura Course Instructor John Bucher, a mythologist and storyteller, to share two easy-to-learn knots that are practical and have fascinating backstories.

Knots have been used since prehistoric times for tasks ranging from basic survival—think building shelters and catching food—to aesthetics, such as clothing and ritual traditions. Early humans likely used natural materials like vines, animal sinews, and plant fibers to tie knots. While most people have only one or two knots in their repertoire, knowing how to tie a knot that’s not just for securing your shoelaces can be helpful when braving the Great Outdoors. Here are a couple of knots that can come in handy but also have classic mythic stories tied up in their history.

The Mythology of the Heracles Knot

Also known as the square knot, the reef knot, or the love knot, the Heracles knot has been used in art and sculpture as a symbol of commitment and sometimes marriage in a number of different cultures. The ancient Greeks believed Heracles himself used it to complete one of his Twelve Labors. His Ninth Labor was to retrieve the girdle of Hippolyta, the queen of the Amazons. In one version of the myth, the girdle was tied with the Heracles knot, and his knowledge of the knot allowed him to untie it and obtain the girdle, further cementing its association with the hero and his legendary exploits. Greek brides later sometimes also wore girdles tied with the knot, which the groom would untie as a symbol of consummation and the beginning of their life together.

Curiously, the Greek word for knot can also be translated as spell or charm. The Heracles knot was believed by some to possess magical properties that provided protection and strength. It was commonly used in amulets and jewelry to ward off evil spirits and bring good fortune to the wearer. The knot's association with Heracles, a figure of legendary strength, made it a powerful symbol of protection.

The Heracles knot—or the Hercules knot, if you prefer the hero’s name Latinized—can be used for fishing, hunting, and carrying supplies.

How to Tie a Heracles Knot

You can tie a Heracles knot with a single strand of rope or cord, but it’s often done using two strands, which I’ll share here.

Start with the two ropes in front of you, ends facing each other. Take the left rope end (let’s call it End A) and place it over the right rope end (End B) and then under it, intertwining the two ropes like snakes. End A is now on your right, and wrapped around End B, which is on the left.

Take End A and wrap it around End B again. End A will be back on the left, and End B on the right; you’ve essentially created two intertwined loops.

Finally, pull on all four pieces (both parts of each loop) to tighten and create a square-shaped knot.

The Mythology of the Pasha Knot

In Hinduism, knot tying was sometimes associated with the death gods. When someone was dying, it was once a common practice to untie all the knots in their room so as to not keep the dying person bound to life and suffering. Perhaps the most discussed knot in Hindu mythology is the pasha knot, also known as the noose knot, which was used by the gods to bind and even extract souls from the body at death.

The god Krishna is sometimes depicted as using a lasso tied with a pasha knot to capture and subdue evil spirits and demons. One story about Krishna involves a divine creature called Kaliya, who was half-human and half-snake. According to the ancient text Bhagavata Purana, Krishna confronted Kaliya, who was poisoning the Yamuna River. Krishna danced on the hoods of Kaliya’s many serpent heads and then subdued him with a pasha knot.

Shiva is also sometimes depicted carrying a trident and a noose made with a pasha knot, a symbol of his ability to bind and release the soul. In one story, a sage named Markandeya is destined to die at the age of 16. When Yama, the god of death, comes to claim him, Markandeya clings to a statue of Shiva and is caught in a pasha knot that Shiva had placed there. Shiva appears and defeats Yama, thus sparing Markandeya's life.

The pasha knot can be used for securing supplies, creating traps, or any other outdoor activities where adjustable loops come in handy.

How to Tie a Pasha Knot

You can tie a pasha knot with a single strand of rope or cord.

First, take the length of rope and lay it out in an “S” shape in front of you, giving plenty of rope to the front formation of the S—we’ll call this the working end.

Push the three strands of the “S” together forming three parallel lines.

Pinch those three sections of rope together in the center and bring the working end of the rope under and over them there, making a tight loop around the rest of the ropes. Continue to wind the working end of the rope around, making at least three, but preferably four or five tight loops, coiled in succession right next to each other.

You’ll now have the coils in the middle, and a loop on either side, with the working end of the rope pointing toward one of the loops. Pull the working end through that loop, and then pull the other loop to tighten, securing the working end and creating the adjustable pasha knot.

The pasha should slide easily along the standing, or coiled, part of the rope when pulled, allowing you to adjust the size of the loop as needed.

Because Colorado has always served as a hub for interstate trade, railroad travel, and mountain adventure, it’s long been a melting pot of flavors and cultures. But there’s one area where the state’s chefs have always excelled: hyperlocal, farm-to-table dining.

Historians often trace the farm-to-table movement as we know it now to an origin point sometime in the 1970s. But in Colorado, it started long before that.

“It’s not so much a philosophy for us as a foundation,” says Jill Skokan, co-founder of Michelin Green-starred Black Cat Bistro, a Boulder mainstay that sources a large percentage of its ingredients from Skokan’s farm plot just a few miles away. “If you talk to the older generations of farmers in Boulder County, there were no grocery stores,” she says. “They grew or raised their food, preserved it, and traded with neighbors.”

Here in the Mountain West, this kind of farm-to-table lifestyle is a deep tradition that traces its roots back hundreds of years. Colorado’s Indigenous peoples—the Ute, Arapahoe, and Cheyenne tribes, among others—gathered ingredients and prepared dishes according to the ebb and flow of the seasons. And when settlers arrived in the 1800s, they ate in much the same way, living off the land and cultivating a connection to the earth. In many places across America, the farm-to-table movement represents a revival of that long-forgotten philosophy. But in Colorado, it never left.

There's a good reason for that. According to Steamboat Springs chef and restaurateur Hannah Hopkins, there’s something about the Mountain West that fosters both an intimate connection to the landscape and a tight-knit sense of community. Here, she says, the land is rugged and winters are long. It’s impossible to pretend that humans hold sway over the indomitable march of the seasons. So Coloradans learn to live in tune with the natural rhythms of the earth—and learn to look out for one another. The farm-to-table ethos is a powerful expression of that mutualism.

“Steamboat Springs is a small town,” Hopkins says. “The ranchers are our neighbors. And the people who dine with us are our friends, our family. It’s important that we all support each other.” For Hopkins, sourcing ingredients locally is more than just a nice way to ensure fresh, flavorful dishes. It also feels like a responsibility to her community.

“Farming your own ingredients isn’t always easy,” Skokan says. But doing it takes a lot of “passion, knowledge, and respect for what it takes to get the food to the kitchen. It changes you. It changes how you cook, too.”

Likewise, Cesar Vazquez, chef de cuisine of Cache Cache in Aspen, says that when he started sourcing ingredients from Colorado growers, his relationship to local agriculture changed completely. He developed a profound respect for farmers’ knowledge of the land and the food they cultivate. These days, he spends as much time as he can visiting ranches and greenhouses across the Roaring Fork and North Fork Valleys and purchasing their best for his restaurant.

“I like to be connected to the land, and visiting the farmers puts me in touch with it and what they’re doing,” Vazquez says. Every summer, he strolls through greenhouses and verdant fields alongside the growers. Together, they sample the scents and flavors on offer and workshop ideas for new recipes. It’s a community effort, through and through.

The other power of the farm-to-table philosophy is that it brings an entirely new sense of energy and depth to the culinary scene. When chefs source locally, they have to stay light on their feet—constantly reinventing and innovating to optimize their use of whatever produce or protein is in season at that moment.

“We really build our menus based on what our farmers are providing at the time,” says Tiffany Pineda-Scarlett, co-founder of The Farmer and Chef, an Aspen-based farm-to-table catering operation. “Most of the places I’ve lived, people don’t think about where their food comes from, but as soon as I moved to [the Western Slope], I felt this energy. Farmers are considered rockstars in the community here. And we have a really close relationship with them. Sometimes, they come to us and say, ‘What do you want us to grow this year?’ But we know how hard this work is. So we just say ‘Grow what supports your business, and we’ll figure it out!’”

And every year they do, constantly revamping their menu and reworking recipes to incorporate whatever produce is at hand. That’s part of the game here: Thanks to its dynamic landscape and seasonal extremes, Colorado’s food scene is characterized by constant evolution and reinvention. It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve visited a city or restaurant; there’s always more to explore. The good news, Vazquez says, is that even in lean seasons, chefs have an incredible bounty of flavors to work with. Colorado’s mountainous landscape hosts a vast range of climates, elevations, soil types, and slope aspects—which in turn allows farmers to grow a wide variety of fruits and vegetables.

“Sometimes I get overwhelmed by the options we have,” says Pineda-Scarlett. “There’s just so much abundance.” Some years, she explains, plentiful rainfall leads to a surplus of heirloom tomatoes, and cold nights give peaches and cherries an otherworldly sweetness. Other years, natural wildfires reshape the land, leaving richly fertilized scars where morel mushrooms flourish.

The drama of the landscape serves another purpose, too. As any artist knows, the environment in which you create has a profound impact on the end result. Colorado chefs are blessed with a cornucopia of inspirational forces: the dynamism of the seasons, the variety of scents and flavors, the flourishing local ecotourism industry, and the interplay of vibrant local cultures. That makes Colorado the perfect laboratory for culinary experimentation.

“The food scene here is exploding,” says Hopkins. “There’s so much collaboration between ranchers and chefs these days. On top of that, the mountain towns are growing and more people are moving here. That motivates us—we all have to keep up and keep raising the bar.”

A number of renowned chefs have caught wind of the recent growth, recognizing Colorado as an up-and-coming culinary hub, and have moved here to catch a piece of the action. The result is a number of new restaurants founded by some of the nation’s most brilliant culinary minds.

Take Jeff Seidel, founder of Michelin-starred Fruition in Denver and sister restaurant Mercantile. Seidel had a hunch that visitors didn’t want to just see Colorado’s mountains—they wanted to get to know that inspirational landscape on a more intimate level. So he opened Fruition, which is built around hyperlocal ingredients sourced from neighboring farms. The whole enterprise is a celebration of Colorado’s vast bounty. And it gives adventurous visitors a chance to explore the state with every single one of their senses.

Hopkins had very similar ideas when she launched her restaurants—Yampa Valley Kitchen, Mambo, & Bésame—in Steamboat Springs.

“When people visit a Western town, they want to taste locally raised lamb, pork, chicken, beef,” she says. “It’s part of the experience and part of the culture here.” So, in each of her establishments, she offers exactly that. She also sources her produce from nearby farms and grows edible flowers and herbs on Yampa Valley Kitchen’s patio. And her customers can taste the difference.

“It’s obvious when ingredients are local,” she says. “They’re fresher and richer. The color is better. Everything is better.”

Of course, there’s more than one way to do farm-to-table dining. Over the past few years, Colorado restaurateurs have also experimented with imaginative new formats. Take Austin & Davis Breedlove of Denver. The brothers—one a chef and the other a farmer—run Farm & Market, a cutting-edge new concept where cultivation and dining are separated by just a single glass wall. As you dig into soups, teas, and salads, you can gaze through the glass to watch the herbs and produce growing in real time. You can also pick your own produce from a live tasting station—a row of crops brought into the restaurant lobby specifically for nibbling.

Almost all the produce Farm & Market serves is grown right there, in house. And because the operation is a hydroponic vertical grow, it can produce more than 115,000 square feet of crops in just a 2,000-square-foot space right in the heart of the city.

“People come to us because they’re craving fresh produce,” Austin Breedlove says. “And once they taste ours, they say they won’t buy lettuce anywhere else because ours just has so much flavor.” While Farm & Market grows rare varietals, it also cultivates local crops, like Anasazi beans, as a nod to the state’s long farming past.

“Anasazi beans were growing in Colorado before America was even in existence,” Breedlove says. “For us, serving them is a tie to the land and what people ate here before our food system became international.”

Elsewhere, other establishments make it possible to not just taste the freshness of the landscape, but to witness it growing in real time all around you. Diners can book elaborate pop-up dinners at the experimental Rock Bottom Ranch in Aspen, or the smaller but equally innovative Lyons Farmette just north of Boulder for an immersive farm-to-table experience.

The farm-to-table ethos isn’t just good for diners, either; it’s also good for the environment. Eating local minimizes the time food spends in transit, resulting in far less energy and carbon waste. And hydroponic operations like Breedlove’s dramatically reduce the amount of water required to grow food. But one of the best benefits of farm-to-table dining is that it intimately acquaints diners with their local food system. The relationships these farms and restaurants forge serve as the backbone of Colorado’s thriving mountain communities. When diners eat at farm-to-table restaurants, they support those communities—and champion farmers who grow crops in ways that nurture the state’s soil and water.

“We are firm believers that the best food comes from the place you are eating,” says Black Cat’s Skokan. “And Colorado is a land of possibilities.”

That hippo is Lucifer, better known as Lu, and he took up residence in what’s now Homosassa Springs State Park back when it was just another roadside attraction. When Florida took over the property, Lu faced a possible eviction: only native animals are allowed in the state parks. Luckily, his many fans beseeched the then-Governor Lawton Chiles for a special dispensation to let Lu stay. In 1991, Chiles declared Luan an official citizen of Florida, and Lu has been delighting (and occasionally splattering) visitors ever since.

But Lu isn't the only worthy attraction here – there's plenty more wildlife and incredible nature to see. Use this guide to inspire your next adventure to Citrus County.

See the Sea Cows

1. Hike The Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park

The Wildlife Walk takes visitors past captive bobcats, red wolves, alligators, flamingos, black bears, and Florida panthers. Panthers are the official Florida state animal, yet they’re also on the endangered species list, so seeing them here is a rare treat.

The park’s most notable landmark is the enormous manatee statue out front, large enough to be seen from the nearby U.S 19. If you’d rather see a living manatee, you’ll find them in the Fish Bowl Underwater Observatory sunk down in the spring itself. Each day at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m, the park has a manatee program in the bleachers that overlooks the Fish Bowl. The 20-minute show offers a quick tutorial by a park volunteer about manatee biology, diet, reproduction, and other basics.

Manatees are central to tourism in Citrus County, thanks to a Cornell University grad student named Daniel “Woodie'' Hartman, who conducted the first in-depth study of the lives of manatees in the late 1960s. He ended up writing about his research for National Geographic. Jacques Cousteau happened to read the article, and featured Florida’s “forgotten mermaids” on his popular TV show in 1972. Soon, tourists began pouring in, and Crystal River is now the only community in America with a manatee-based economy.

Don’t Miss the Mounds

2. Stroll the Crystal River Archeological State Park

This 61-acre site just off U.S.19 contains six pre-Columbian burial and temple mounds, demonstrating that this was one of the longest continuously occupied sites in Florida. Not only was it occupied for more than 1,000 years, but the evidence shows people traveled thousands of miles to visit every year to trade goods, celebrate holidays and important events, and bury their dead.

For a stroll through the park, take the mile-long trail and stop by the museum, a piece of memorable ‘60s architecture which shows off some of the artifacts found amid the mounds. The trail includes a 51-step staircase to the top of Temple Mound A, which rewards you with a beautiful view of the surrounding tidal creek.

Local Paradise

3. Paddle into Hunter Springs Park

Described as “the jewel of Crystal River,” and beloved by locals, Hunter Springs Park offers a relaxing stopover at the most accessible spring in Kings Bay. In addition to the boardwalk for manatee viewing, the park is open to swimming year-round and has a playground, picnic area and kayak launch. There's a fee for the use of the launch but no kayak rental is available at the park. However, kayaks are available for rent from many outfitters out of Kings Bay to ensure you have a wonderful day on the water.

Crystal Clear

4. Hike Crystal River Preserve State Park

To step into Crystal River Preserve State Park is to enter a time machine. Much of the property has remained untouched for centuries, allowing visitors a vision of Florida of the past. The park, just down the road from Crystal River Archeological State Park, stretches 20 miles along the Gulf Coast between Yankeetown and Homosassa, protecting more than 27,000 acres of scrub, pinewoods, hardwood forests, salt marshes and mangrove islands.

There are two kayak and canoe launches – one by the park headquarters, the other by Mullet Hole. Crystal River Preserve Adventures offers reservations for guided kayak excursions, as well as eco-tours on Monday, Wednesday and Friday provided by the 24- seat vessel "Monroe." But what many visitors prefer is to hike or bike on the Seven-Mile Loop Trail, which is the longest unpaved loop in Citrus County.

What adds even more to its appeal is that it’s part of the Great Florida Birding & Wildlife Trail. The coastal location combined with the undeveloped character of the park makes it a major hotspot for birders looking to boost their life lists.

Be forewarned – there are no restrooms or potable water on the trail, so take your canteen and be sure you go before you go.

Prime Paddling

5. Paddle the Tsala Apopka Lakes

Another prime paddling spot is the Tsala Apopka chain of lakes. This is the largest freshwater system in Citrus County, covering approximately 22,000 acres near Inverness.

Local residents love the undeveloped feel of the area, although people have altered the landscape repeatedly since the 1880s. Now, it’s three separate pools that connect 15 lakes relying on water from groundwater, rainfall, and surface water movement from the Withlacoochee River.

Chain Reaction

6. Bike the trails of Flying Eagle Preserve

The Tsala Apopka Chain of Lakes surrounds most of the Flying Eagle Preserve, which is a mosaic of lakes, marshes, and swamps along five miles of the Withlacoochee River. Along the water are 22 miles of multi-use trails winding through woods and old pastures, making the preserve a terrific place to hike or bike.

The preserve is part of the Great Florida Birding Trail, which means you’re liable to see everything from ducks to wild turkeys to raptors here. Birds recorded in the preserve include sandhill cranes, Eastern screech-owls, brown thrashers, and anhinga, whose long necks have earned them the nickname “snakebirds”. You’re also likely to see gopher tortoises, which Floridians used to call “Hoover chickens” during the depression. Don’t try to eat them now – they’re a protected species.

Rails to Trails

7. Bike Withlacoochee State Trail

An even better ride—if you’re up for it—can be had on the 47-mile Withlacoochee State Trail. The trail passes through three counties (Citrus, Hernando, and Pasco), making it one of the longest paved rails-to-trails projects in the state.

Of course, you don’t have to ride the whole trail all the way to the end in one trip. It passes through several small towns that offer a good place to stop for the afternoon or the night (or even the week).

“The southern end of the trail offers plenty of shade and a nice view of the Withlacoochee River while the northern end is more open,” says trail manager Christopher Raby. “My favorite portion is the mid-section of the trail that runs through downtown Inverness and borders Wallace Brooks (park) and Liberty Park.”

Travel on Foot

8. Walk the Liberty Trail Boardwalk

You can peel off the Withlacoochee State Trail to explore the Liberty Trail, a meandering boardwalk through cypress and palm trees that runs along Lake Henderson and connects Liberty and Wallace Brooks parks.

You’ll have to park your bike and tie your walking shoes, because the Inverness-owned Liberty Trail is for foot traffic only. By slowing down, though, you have a better chance to spot the wildlife all around you. Waterfowl such as egrets and herons swoop in to feed in the marshes, and you’re likely to see alligators and turtles, not to mention occasional water snakes. In other words: no swimming allowed.

Manatee Haven

9. Walk the Boardwalk at Three Sisters Springs

To protect the natural habitat of manatees, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service set up the Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge in 1983 which covers Three Sisters Springs, the last unspoiled and undeveloped spring habitat in Kings Bay.

You can view Three Sisters Springs from land by hiking the boardwalk, which offers a variety of viewing platforms and regular guided tours during what the staff calls “manatee season.” Beginning in mid-November, manatees flood Three Sisters, seeking the warmth of the springs’ flow from underground which protects them from the cold. That crowding usually continues until late March, when the temperatures rise and they slowly disperse. Visiting outside of peak sea cow season? Not to worry, it’s still possible to see manatees and your best chance of spotting them is the early mornings.

Other times of the year, stroll the refuge’s nature trails, which provide views of Magnolia Springs, Lake Crystal, and the restored wetlands. Here you can spot up to 100 different native and migratory bird species that have flocked to this lush home.

You can’t jump into the spring from the boardwalk and splash around with the manatees, but you can bring or rent a canoe or kayak and launch from any of the public boat ramps or kayak launches on Kings Bay. Then you can make your way to the spring run for Three Sisters, and see it from the water, just as the manatees do.

Water and Wildlife

10. Paddle Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge

This is it: the one place where everyone says you can experience Florida the way it was meant to be. People will call it “pristine”, or “wild”, or “undeveloped”, but whatever you call it, the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge will blow your mind.

The refuge, which encompasses more than 31,000 acres, was established in 1943 for the protection of the flocks of migratory birds that stop off there. There’s a visitors center with a two-story observation tower, but most of the refuge is accessible only by water and best experienced from a kayak or canoe along the spring-fed Chassahowitzka River.

In addition to the birds, the mix of saltwater bays, estuaries and brackish marshes provide the perfect environment for a variety of marine life including manatees, which like to graze on the seagrass meadows in the refuge’s tidal bays, creeks and rivers in warmer weather. For them, it’s the ultimate salad bar.

This isn’t lost on Colorado’s culinary masterminds, either; many of the state’s top chefs spend summers traveling to local farms, hand-picking ingredients, and weaving these flavors into their seasonal menus. So, when you explore Colorado’s food scene, you retrace these steps—to the orchards of the Western Slope, the pastures of the Front Range, and the sun-soaked fields of Southern Colorado. Embark on your own journey with a tasting tour of Colorado. These quintessential establishments celebrate and elevate the state's four most irresistible ingredients and their most iconic dishes. Let the adventure begin.

1. Pueblo Green Chile

Southern Colorado gets up to 300 days of sunshine, which is exactly what the green chile needs to grow hot and flavorful. By summer, farmers cart fresh-picked chiles to town by the truckful—a harvest that culminates in Pueblo’s annual Chile and Frijoles Festival in late September. But you can taste the region’s signature chiles across the state at any one of these iconic establishments.

Duck with Pueblo Green Chile at Four by Brother Luck, Colorado Springs

Four by Brother Luck—the latest restaurant concept by Food Network star and James Beard Award nominee Brother Marcellus Haywood Luck VI—serves up an elevated take on traditional Southwestern cuisine. Since no menu of that genre is complete without a healthy dose of green chile, you can find the flavor in everything from the restaurant’s honey-slathered blue cornbread appetizer to its renowned Green Chile Duck entree. In the latter, salty cotija cheese and bright, fresh tomato balance the heat and draw out the rich, fatty flavor of the duck—a match made in heaven.

Crispy Chicken Sandwich at Diavolo Pueblo Hot Chicken, Pueblo

This charming fast-casual joint is a celebration of all things Pueblo—and all things spicy. So, naturally, green chiles have a place of honor on the menu. Located in the popular Fuel & Iron food hall just steps from the emerald waters of the Arkansas River, Diavolo Pueblo serves up hot fried chicken with a number of green chile-inspired sides. Everything from the coleslaw to the fries to the desert menu’s caramel dipping sauce draws its heat from the town’s world-famous chile.

Green Chile Chorizo Ramen at Osaka Ramen, Denver

Osaka, a playful, industrial-chic noodle joint in Denver’s artsy RiNo neighborhood, serves one of the most masterful examples of Japanese-American fusion in the city: Green Chile Chorizo Ramen.. The warmth from the chile harmonizes beautifully with the rich umami flavor of the broth and fatty chorizo, all brightened by cilantro and fresh cabbage. Finish up with a light and fluffy tea cake—served with earl grey tea ice cream—or an order of Osaka’s signature mochi-filled donuts.

Green Chile Ale at Soulcraft, Salida

One of the best ways to enjoy the subtle heat of the green chile is, as it turns out, one of the most unexpected. Soulcraft Brewing, a lively burgers-and-beer joint alongside the Arkansas River in Downtown Salida, brews roasted green chiles into its Green Chile Ale. The result is a perfect balance of fruity, hoppy flavors with warm, roasted notes and just the right amount of kick. Order a pint and a burger, and grab a seat on the shaded back patio, which looks out upon the forested slopes of the Sangre De Cristo Mountains.

The Slopper at Gray’s Coors Tavern, Pueblo

First opened in 1934, Coors Tavern is a cornerstone of downtown Pueblo history and culture. Dark wood paneling and mismatched furniture give this narrow bar the feel of a cozy, family-friendly taphouse—and it’s got the hearty pub food and locals-only vibe to match. But the bar’s main celebrity is its signature sandwich. Dubbed The Slopper, this juicy burger comes slathered in green chili, cheese, bacon, and guacamole. The sandwich has been featured on the Food Network and is served much the same today as it was when it was first introduced in the 1950s.

2. Palisade Peaches

There’s no populace in the world as ecstatic about its peaches as Coloradans. Sweet, tangy, and dribble-down-your-chin juicy, peaches from the town of Palisade are particularly sought after. Come mid-July, you can find them in farmers markets, grocery stores, and fine dining restaurants across the state. Join the celebration with your own Palisade peach scavenger hunt: Here are five establishments doing this fruit justice.

Palisade Peach Pancakes at Mawa’s Kitchen, Aspen

One of Aspen’s most revered fine dining restaurants, the Michelin-recommended Mawa’s is a go-to spot for celebratory meals—and that’s never more true than during peach season. Every summer, founder and executive chef Mawa McQueen celebrates Palisade’s sweet bounty with stacks of fluffy, buttery, maple syrup-doused peach pancakes. Grab a seat at the elegant, colorful bar, or reserve a table for brunch on the shaded back patio. Order a cappuccino and a peachy stack, and drink in the breathtaking views of the Elk Mountains towering over town.

Princess Peach Mule at Peach Street Distillers, Palisade

Sometimes, it pays to go straight to the source, and the vibrant, hard-working farm town of Palisade is littered with hidden gems. Peach Street Distillers is one of them. Here, you’ll find both traditional craft liquors and experimental new recipes. Grape liquors like grappa and amaro are made from local fruit, and the house brandy is a punchy nectar distilled from Palisade’s famous peaches. Try it for yourself in the distillery’s signature Princess Peach Mule: a gorgeously balanced blend of brandy, local ginger beer, rosemary, and fresh lemon.

Lobster and Peach Salad at Potager, Denver

Known for its farm-fresh ingredients and surprising flavor pairings, Potager offers one of Denver’s best date nights. Simple yet mesmerizing dishes draw inspiration from Parisian and Provençal traditions, but you can find food for any palate on this spirited and free-ranging menu. Case in point: Potager’s peach-forward salads. The menu changes often, but the lobster and peach salad offers a perfect example of what diners have come to expect. Fragrant fennel, heirloom tomato, and fresh basil set the stage, and a dollop of white balsamic aioli enhances the lobster’s buttery sweetness.

The Peach Pizza at Hot Tomato Pizza, Fruita

Summer is prime time at this funky, bike-themed establishment, which caters to both Fruita locals and adventurers road tripping along I-70. That’s in part because the season marks the annual return of The Peach, Hot Tomato’s special-edition pie featuring fresh Palisade peaches, sharp Gorgonzola cheese, fragrant rosemary, and Canadian bacon. This crowd favorite is only available July through August, and it sells out fast. Be sure to arrive early to grab a slice.

Pork Belly with Palisade Peaches

Fatty, savory pork and bright, fresh fruit may be a timeless pairing, but Salt—a longstanding staple of Boulder’s historic Pearl Street—kicks it up a notch. In years past, the restaurant’s chefs have laid perfectly ripe peaches alongside strips of roasted pork belly and drizzled the lot with a warm sriracha-honey glaze. Wedges of warm polenta cornbread and slices of heirloom tomatoes add a southern twist. Visit in August for your best chance at seeing peaches on the menu, and be sure to grab a seat on the front patio for an iconic view of the Flatirons, the 1,500-foot sandstone slabs rising through the forest west of town.

3. Olathe Sweet Corn

Famous for its sugary sweetness, juicy bite, and lightly nutty flavor, Olathe sweet corn has been one of Colorado’s biggest exports since the strain was first developed in the 1980s. When harvest begins in early July, mountains of the golden ears suddenly appear in grocery stores across the state—and have been known to sell out just as fast. The fervor reaches its peak at the Olathe Sweet Corn Festival, a late-August country fair in Montrose, Colorado featuring all-you-can-eat fresh-roasted corn and even a corn-eating contest. Can’t make it to the festival? Try the sweet, delicate kernels for yourself in these top dishes.

Olathe Corn Soup at Chimayo Stone Fired Kitchen, Durango

Amid exposed brick and golden lamplight, Chimayo Stone Fired Kitchen dishes out some of the state’s finest contemporary Southwestern cuisine: hot roasted chiles, house-made cornbread, inventive street tacos, and Mexican lager-braised pork. And each August, the seasonal menu pays homage to one of Colorado’s biggest contributions to that culinary genre: Olathe corn. When the sweet kernels come into season, Chimayos’ chefs serve them off the cob, brushed with butter and drizzled in lime crema, as well as in their signature Olathe Corn Soup. In this must-have appetizer, creamed sweet corn forms a silky soup base served with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of chile powder. Order up, then grab a seat on the front patio for views of historic Main Avenue and the high-desert foothills beyond.

Braised Boneless Short Rib with Pickled Sweet Corn at Brickhouse 737, Ouray

Ouray’s Brickhouse 737, an elegant bar with a rustic mountain tavern twist, is famous for its craft cocktails and sizzling steaks—but its Braised Boneless Short Rib is the real star of the show. Pickled corn lends a tangy kick, which elevates the rich, fatty flavor of the beef and brings out its natural sweetness. After dinner, stretch your legs with a stroll up and down Ouray’s main street. Tucked into a narrow valley amid the San Juan Mountains, wrapped in cold mountain air laced with the sharp scent of snowmelt, the town is one of Colorado’s most scenic high-alpine villages..

Creamed Corn with Scallops at Oak at Fourteenth, Boulder

Located just off the lamplit brick of Boulder’s iconic Pearl Street, Oak at Fourteenth is an intimate local gathering place. Dinner here is a white tablecloth affair; grab a seat on the patio for a view of the comings and goings of Pearl Street (and views of the iconic Flatirons and Front Range Mountains just beyond). While the offerings rotate regularly, sweet corn makes a strong appearance every summer. In years past, chefs have laid seared scallops atop a bed of freshly creamed corn, allowing the subtle flavor to underscore the delicate succulence of the seafood. In other years, the menu has featured Colorado bison tenderloin nestled beside hot, whole-roasted Anaheim peppers and sweet Olathe kernels.

Mint-Scented Burrata with Sweet Corn at Apple Blossom, Denver

Tucked into the high glass windows and plush furniture of Downtown Denver’s Hyatt Centric, Apple Blossom is a true hidden gem. Here, North Carolina-born chef Adrian Faison brings a southern flair to the elevated Americana cuisine that Apple Blossom does so well. For a true taste of summer, visit in August when Olathe corn is most likely to be found on the seasonal menu. A prime example: the mint-scented burrata with sweet corn. Here, fresh, creamy burrata is served alongside a maple-buttermilk cornbread and scattered with earthy, savory maitake mushrooms.

Grilled Elote Sweet Corn at Taco Party, Grand Junction

Taco Party is every bit as fun and funky as the name suggests. This stylishly minimalistic gathering space turns up the party with colorful dishes, playful flavor combinations, and, of course, fresh seasonal produce. Late in the summer, the restaurant often serves up fresh Olathe sweet corn elote style—in other words, brushed with kewpie mayo and sprinkled with cotija cheese and scallions. In years past, they’ve also whipped up a sweet corn soft serve—a divinely sweet and earthy dessert sprinkled with fresh toffee crumbles.

4. Rocky Mountain Lamb / Colorado Lamb

The emerald slopes and mountain pastures of Western Colorado often resemble the hilly paddocks of New Zealand and Northern Italy—in other words, textbook lamb country. Now add master farmers with generations of expertise, and you’ve got a livestock-raising epicenter capable of producing lamb more tender and richer in flavor than anywhere else in the nation. While many of Colorado’s fine dining restaurants have mastered the preparation of this succulent and sought-after meat, these five do it best.

Lamb Osso Bucco at The Friar's Fork in Alamosa

Located in a former church and paired with a cozy speakeasy called The Sanctuary, Friar’s Fork masterfully combines local meat and produce with traditional herbs and spices for an elevated, local take on Mediterranean classics. A perfect example: the Lamb Osso Bucco. Chefs slow-braise a Colorado lamb shank until the meat practically falls off the bone, and then serve it with a side of creamy polenta. Thanks to this dish—and a raft of other top sellers on a stacked menu—Friar's Fork is home to some of Alamosa’s most sought-after reservations. And in 2023, the restaurant earned a James Beard Award Best New Restaurant semifinalist designation—an accolade that only added to the allure.

Colorado Lamb Burger at Rioja, Denver

Located amid the twinkling lights and historic facades of Denver’s trendy Larimer Street, Rioja serves up Mediterranean tapas bar vibes in a cozy setting. Think: exposed brick, a copper-topped bar, and a wine list to make any sommelier thirsty. The restaurant’s chefs have been James Beard Best Chef Southwest winners (2013) and finalists (2016), and the place lives up to the hype. Go for lunch to order one of their signature dishes, the Colorado Lamb Burger. The juicy patty is topped with house-made mozzarella, spicy aioli, and tomatoes that are lightly oven roasted and charred to perfection.

Bolognese at Yampa Valley Kitchen, Steamboat Springs

Adventurous new recipes and nostalgic classics share the menu at Yampa Valley Kitchen, a bright and airy all-day eatery launched by chef Hannah Hopkins in 2020. A longtime Steamboat Springs resident, Hopkins takes a community approach to cooking. That means working hard to uplift local growers and ranchers—and using Colorado lamb and other sustainably raised meats in her menu whenever possible. Case in point: her Bolognase. Her take on the traditional meat sauce is thick with crumbles of fresh lamb from nearby Mystic Hills Farmstead and ground Wagyu beef from 7X Ranch. It’s served hot over fresh pappardelle pasta and topped with a dollop of ricotta and a dusting of fresh-grated parmigiano reggiano.

Lamb Rack at Ember, Breckenridge

This upscale, mountain-town grill—located beneath the soaring peaks of the Tenmile Range—serves up local game and Southwestern dishes in a unique setting. The walls and ceilings of the restaurant’s interior are decorated to resemble the flames of a campfire, a nod to Ember's famous fire-roasted meats. For your main, order the Lamb Rack, a melt-in-your mouth cut of meat drizzled in spicy shishito ponzu and black garlic molasses. A warm rutabaga and bok choy hash mellows the sweet-and-sour punch of the sauce, and a little daikon adds a fresh, subtle crunch.

Lamb Meatballs at The Garden in Hotel Jerome, Aspen

Nestled between beds of wildflowers in a patio bedecked with string lights, The Garden easily lives up to its name. This hotel restaurant is one of Aspen’s finest—and most dedicated to sourcing ethical, sustainable protein and produce. See for yourself: grab a shaded table within view of Aspen Mountain, and order the lamb meatballs, a satisfying appetizer served with a punchy salsa brava and sharp pecorino cheese. Dates and figs enhance the savory flavors in the meat with a delicate, earthy sweetness.

This story was originally published on The Conversation. It appears here under a Creative Commons license.

On August 24, in the year 79, Mount Vesuvius erupted, shooting over 3 cubic miles of debris up to 20 miles (32.1 kilometers) in the air. As the ash and rock fell to Earth, it buried the ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

According to most modern accounts, the story pretty much ends there: Both cities were wiped out, their people frozen in time.

It only picks up with the rediscovery of the cities and the excavations that started in earnest in the 1740s.

But recent research has shifted the narrative. The story of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius is no longer one about annihilation; it also includes the stories of those who survived the eruption and went on to rebuild their lives.

The search for survivors and their stories has dominated the past decade of my archaeological fieldwork, as I’ve tried to figure out who might have escaped the eruption. Some of my findings are featured in an episode of the new PBS documentary, Pompeii: The New Dig.

Pompeii and Herculaneum were two wealthy cities on the coast of Italy just south of Naples. Pompeii was a community of about 30,000 people that hosted thriving industry and active political and financial networks. Herculaneum, with a population of about 5,000, had an active fishing fleet and a number of marble workshops. Both economies supported the villas of wealthy Romans in the surrounding countryside.

In popular culture, the eruption is usually depicted as an apocalyptic event with no survivors: In episodes of the TV series Doctor Who and Loki, everyone in Pompeii and Herculaneum dies. But the evidence that people could have escaped was always there.

The eruption itself continued for over 18 hours. The human remains found in each city account for only a fraction of their populations, and many objects you might have expected to have remained and be preserved in ash are missing: Carts and horses are gone from stables, ships missing from docks, and strongboxes cleaned out of money and jewelry.

All of this suggests that many—if not most—of the people in the cities could have escaped if they fled early enough.

Some archaeologists have always assumed that some people escaped. But searching for them has never been a priority.

So I created a methodology to determine if survivors could be found. I took Roman names unique to Pompeii or Herculaneum—such as Numerius Popidius and Aulus Umbricius—and searched for people with those names who lived in surrounding communities in the period after the eruption. I also looked for additional evidence, such as improved infrastructure in neighboring communities to accommodate migrants.

After eight years of scouring databases of tens of thousands of Roman inscriptions on places ranging from walls to tombstones, I found evidence of over 200 survivors in 12 cities. These municipalities are primarily in the general area of Pompeii. But they tended to be north of Mount Vesuvius, outside the zone of the greatest destruction.

It seems as though most survivors stayed as close as they could to Pompeii. They preferred to settle with other survivors, and they relied on social and economic networks from their original cities as they resettled.

Some of the families that escaped apparently went on to thrive in their new communities. The Caltilius family resettled in Ostia – what was then a major port city to the north of Pompeii, 18 miles from Rome. There, they founded a temple to the Egyptian deity Serapis. Serapis, who wore a basket of grain on his head to symbolize the bounty of the earth, was popular in harbor cities, like Ostia, which were dominated by the grain trade. Those cities also built a grand, expensive tomb complex decorated with inscriptions and large portraits of family members.

Members of the Caltilius family married into another family of escapees, the Munatiuses. Together, they created a wealthy, successful extended family.

The second-busiest port city in Roman Italy, Puteoli—what’s known as Pozzuoli today—also welcomed survivors from Pompeii. The family of Aulus Umbricius, who was a merchant of garum, a popular fermented fish sauce, resettled there. After reviving the family garum business, Aulus and his wife named their first child born in their adopted city Puteolanus, or “the Puteolanean.”

Not all the survivors of the eruption were wealthy or went on to find success in their new communities. Some had already been poor to begin with. Others seemed to have lost their family fortunes, perhaps in the eruption itself.

Fabia Secundina from Pompeii—apparently named for her grandfather, a wealthy wine merchant—also ended up in Puteoli. There, she married a gladiator, Aquarius the retiarius, who died at the age of 25, leaving her in dire financial straits.

Three other very poor families from Pompeii—the Avianii, Atilii and Masuri families—survived and settled in a small, poorer community called Nuceria, which goes by Nocera today and is about 10 miles (16.1 kilometers) east of Pompeii.

According to a tombstone that still exists, the Masuri family took in a boy named Avianius Felicio as a foster son. Notably, in the 160 years of Roman Pompeii, there was no evidence of any foster children, and extended families usually took in orphaned children. For this reason, it’s likely that Felicio didn’t have any surviving family members.

This small example illustrates the larger pattern of the generosity of migrants—even impoverished ones—toward other survivors and their new communities. They didn’t just take care of each other; they also donated to the religious and civic institutions of their new homes.

For example, the Vibidia family had lived in Herculaneum. Before it was destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius, they had given lavishly to help fund various institutions, including a new temple of Venus, the Roman goddess of love, beauty, and fertility.

One female family member who survived the eruption appears to have continued the family’s tradition: Once settled in her new community, Beneventum, she donated a very small, poorly made altar to Venus on public land given by the local city council.

While the survivors resettled and built lives in their new communities, government played a role as well. The emperors in Rome invested heavily in the region, rebuilding properties damaged by the eruption and building new infrastructure for displaced populations, including roads, water systems, amphitheaters and temples.

This model for post-disaster recovery can be a lesson for today. The costs of funding the recovery never seems to have been debated. Survivors were not isolated into camps, nor were they forced to live indefinitely in tent cities. There’s no evidence that they encountered discrimination in their new communities.

Instead, all signs indicate that communities welcomed the survivors. Many of them went on to open their own businesses and hold positions in local governments. And the government responded by ensuring that the new populations and their communities had the resources and infrastructure to rebuild their lives.

Steven L. Tuck is a professor of classics, at Miami University.

Each week, Atlas Obscura is providing a new short excerpt from our upcoming book, Wild Life: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Living Wonders (September 17, 2024).

In most places, midges don’t command much respect, inspiring annoyance and vague shooing motions and disappearing by the billions into the mouths of larger creatures.

At the bottom of the world, though, everything is topsy-turvy. The Antarctic midge is the largest land animal endemic to the continent. In other words, Africa and Asia have elephants, North America has bison, and Antarctica has the midge.

Antarctic midges are flightless, long-limbed, and about the size of sugar ants. They live in ice-free areas near colonies of seals and penguins, who bring nutrients to Antarctica’s otherwise low-cal soil by going out to sea, eating lots of fish, and coming back on land to poop. Mosses and other plants grow in this soil, and the midges eat these plants as they decay. Because nothing eats them in turn, they are, in a way, at the top of their little food chain—another strange place for a midge.

The species has endured a lot to take this high position. About 40 million years ago, when Antarctica first split off from South America and began to drift, “there were probably thousands of insects living down there,” says Nicholas Teets, an entomologist at the University of Kentucky and an expert on the midge. As the continent became colder and drier, the rest of them died off. Somehow, these midges persisted, even through long periods when their entire home was layered thickly with ice. They may have found tiny thawed pockets or hunkered down underneath the glaciers, Teets says.

In the process, the midges evolved an arsenal of strategies that allow them to live relatively comfortably. They got rid of their wings—likely to reduce heat loss, along with their chances of getting blown away—and a lot of extra DNA in their genome, giving them one of the smallest known genomes of any insect. Their streamlined genetic toolkit is focused on metabolic control and environmental responses and underlies a mysterious Popsicleification process that allows the midges to dehydrate themselves and literally freeze. Unlike their northern cousins, who can be born and die in a single season, Antarctic midges take two years to go from egg to adult, emerging to feed only in the relatively balmy summers (which last from December through February) and spending the rest of their time frozen underground.

These midges do have something in common with others, though: They form their own kind of swarm. When hunting for study subjects, Teets and his colleagues sometimes find up to 40,000 larvae in a single desk-sized patch of dirt—a gathering of future kings.

Range: Antarctica’s northwest peninsula and surrounding islands

Species: Antarctic midge (Belgica antarctica)

How to see them: Look for a wet, iceless area with some moss and grass, and start flipping over rocks.

Wild Life: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Living Wonders celebrates hundreds of surprising animals, plants, fungi, microbes, and more, as well as the people around the world who have dedicated their lives to understanding them. Pre-order your copy today!

Indigenous Brazilians have fermented alcoholic beverages from the cassava root for thousands of years. These beer-like beverages go by names like cauim, caxiri, and tarubá. Fermentation is an important step in cassava processing—the raw root has chemicals that can turn into cyanide in the human body. Native peoples found that a bit of human saliva and some naturally occurring yeast could eliminate these toxins and improve the nutritious value of the tuber. When the technology of distillation arrived to the Munim River region (now in Maranhão), locals who already drank lightly alcoholic cassava beverages began to distill them. Tiquira was born. 

The name tiquira is likely derived from the Tupi word tykyre meaning "to drip." But it is a curiosity that the spirit has flourished in only one Brazilian state, Maranhão. Margot Stinglwagner, founder of Guaaja Tiquira, the first modern brand to produce the spirit starting in 2016, says “It’s a spirit that is also unknown in Brazil. A few people have heard about tiquira—but usually only people who have gone to Maranhão once.” Accordingly, the state moved to declare the spirit as a piece of Cultural and Intangible Heritage in September 2023. 

Part of the reason that tiquira has remained so isolated is that cachaça, Brazil’s rum, is far easier to produce. Because the rum comes from sugarcane, the sugar for fermentation is already there. “With cassava, you don’t have sugar,” Stinglwagner explains. “You must first transform the carbohydrates into sugar and then you can ferment and distill it.” To achieve this end, Guaaja Tiquira uses food enzymes instead of the traditional human saliva. Guaaja also differs from other distillers because they use full cassava roots where most tiquira moonshiners rely on processed farinha de mandioca, or cassava flour. 

“The majority of people produce it illegally,” laughs Stinglwagner. “The state does nothing about it.” Outside of the urban center, tiquira is invariably a homemade product. Generally, tiquira makers don’t separate the "heads" (the first drops of liquor from a distillation, which contain harsher alcohols including toxic methanol and other pungent and volatile flavor compounds) from the "tails" (the final liquid produced from distillation, which has a low alcohol content and can have unwelcome bitter flavors), meaning the spirit is stronger and may contain more toxins and impurities. Some even macerate marijuana into the combined spirit to produce the doubly-illicit tiquiconha.

Maranhenses believe that you cannot get wet or bathe after drinking tiquira, lest you become faint or dizzy. Zelinda Machado de Castro e Lima, one of the great chroniclers of folk culture in Maranhão, has recorded other traditions surrounding the drink. Firstly, it is typical to pierce a cashew with a toothpick and soak it in a glass of tiquira for several hours. It is then sucked as a sort of boozy lollipop. She also writes about the belief that those drinking coffee should avoid tiquira, while locals say that fishermen on the coast used the liquor to sanitize wounds incurred on the job. 

Finally, there is the curious question of the color of tiquira. In the tourist markets of São Luís, the spirit is always blushing a translucent violet. “They say that the color of tiquira is from tangerine leaves, but we tried to do it and the color from the leaves is not stable,” says Stinglwagner. “It is also not a strong color. The norms and laws for tiquira prohibit the addition of the leaves.” The violet color may be artificial (perhaps from food dyes), but some tiquiras do have a citrusy flavor. 

Tiquira today is still largely relegated to the world of moonshining, but with the government’s recognition of the spirit and new legitimate ventures like that of Guaaja Tiquira, Brazil could be seeing more of the cassava liquor outside of its home in Maranhão. 

“All the people say to me, ‘What is this new spirit?,’” says Stinglwagner. “I say, ‘It’s not a new spirit, it’s the oldest spirit from Brazil.’”

Know Before You Go

Tiquira is widely available in the downtown markets of São Luís, Maranhão. Both the local Mercado Central and touristic Mercado das Tulhas have many vendors selling tiquira. The commercial brand, Guaaja Tiquira, is also available in São Luís at Empório Fribal, in addition to Copacabana Palace and Fairmont Hotel in Rio de Janeiro, and Mocotó Bar e Restaurante in São Paulo. 

The origins of Germany’s Maultaschen are deliciously devious. Legend has it that, in the late Middle Ages, a lay brother named Jakob invented the stuffed pasta dumplings at the Maulbronn Monastery, a UNESCO World Heritage site founded in 1147 by Cistercian monks in southwest Germany.

One direct translation of Maultaschen is “mouth pockets,” though “Maul” could just as easily refer to Maulbronn. Maultaschen are usually square dumplings (though sometimes they're rolled) and can be fried in a pan or served in broth. Commonly described as Germany’s version of Italian ravioli, they allegedly emerged as a way to use up an unexpected bounty of meat that Brother Jakob stumbled upon in the forest outside the monastery walls.

The twist? Although they abhorred waste, these monks weren’t allowed to eat the meat of four-legged animals, especially during the Catholic fasting period of Lent in the spring. So Brother Jakob minced the meat with herbs and onions and wrapped everything inside pasta dough, hiding the forbidden flesh from the eyes of his fellow monks—and even from the eyes of God.

In Swabia, the region encompassing much of Baden-Württemberg and part of Bavaria where Maultaschen originated, one of the colloquial names for the food references this deception directly: Herrgottsbescheißerle means “little God-cheaters.”

Everyone in Swabia has their version of the legend with more or less embellishment. Ludwig Nestler holds a master’s degree in heritage conservation and works for the State Palaces and Gardens of Baden-Württemberg, a government organization that oversees monuments like Maulbronn Monastery. His version of the tale includes a sack of stolen meat dropped in the woods by a fleeing thief, which inspires Brother Jakob’s trickery in the kitchen. But he acknowledges that there’s no undisputed “historically correct version” of how Maultaschen came to be. Similarly, everyone in Swabia has their own Maultaschen recipe, with unique ingredients for the minced filling, called Brät.

“Traditionally the Brät is made from pork mixed with herbs, onions, and occasionally bread crumbs for texture and stability,” says Nestler. Swabia, however, “was a rather poor region with limited amounts of meat due to rather unfertile land, so being adaptive and innovative has always been a part of the people’s nature.” As Maultaschen became popular, fish and seasonal vegetables like spinach, carrots, beets, and mushrooms became common inclusions.

Today, the European Union ties Maultaschen to Swabia with a Protected Geographical Indication, which lists required ingredients the authentic product should feature, but even the necessary inclusions are pretty loose, such as “pork and/or beef and/or veal” for meat Brät and “typical regional vegetables” for meat-free Brät. It speaks to the way the dumplings developed as subsistence food, used to stretch leftovers and reduce food waste.

Today, Germans throughout the country enjoy Maultaschen in dozens of flavors in all seasons thanks to grocery stores that stock packaged varieties made by companies like Ditzingen-based Bürger, whose mascot, Erwin, is a Maultasche (the singular form of the plural Maultaschen).

But the dumplings remain most popular in southern Germany. Maulbronn Monastery offers a special tour that pairs Maultaschen with wine from the monastery’s vineyards. And many locals, including Nestler’s family, still make them from scratch on special occasions—even during Lent, when meat might otherwise be off the menu. There’s no telling if it’s a fraud good enough to fool God, but it’s worth a shot.

In 1914, absinthe was outlawed in France. In the small mountain town of Pontarlier, the world capital of absinthe, the news devastated the livelihoods of thousands of local workers. Nearly all the town's distilleries closed their doors or relocated. But one producer, Distillerie Guy, remained open, all thanks to adaptation and innovation. Its bestselling drink, Pont (formally known as Pontarlier-Anis), was created as a result of the absinthe ban and remains a beloved classic at the distillery to this day.

Pont was the invention of George and Armaund Guy, whose family distillery had been making absinthe since 1890. Following the nationwide ban, the distillers continued to use their absinthe recipe, with one key change: excluding the supposedly “madness-inducing” ingredient, thujone, and replacing it with green anise. 

When poured, Pont is clear as the local mountain water it contains, turning to a cloud of white when diluted. It has a frosty freshness, not unlike the sensation of breathing after chewing on a mint, while whipping the tongue with a smooth licorice sweetness. 

The licorice taste comes from the distillation of green anise, differentiating it from the star anise used in other anise spirits such as ouzo or pastis. Compared to those spirits, "Pont is lighter, purer, more subtle,” says Sébastien Siredey, who works at Distillerie Guy. “It is distilled from natural ingredients. It is more haut-de-gamme than pastis."

Pont also appears in a powerful local mixed drink known as the “Sapont.” The drink is a portmanteau that combines Pont with Sapin, the French word for “fir tree” that's also the name of another liquor produced by Distillerie Guy. Their Sapin is made from local fir trees that provide a sharp botanical flavor. A Sapont mingles together Sapin’s pine-green color and Pont’s snow white, with an icy coolness and wood-infused licorice warmth.

As with absinthe, the strength of botanicals lends a slightly medicinal flavor to every bottle of Pont and Sapin. “We are the pharmacy of Pontarlier,” Siredey jokes. Absinthe, Pont’s troublesome predecessor, was in fact used for medicinal purposes, until it was popularized by French soldiers in the war in Algeria, who grew fond of it for more than its purported healing properties. 

In 1988, France legalized the sale of absinthe (with regulated thujone levels), but did not allow producers to use the word “absinthe.” This odd stipulation was overturned in 2011 and absinthe made its formal return. But despite the notoriety of the “green fairy” Pont has remained a favorite among local connoisseurs. 

When it comes to Distillery Guy, the workers prefer their signature liquor. “At apéro, it’s Pont," says Siredey. "Not one of us drinks absinthe.”