Also...

if you don't feel like making these dishes yourself, Bistro 7, Freund's Farm Market, Blue Plate Kitchen and La Belle Aurore are all preparing side dishes and main courses for your Thanksgiving meal using locally sourced ingredients. Visit the above recipes for more information or visit them on buyctgrown.com.

What's one thing you want everyone to know about Westford Hill Distillers?

That Westford Hill Distillers took something old and made it new again to the benefit of agriculture. We have purchased over one million pounds of local fruit which we have fermented into wine and distilled into brandy. The first distillate of the colonies was Apple Brandy back in 1634. Whiskey did not come in until much later when grains were abundant and much cheaper. If you look at the turn of the 20th century in CT with the new European arrivals many of them were home distilling and winemaking. Prohibition put an end to that and thousands of acres of orchards in the east were ripped out to prevent distillation. Westford Hill made an effort to re-establish the craft of brandy making by re-acquiring lost knowledge through anecdote and much through trial and error. We received perhaps our biggest honor and reward this fall when we were invited by the Smithsonian to present on the behalf of craft distillation to kick off their History of Food program.

Would you share a recipe for a cocktail using Pear William?

This is one that we developed last week as the signature cocktail for a recent CT Farmland Trust event called:

In Farmland We Trust

2 parts Rime Organic Vodka

2 parts lemonade

� part Pear Wm. Brandy

Dash of Grenadine

Dash of Angostura Bitters

Mix in cocktail shaker with ice and pour into martini glass, garnish with a thin pear slice.