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Photo by Nick Keating
WOLF TREE
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Wolf Tree is so inviting we encountered owner and operator, Max Overstrom-Coleman, seemingly awaiting our arrival, on his craft cocktail bar’s front stoop. In flip flops, shorts, ball cap, and electric smile, Max stood holding a leather attaché case and provided us a sincere open armed welcome to his bar. As we had the hours confused, he and his team would be holding a meeting for the next hour until they opened for business, however, instead of turning us away, Max insisted that we hunker down at one of his outdoor seats. We suggested that we could take a lap around the block, replied that we had much to do anyway, and were met with not only a re-invitation to be seated, but Max’s assurance that he would open the outdoor service window and personally make our cocktails before he began his meeting.
I started with a cocktail called, Between Two Lions. Craving Mezcal that Wednesday, I was thrilled to see a menu drink offering Mezcal, hibiscus, lime, and ancho chile. We sat back, took in the sights and the smells, observed a low-pressure system coming in from the northwest, then we noticed that the parking lot was densely populated, for its size, with customized Toyota trucks. One was racked with fly rod holding tubes and the other with a rooftop tent and awning. While we have explored the ambience and offerings of many a cocktail bar over our years of adventures, my partner, Ren, and I had never before seen a comprehensively curated menu coupled with ruggedness. Max and several among his team are outdoors folks who mix travel, camp, and culture with their daily lives in Vermont.
White River Junction is making moves, and they seem to be culminating in revitalized-awesome. A block and a bit from Wolf Tree is a cooperative space housing everyone from photographers and media companies, like Vermont Social, to a bespectacled man with only a simple nameplate who specializes in deep historic research while seated at his high top desk behind the glass front of his work space, surrounded by books. Gallery quality paintings and photographs hang on the silver-painted brick walls of this onetime bakery, now a repurposed concentration of creation and eclectic productivity.
I started with a cocktail called, Between Two Lions. Craving Mezcal that Wednesday, I was thrilled to see a menu drink offering Mezcal, hibiscus, lime, and ancho chile. We sat back, took in the sights and the smells, observed a low-pressure system coming in from the northwest, then we noticed that the parking lot was densely populated, for its size, with customized Toyota trucks. One was racked with fly rod holding tubes and the other with a rooftop tent and awning. While we have explored the ambience and offerings of many a cocktail bar over our years of adventures, my partner, Ren, and I had never before seen a comprehensively curated menu coupled with ruggedness. Max and several among his team are outdoors folks who mix travel, camp, and culture with their daily lives in Vermont.
White River Junction is making moves, and they seem to be culminating in revitalized-awesome. A block and a bit from Wolf Tree is a cooperative space housing everyone from photographers and media companies, like Vermont Social, to a bespectacled man with only a simple nameplate who specializes in deep historic research while seated at his high top desk behind the glass front of his work space, surrounded by books. Gallery quality paintings and photographs hang on the silver-painted brick walls of this onetime bakery, now a repurposed concentration of creation and eclectic productivity.
As suckers for flavor, we were informed of an authentic spice shop, Little Istanbul, where we could procure sweet, smoked paprika and garam masala. Across the street from the spice shop was a mural where the beginnings of hopeful statements of optimism and whimsy could be completed by passers by using chalk. As we made our way to Wolf Tree, I was made aware that someone passing by this spot before me was hoping to go to Hawaii before they died. There is wonder and spontaneity on the streets of White River Junction these days.
As the low-pressure system became a torrent and we were driven to some cozy window seats inside, another Between Two Lions was placed in front of me and Ren ordered a gin, grapefruit, cucumber, lime, and rose beverage called Off To The Races. She was soaked, having run out to the parking lot to check on Salmon, our ridiculous, puppet-come-to-life dog who was hunkering down in our new Kimbo truck camper. Max made his way to our table and asked about our space age looking camper and we chatted with the ease and mellow manner of college buddies reacquainted after years in the grown-up world. Bob Marley sang from the speakers, and I sipped while allowing my eyes to run around the branches of three massive images of Wolf Trees hanging on the wall opposite the white marble bar.
Singular trees who once stood in a field or farmer’s pasture, providing shade and an ecosystem to farm animals, wild animals, microorganisms, fungi, and unhurried humans, but around which, since the times of earnest pastoral New England life, a forest has grown, that is the light definition of the Wolf Tree. Early on, foresters considered these trees wolves praying on resources better suited to trees with more marketability and suggested they be hunted down and felled.
As the low-pressure system became a torrent and we were driven to some cozy window seats inside, another Between Two Lions was placed in front of me and Ren ordered a gin, grapefruit, cucumber, lime, and rose beverage called Off To The Races. She was soaked, having run out to the parking lot to check on Salmon, our ridiculous, puppet-come-to-life dog who was hunkering down in our new Kimbo truck camper. Max made his way to our table and asked about our space age looking camper and we chatted with the ease and mellow manner of college buddies reacquainted after years in the grown-up world. Bob Marley sang from the speakers, and I sipped while allowing my eyes to run around the branches of three massive images of Wolf Trees hanging on the wall opposite the white marble bar.
Singular trees who once stood in a field or farmer’s pasture, providing shade and an ecosystem to farm animals, wild animals, microorganisms, fungi, and unhurried humans, but around which, since the times of earnest pastoral New England life, a forest has grown, that is the light definition of the Wolf Tree. Early on, foresters considered these trees wolves praying on resources better suited to trees with more marketability and suggested they be hunted down and felled.
Photo by Nick Keating
As the New England weather changed predictably, unpredictably, Wolf Tree’s friendly staff came by our table to say hello. Having heard about Wolf Trees, I related to the visitations from the staff, passersby on the sidewalk, and the cover the Wolf Tree bar provided us during a deluge.
Wolf Trees are shelters in fields of progress. They are a meeting space amidst their busy surroundings.
As GPS replaced history’s work-hardened-hand that once shaded our brows as we gazed across neighboring farmer’s fields in search of who was about, this Wolf Tree can be as easily located and visited for a midday meeting or for the ideal evening out in WRJ, VT. Michael Gaige wrote, for americanforests.org, “These are the trees of childhood imagination, the trees of fairy tales and folklore. These are the trees of sprites and gnomes and enchanted woodlands. Wolf trees are our Ents.”
Offerings of shade, of magic, a recollection of a bygone era, a statuesque success among eager new growth, a place to visit and spend time among the hustling of youth and bustling of fresh newness, Wolf Tree can be your destination, or it can be a location on which you happen upon just as your feet need a break and perhaps the rain clouds begin to form in the west. No matter what brings you here, I recommend the Mezcal.
Wolf Trees are shelters in fields of progress. They are a meeting space amidst their busy surroundings.
As GPS replaced history’s work-hardened-hand that once shaded our brows as we gazed across neighboring farmer’s fields in search of who was about, this Wolf Tree can be as easily located and visited for a midday meeting or for the ideal evening out in WRJ, VT. Michael Gaige wrote, for americanforests.org, “These are the trees of childhood imagination, the trees of fairy tales and folklore. These are the trees of sprites and gnomes and enchanted woodlands. Wolf trees are our Ents.”
Offerings of shade, of magic, a recollection of a bygone era, a statuesque success among eager new growth, a place to visit and spend time among the hustling of youth and bustling of fresh newness, Wolf Tree can be your destination, or it can be a location on which you happen upon just as your feet need a break and perhaps the rain clouds begin to form in the west. No matter what brings you here, I recommend the Mezcal.
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