Pat's Pizza Dover Foxcroft

09/11/2026

Happy Friday, everyone! We have a nice change of pace this week. It's time for a little detective work.
As always, we hope you share our story with family and friends and help us grow the IdleWild community.

"The Holy Bird"

From the IdleWild archive

There is a loon on every bottle we make.

One loon. Never two. It's written into our house standards as a rule nobody gets to break: any label with water on it carries a single Common Loon.

We thought we knew why we did that. There are loons on Schoodic Lake, and anyone who has been out on that water after dark and heard one call across it does not forget the sound. It seemed like the honest bird to put on a Maine whiskey made by a family from that lake.

Then we found a piece of paper in my grandfather's archive that suggests we may have inherited something we didn't know we were carrying.

It's a single printed page, from sometime before 1937 — before Red and Vicky ever bought the farm that became IdleWild Camps. It advertises three businesses on Schoodic Lake Road in Brownville, Maine. A place taking summer boarders. An antique and gift shop, "stop and see."

And this:

HOLY BIRD TEA ROOM. Have a cup of tea and ask for a souvenir card with a description of the Holy Bird Schoodic Lake Road · Brownville, Maine

That's the whole entry. That's everything we have.

Somebody on that road was running a tea room named after a bird. Somebody had printed up cards explaining what the bird was, and you could ask for one over a cup of tea and take it home and know.

We don't have the card. We've looked. There is no record of the Holy Bird Tea Room anywhere we can find — not in a historical society file, not in a directory, not anywhere online. Whatever the answer is, it doesn't live on a screen.

Here's our guess.

We think the Holy Bird is the loon.

It's the bird of that lake. Its call carries a long way over open water at night, and it is exactly the kind of sound people build stories around — and have, for as long as there have been people on that shore. If somebody on Schoodic Lake Road had a reason to call the loon holy, that reason would have been printed on the card.

If we're right, then the bird on our bottles isn't a design decision somebody made in a meeting. It's something that was already on that road, being handed to strangers with their tea, ninety years before we got there.

But we are guessing. We want to be plain about that. It could be a heron. It could be an eagle somebody saw once and never stopped talking about. It could be something with no connection to the lake at all.

So we're asking you to find out.

Brownville. Milo. Derby. Anyone with people in Piscataquis County, anyone who's spent time on that lake, anyone whose grandmother kept a box like ours.

Did anyone ever mention the Holy Bird Tea Room? Does the card still exist in somebody's attic? Does anyone know where on Schoodic Lake Road it stood?

Dig deep. Ask the oldest person you know.

If you turn it up, we will publish it here in full and credit you by name — and we'll be glad to be wrong.

09/09/2026

🥃🤠 WHISKEY WEDNESDAY IS HEADING OUT WEST! 🤠🥃
📅 Wednesday, September 9th
📍 Pat’s Pizza Dover-Foxcroft

Saddle up, whiskey people. This week we're leaving Kentucky behind and heading to the mountains of Utah for a three-bottle showdown from High West Distillery.

And because choosing just one whiskey is an unreasonable amount of responsibility for a Wednesday night:

🔥 CHOOSE ANY TWO 1 OZ POURS FOR JUST $7! 🔥
Mix & match from all three.

High West has one hell of a story. Founded by former biochemist David Perkins and his wife Jane in 2006, it became Utah's first legal distillery since 1870. What started with a little 250-gallon still and saloon in an old Park City livery stable grew into one of America's best-known whiskey blenders and distillers.

And we've got three VERY different High West whiskeys waiting for you.

🌾 HIGH WEST BOTTLED IN BOND STRAIGHT RYE — 100 PROOF

Here's the serious cowboy of the bunch. High West makes this from its own pot-still rye, with an 80% rye / 20% malted rye mash bill, and Bottled-in-Bond rules put it right at 100 proof. High West describes everything from cherry and lime to chocolate, toffee, oak, orange and cool mint.

Pat's translation:
It walks into the saloon, orders its whiskey neat, and doesn't need to tell anybody it's 100 proof. 😂

🦌🐇 HIGH WEST BOURYE — 92 PROOF

Now things get weird—in the best possible way.

Bourbon + Rye = BOURYE.

High West blends rich bourbon with spicy rye to create one of its signature sipping whiskeys. The current expression uses whiskeys aged at least 10 years, bringing flavors like apple, caramelized peach, maple, crème brûlée, orange, ginger and seasoned oak before that rye spice comes sneaking back on the finish.

And yes, that's a jackalope on the bottle.

Because apparently somebody at High West was drinking whiskey and decided regular woodland creatures weren't interesting enough. 😂

🌾🌾 HIGH WEST DOUBLE RYE! — 92 PROOF

The exclamation point isn't an accident.

Double Rye combines two different rye whiskeys, including High West's own pot-still rye, specifically chasing a big, spicy flavor profile. Think cinnamon, clove, mint, ginger, honey, herbal notes and plenty of rye kick.

Pat's translation:
If regular rye knocks on the door, Double Rye kicks it open. 😂

So here's your highly scientific Wednesday-night experiment:

🥃 Pick ANY TWO High West expressions
🥃 Get 1 oz of each
💵 Pay JUST $7
🔀 Mix & match however you want

Can't decide?

Bring a friend. You order two. They order two. Try all three.

That's not drinking. That's teamwork. 😂

Come grab some pizza, wet your whistle, compare some seriously good whiskey and spend the evening arguing over whether Bottled in Bond, Bourye or Double Rye deserves the crown.

🍕 Great pizza.
🥃 Great whiskey.
😂 Great people.
🤠 Questionable expertise encouraged.

🔥 WHISKEY WEDNESDAY — SEPTEMBER 9TH 🔥
📍 PAT’S PIZZA DOVER-FOXCROFT
💵 ANY TWO 1 OZ POURS — $7

Come on in. The West isn't going to drink itself. 🤠🥃😂

09/05/2026

Four generations. Eighty-eight years. One family.

IdleWild isn't a spirits company that decided to tell a heritage story. It's a hospitality family — rooted in the IdleWild Camps in Brownville, Maine, two miles from Schoodic Lake, since 1937 — now carrying that legacy into whiskey. We're the only whiskey brand in or from Maine built on a hospitality legacy going back to 1937.

You can't fabricate that. It's in our blood, and it's in our history.

Built for the hunters, the fishermen, the hikers, the campers, the boaters — everyone who'd rather be outside. Most whiskey is made to a price. Ours is made to a standard — 12-year barrels, single-barrel releases, hand-drawn labels, nothing rushed and nothing cut.

The bottles land this December. This is where the story continues.

09/04/2026

08/30/2026

Something exciting is taking shape at Pat’s Pizza Dover-Foxcroft.

Over the coming months, Pat’s will begin evolving into a satellite destination for IdleWild Whiskey Company — a place where people can discover more of the story, the heritage, the merchandise, and eventually the spirits themselves.

We’ve also had a lot of people asking where they can find IdleWild apparel and merchandise, so we wanted to make it easy and point everyone in the right direction.

Explore the IdleWild story:
https://idlewildwhiskey.com/

Shop IdleWild merchandise:
https://idlewildwhiskey.com/shop

This is just the beginning. There’s a great deal more coming to Pat’s as the IdleWild presence continues to grow, and we’re excited to share it with you along the way.

Born from family. Rooted in Maine. Built around the places and people that brought us here.

IdleWild Whiskey Company
Where Time Rests and Spirits Rise.

08/30/2026

🥃🔥 **WHISKEY WEDNESDAY — THREE NEW PENELOPES HAVE ARRIVED!** 🔥🥃

We’re back at **Pat’s Pizza Dover-Foxcroft**, and this week Penelope apparently decided one bottle wasn’t enough.

So we’re bringing out **THREE new Penelope offerings** and letting you do the difficult work of figuring out which one belongs in your glass. 😂

**Choose ANY TWO 1 oz pours for just $7 — mix & match!**

A little backstory before we start drinking: **Penelope Bourbon** was founded in 2018 by childhood friends Mike Paladini and Danny Polise after Mike and his wife learned they were having a daughter — Penelope. MGP later acquired the brand through Luxco, and it distills its whiskey at the historic **Ross & Squibb Distillery in Lawrenceburg, Indiana**, a distilling site whose roots go back to 1847.

Now, onto Wednesday's troublemakers...

🌾 **PENELOPE STRAIGHT RYE — 92 PROOF**

This one's built around a whopping **93% rye mash bill**, so expect plenty of personality: spearmint, citrus, baking spice, cracked pepper, caramelized sugar, and a lingering spicy finish.

**Pat's translation:**
It starts the conversation politely, and five minutes later it's arguing about politics with your uncle. 😂

🥃 **PENELOPE KENTUCKY STRAIGHT BOURBON — 92 PROOF**

Now we're back in classic bourbon territory. This three-grain bourbon brings **butterscotch, vanilla bean, candied orange and toasted sugar**, followed by brown sugar, honey, cinnamon, caramel, charred oak and dark chocolate.

**Pat's translation:**
Smooth, friendly and dangerously easy to get along with. Basically the person at the party who somehow knows everybody.

🎗️ **PENELOPE F*CK CANCER — BLEND OF STRAIGHT WHISKEYS**

Then there's the bottle with absolutely **zero interest in subtle naming.**

This limited Penelope release is a **blend of straight whiskeys** created around a cause that's pretty damn easy to get behind. Penelope lists F*ck Cancer among its special limited releases, where the brand steps outside its everyday lineup to experiment with unusual blends and barrel selections.

And we'll keep the tasting description simple:

**Pour it. Raise it. And F*ck Cancer.** 🥃🎗️

So here's the deal:

**THREE PENELOPES.
YOU PICK TWO.
TWO 1 OZ POURS.
ONLY $7.**

Bring a friend and order different combinations if you want to try all three.

We call that **financial planning.** 😂

Come grab a pizza, belly up to the bar, wet your whistle, and spend the evening comparing some great whiskey with people who will absolutely pretend they can detect *“a subtle whisper of toasted oak harvested during a light autumn rain.”*

Sure you can, Gary. Sure you can. 😂🥃

🔥 **WHISKEY WEDNESDAY**
📍 **PAT’S PIZZA DOVER-FOXCROFT**
🥃 **THREE NEW PENELOPE OFFERINGS**
💵 **ANY TWO 1 OZ POURS — $7**

**Good whiskey. Good pizza. Good people. Bad excuses for staying home.**

**COME ON IN!** 🍕🥃😂

08/28/2026

IdleWilds WEBSITE is LIVE!! Check them out!!

https://idlewildwhiskey.com/

08/24/2026

🥃🔥 WHISKEY WEDNESDAY — BULLEIT HAS ENTERED THE BUILDING! 🔥🥃

This week at Pat’s Pizza Dover-Foxcroft, we’re putting three VERY different Bulleit expressions side-by-side and letting you decide where your loyalties lie.

Pick ANY TWO 1 oz pours for just $6. Yep. Six bucks. Mix and match and conduct some highly sophisticated “research.” 😂

Bulleit Distilling Co. traces its modern story to 1987, when Tom Bulleit revived the family whiskey tradition. Today, its Shelbyville, Kentucky distillery carries that frontier mentality forward—and these three bottles show just how far they're willing to wander from the ordinary.

🥃 BULLEIT BOTTLED IN BOND
This is the old-school Kentucky choice. The current 2026 release comes from the Fall 2018 distilling season, was aged 7 years, and—because it's Bottled in Bond—lands at a proper 100 proof. Expect vanilla spice, brown sugar and a creamy mouthfeel.
Translation: respectable enough to wear a tie, strong enough to loosen it.

🌾 BULLEIT AMERICAN SINGLE MALT
Now we're leaving traditional bourbon country. Made with 100% malted barley and aged in charred American white oak, this one's lighter and fruitier, with vanilla, toasted oak, red fruit, pear, caramel and a little cocoa sneaking into the finish.
Translation: bourbon's interesting cousin who went traveling and came home with stories.

🔥 BULLEIT MESQUITE SMOKED MALT
And then somebody apparently looked at whiskey and said, “You know what this needs? A barbecue.” 😂 This limited release bourbon uses 30% mesquite-smoked malt, is aged six years, and gets its smoke from barley actually smoked over mesquite wood—not added flavoring. Look for caramelized sugar, vanilla, oak and a subtle smoky BBQ finish.
Translation: whiskey and a campfire had a baby.

So here's your assignment:

🥃 Choose TWO
🥃 1 oz each
💵 $6 TOTAL
🔀 MIX & MATCH

Compare Bottled in Bond against Single Malt. Put Single Malt against Mesquite. Or bring a buddy, order different combinations, and try all three.

There are worse ways to spend a Wednesday.

Actually, we can't think of many. 😂

📍 PAT’S PIZZA DOVER-FOXCROFT
🔥 WHISKEY WEDNESDAY

Come wet your whistle, test your palate, eat some pizza, tell a few stories and see which Bulleit hits the bullseye.

Good pizza. Good people. Great whiskey. And absolutely no reason for Wednesday to be boring. 🥃🍕😂

08/21/2026

Live tonight! Richies in the house!! Come on out and enjoy a great evening at Pat's Pizza!