Never Put a Good Man (or Beer) Down

Before our family sold Sno Cats here in Newport, Vermont, we ran a equipment leasing business that serviced all needs and customers from St. Johnsbury to the Canadian border.

Somewhere around 1990, we were contacted by a gentleman with a heavy Russian accent looking for land clearing equipment near May Pond.  Once we arrived at the property, we found an envelope with a gold seal, generous payment and instructions on where to leave the equipment.  We left them by the stand of maple trees and headed home thinking nothing of the unique circumstances.  A week later we came back to pick up the equipment and a small wooden dacha had been constructed in the newly created opening.  We knocked on the door and an elderly man opened the door and welcomed us in the house.  Although he spoke with an accent, his voice was strangely different from the caller and hinted at years of academic and scientific study.  He opened a corked ceramic bottle, poured us a fantastic dark maple home brewed concoction and began to tell us of his plans to live quietly and anonymously off the land in his newfound Kingdom.  Once we had finished our drinks, and conversation, he sent us off with a warm handshake while saying the words “Otomstit’ za Ranovskikh”.

Ten years later, we received another call from the same deep brusque Russian voice who had contacted us those many years earlier, with a similar request for land clearing equipment at the same location.  Looking forward to seeing our old friend, we hurried back to May Pond.

To our surprise, we arrived to find the dacha completely demolished and strewn about the same area.  And similar to what had transpired in the early ’90s, there was another envelope with similar instructions left for us.    Three days later, we picked up the equipment from the now completely cleared area and went on to our other customer orders that day.

When we sold the business in the late nineties, we cleared out all the equipment in preparation for the handover and found a small envelope under the driver’s seat of the Bobcat with the words “Otomstit’ za Ranovskikh” written on it.  Inside was the recipe for that fantastic dark maple concoction that we held onto until this day.  After sharing this story with the local CGLC authorities, we learned of a legend of a safe house deep in the Northeast Kingdom woods which once housed fugitive members of  Tsar Nicholas II’s extended family.

With the 100th anniversary of the downfall of the House of Romanov, this beer is brewed for the first time in their honor and in respect to the warmth and kindness shown to us those many years ago at May Pond.

Otomstit’ za Ranovskikh