This past weekend was Labor Day, one of my favorite holidays to take some time off and enjoy life a bit. Actually, I pretty much use any national holiday as an excuse to celebrate, but this one truly is special. Yes, most of us get the day off work, and yes, it traditionally signifies the end of the summer, so there are two solid reasons to celebrate and get your kicks in while you still can. But Labor Day weekend is also the time of year that my boyfriend and I hold our annual Smokefest… a day of smoking food and drinking with friends.

Yes, we call it Smokefest. We invite over all our friends and smoke all kinds of foods, though it’s usually mostly assorted meat products. We’ve done ribs, brisket, chicken, bacon, turkey, and fish, but this year we decided to go all out and smoke a whole pig.  Oh yeah.

Here’s the before:

 

And the after:

 

But while we are waiting for our food to cook (the pig took about 12 hours on the smoker), we enjoy the company and share some good drinks. Mostly there’s a lot of beer consumed, and sadly my homebrew smoked maple wheat was not completely carbonated in time to share, so we had to stick to the pros’ offerings. Of course, there was a cooler filled with fizzy yellow water for beer pong, but we had more sophisticated selections for those who searched them out, including Avery’s Maharaja, Allagash Interlude, Sam Adams Octoberfest, Stella Artois, and Chimay Première (Red). I think I had a couple other rarities pulled out of the cellar for a few select guests upon request, but we’ll leave those unnamed so other folks won’t get too jealous… or confused.

Also new to Smokefest this year was a drink called the Paradijs, a delicious cocktail prepared with Van Gogh Pineapple Vodka. The recipe couldn’t have been easier: muddle a strawberry in a shaker, add ice, 1.5 oz pineapple vodka, .5 oz orange juice and shake, strain into a rocks glass and top with 1 oz club soda. Easy, right? And delicious, as I think almost everyone (even some guys) at the festivities can attest to, since I made almost everyone try it. It was also very pretty when garnished with a whole strawberry (as seen in the picture to the left, along with our piñata filled with assorted nips of alcohol).

At last, when the food was ready and the drinks had been mostly consumed, we devoured the food.  Most of the pig was torn apart and coated with a homemade beer-based barbecue sauce. We served salad, coleslaw, and corn pudding, but there was no doubt what the main attraction was. 

All in all, it was a fun and successful Smokefest 2009. What did you do for the last true weekend of summer?  What food stuff did you enjoy, and what did you drink to wash it all down?  I’d love to hear about your Labor Day experiences!

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