The Sun Valley Culinary Institute is excited to announce the return of the Sun Valley Food & Wine Celebration! The 2025 event will showcase an exceptional lineup of James Beard award-winning and Food Network celebrity chefs, sommeliers, and rising stars. Join us in beautiful Sun Valley for an unforgettable culinary experience. Now a robust six-day schedule of culinary experiences! SVCI is a 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to Transforming Lives Through Culinary Education. Click here for tickets, event details and more information: www.one.bidpal.net/svfw/welcome
24hrs with a Local: Sun Valley Wine Company’s Dexter & Crystal McKenzie, September
Covid and quarantine brought many new people to town, who perhaps came just to hunker down for a few weeks or months but then couldn’t imagine living elsewhere. This was the case for Dexter and Crystal McKenzie, new owners of the Wine Co. along with Crystal’s parents Gayle and Jim Phillips. Gayle and Jim have been homeowners in Ketchum for 33 years, hosting the family each Christmas for a little skiing and vacay away from Dexter and Crystal’s home in Olympia, Washington. Like every other year, the couple came to visit the Phillips in Ketchum for Christmas of 2020 to ski, but two weeks turned into four months turned into “let’s put our house on the market and move to Ketchum,” in the words of Dexter. The couple has been running an online women’s boutique and decided to look for a new opportunity in Ketchum; Gayle and Jim were retired, but were also ready for a bit of adventure. After seeing a description of a 27-year-old Ketchum business for sale and realizing it was the Wine Co., the foursome put in an offer right after another had fallen through, and in a moment of kismet, they suddenly found themselves the …
24hrs with a Local: Sun Valley Wine Auction’s Peter Burke, August
Sun Valley Museum of Art’s Peter Burke has dipped a toe into most every part of the arts there is since graduating from NYU Tisch School of the Arts years ago; he has been at SVMoA since 2018, but before that he worked as an experiential and creative producer, producing events for Google, the 65th Annual Grammy Awards, and more. He is one of the co-founders of Ketchum theater The Spot and can often be seen gracing the stage in their productions. When not in his role as Development Director and Wine Auction Director at SVMoA, he continues to teach barre classes at Zenergy, which he has done for the last eight years. As a young 30-something who grew up in and out of this Valley, Peter knows just how to have a perfect summer day, whether that’s getting inner tubes at Les Schwab to float a section of the Big Wood River or getting blocks of ice from Veltex to sled down grassy hills. Peter and his husband, Daniel, live in west Ketchum with their cat, Zelda (who can often be found sneaking into Sushi on Second searching for scraps of fish). When there is a moment of free …
The Guide to Sun Valley’s Breweries, Distilleries & Wine Establishments
After a long day in Sun Valley, whether spent hiking, biking, or skiing, there’s nothing like a good drink with some friends. While we’re no Boulder or Bend, Sun Valley holds its own with breweries producing craft beer. Ketchum and Hailey are also home to a distillery producing several types of liquor as well as a handful of establishments known for their excellent wine selections. We’ve compiled a guide to finding Sun Valley’s best breweries, distilleries and wine establishments. For Brews & Spirits Warfield Distillery and Brewery Ketchum’s only distillery, the Warfield is a one-stop powerhouse with on-site brewery, distillery, and restaurant with an ever-rotating modern American menu. For beer, the Warfield has 14 originals as well as some beers in rotation. True to historical methods of brewing, the Warfield heats their mash with fire and bring malt in and out of the brewery by hand. The Warfield’s distillery also produces small-batch, handmade liquors. Joining the lineup of vodka, gin, and brandy is their own American Whiskey. Distilled in a 215-gallon copper pot, these liquors are imbued with full flavors unique to this distillery. The Warfield is in the process of expanding their operations to increase production of their beer …