Four Drinks for August Written by Jen Laskey August inspires us to squeeze every last drop out of summer. Whether you’re ticking experiences off your end-of-season bucket list or practicing the lost art of doing nothing, or a little of both, Nantucket’s drink experts have the perfect pours to help you make the most of summer’s last call—from a Cointreau-based spritz to a Portuguese white blend and a lush bourbon and beach plum cocktail. Let’s all linger in summertime a little longer. COINTREAU CITRUS SPRITZ ($19.99, 750 ML bottled cocktail at The Islander) COINTREAU L’UNIQUE ORANGE LIQUEUR ($48.99, 750 ML bottle at The Islander) Recommended by ZEINA METRI,co-owner, The Islander If August has you in the mood for ready-to-serve simplicity, Zeina Metri recommends the Cointreau Citrus Spritz. It’s made with French white wine and natural citrus flavors, and the star ingredient is Cointreau, anorange liqueur distilled in western France that’s often used in margaritas and cosmopolitans. “Cointreau is such a versatile liqueur,” noted Metri. “It’s crafted from a blend of sweet and bitter orange peels and gives cocktails a depth and balance that elevates every other ingredient around it.”The Cointreau Citrus Spritz comes in two flavors—Orange & Blood Orange and Lemon & Lime. It’s light enough to day-drink with friends on a warm afternoon or to sip while watching those last summer sunsets. With its low alcohol level (10.5% ABV) and resealable screw cap, it’s perfect for a month when all you want to do is chill. Just pour it over ice and voila! “The Cointreau Spritz is bright, refreshing and vibrant without being overly sweet,” said Metri. And if you’d rather make your own, simply pour a splash of Cointreau into something bubbly. LUÍS SEABRA, GRANITO CRU DÃO BRANCO, BLEND OF ENCRUZADO, BICAL AND CERCIAL, 2022 ($155/bottle at Galley Beach Restaurant) Recommended by IEVA ALDINS, Wine Director, Galley Beach Restaurant Every summer has that one unforgettable discovery, and this year it might just be Luís Seabra’s Granito Cru Dão Branco, a white blend of three native Portuguese grapes: encruzado, bical and cerceal. “This wine is sunshine in a glass,” said Ieva Aldins, wine director of Galley Beach Restaurant. “It [has] mouth-watering acidity, voluptuous elegance, minerality and salinity that make it a perfect summer sipper.” Seabra is one of Portugal’s top winemakers. “He used to make wines for Niepoort Winery but now focuses on his own old-vine and terroir-driven wines,” said Aldins. “His Cru series focuses on sourcing vineyard sites with high mineral content—as the name [Granito] suggests.” Aldins recommends sipping the Granito Cru by the beach and pairing it with shellfish and seafood. “I particularly love it with our crab cake or lobster spring roll, as it has both the body to hold up to these dishes and the acidity to hold up to their richness,” she said. BEACH PLUM RUSH($16 at The Fairgrounds) Recommended by CONRAD MEURICE Bar Manager, The Fairgrounds The blushy golden-orange color and tart, floral notes from beachplum honey give this cocktail an unmistakably late-summer vibe. The Beach Plum Rush is one of the most popular signature drinks at the new Fairgrounds restaurant, said bar manager Conrad Meurice. “It brings together a traditional Kentucky straight bourbon with some local flavor flair of beach plum,” he said. “We balance out the cocktail with some fresh lemon juice and add Angostura bitters for a crisp citrusy finish with a hint of spice.”A riff on the Gold Rush, a type of whiskey sour made with honey rather than simple syrup, Meurice’s Beach Plum Rush gets an additional pop of flavor from honey that he infuses with beach plum. You can buy beach plum honey at local specialty food shops, but Meurice says you can also quickly mix up your own by stirring a little beach plum jam into some local honey. Best sipped at The Fairgrounds’ new flower bar, the Beach Plum Rush is a great pairing partner for the restaurant’s beet salad with salmon or shrimp, or the tuna poke bowl. Makes 1 serving - Glassware: Rocks glass Ingredients: - 2 ounces Kentucky straight bourbon• ¾ ounce lemon juice • ¾ ounce beach plum honey• Dash of Angostura bitters Instructions: 

Written by Brian Bushard Photography by Kit Noble A taste of New York has arrived on Nantucket. By 10 a.m. on a Saturday, the bagels at Slow to Rise Bakery’s stand at the farmer’s market have all but sold out. Down the street, Bagel Bar (opened in June by the owners of sushi restaurant Bar Yoshi, no less), is peddling freshly baked bagels. Meanwhile, Nantucket coffee conglomerate Roastd is baking bagels at its Airport Gas shop for its four island locations. And on Old South Road, the Meat & Fish Market is baking bagels every single morning. “It seems there has been a bagel explosion,” Bagel Bar owner Marc Knight said over a brunch of bagel sandwiches and Italian paninis. “This whole idea started a year ago and [Bagel Bar] opened briefly last year. But when we hatched the idea, there wasn’t as much of a bagel scene.” But over the past few years, Nantucket’s breakfast scene has started to look a lot more like something out of Brooklyn.At the Meat & Fish Market, owner Sean Ready has been baking bagels in house and serving heaping bagel sandwiches since he opened the shop nine years ago. The Meat & Fish Market even introduced a Cisco bagel, made with the brewery’s Whale’s Tale Pale Ale. Meanwhile, the duo of Tucker Puljic and Katrina Newfrock have been running Slow to Rise on Nantucket since 2022, with classics like plain, poppy seed and cinnamon sugar, to a Middle Eastern za’atar spice bagel, an English muffin bagel and an Italian-style cacio e pepe bagel with Parmigiano-Reggiano and black peppercorns.This isn’t the first time Nantucket has seen everything bagels everywhere. In the mid-1990s, Nantucket got its first taste of New York bagels, when Big Apple transplant Brad Moore opened Bagel Basin behind the former restaurant 21 Federal. Not one month later, there was a second bagel shop, The Nantucket Bagel Company, which was later purchased by Something Natural. The Gaslight even baked its own bagels for a time for Sunday brunches, serving smoked salmon or bluefish on bagels and tuna tataki or Italian cold-cuts in bagel sandwiches—with mimosas and Bloody Marys.Where Nantucket’s burgeoning bagel scene goes from here is to be seen. But if one thing is true, this is no half-baked idea. “The popularity of bagels has exploded in the last 10 years,” said Chris Dadey, a food and beverage consultant for Roastd. “It’s a little bit of New York culture moving north."

A Taste Of Jamaica At the Chicken Box Written by Brian Bushard Photography by Kit Noble Recipe By Peticea Murray The Chicken Box as a venue is known for its music and bar scene, but during the day thereis a completely different vibe. In June, Peticea Murray started bringing her food truck, 876 Island Cuisine, to the Box. By the time the lunch crowd arrives, the truck, which takes its name from Jamaica’s area code, is slammed with customers.“A lot of the island workforce is built by Jamaicans,” said Murray, who grew up cooking with her grandmother in Montego Bay. “I have a passion for it, but I myself did not have anywhere to buy this authentic Jamaican food [on Nantucket]. I thought I have to have a Jamaican restaurant so my people can have somewhere to have authentic Jamaican food, and not only that, to bring Jamaican culture through food to the Nantucket native people.”Murray’s truck offers staples like jerk chicken, as well as escovitch fish, rice and peas (red kidney beans are typically used, but the name comes from the local red peas in Jamaica), and coconut water straight out of the coconut. “[My grandmother] taught me all the old recipes, all the good stuff,” she said. “That’s why I cook the way I cook, because it’s coming from generations of authentic flavors.” JAMAICAN RICE AND PEAS, yields 8-10 servings Ingredients: -2 cups long-grain rice, washed -2 cups cooked red kidney beans (or 1 can, drained and rinsed) -1 can (13.5 ounces) coconut milk -2 cups water(reserved from cooking beans) -3 cloves garlic, minced -4 sprigs fresh thyme -2 scallions, chopped -1 small onion, chopped -1 whole Scotch bonnet pepper(do not cut it open) -1 teaspoon salt (or to taste) -½ teaspoon black pepper -1 tablespoon butter Instructions: In a large pot, combine the kidney beans, coconut milk, bean liquid (or water),onion, garlic, thyme, scallions, salt, black pepper and butter. Add the whole Scotch bonnet pepper and bring everything to a gentle boil. Let it simmer for about 10 minutes so the flavors develop. Cover the pot with a tight-fitting lid, reduce the heat to low and cook for 20-25 minutes, or until the rice is tender and all the liquid has been absorbed. Remove the Scotch bonnet pepper and thyme stems. Fluff the rice and gently with a fork before serving. CHEF’S TIP: The key to authentic Jamaican rice and peas is allowing the coconut milk, thyme, scallions, garlic and the Scotch bonnet pepper to simmer together before adding the rice. This creates the rich, flavorful base that makes the dish stand out. Keeping the Scotch bonnet whole adds its signature aroma without making the rice overly spicy. This recipe pairs perfectly with jerk chicken, curry goat, brown stew chicken, oxtail or escovitch fish.

Written by Brian Bushard Photography by Kit Noble How could a traditional mooring possibly be bad for the environment? The fact is that the moorings that have been deployed for decades have had a deleterious effect on eelgrass in a way that has consequential impacts on Nantucket’s fragile bay scallop population. The problem with traditional moorings, according to Nantucket Land and Water Council ecologist and waterkeeper RJ Turcotte, is that after months of shifting winds, the boats they secure will pull in all directions, forcing a traditional chain to swipe at the eelgrass below—a process called scouring. The bigger the boat, the worse the damage. An aerial view shows the problem as clear as day: sandy rings around the moorings where eelgrass had been. “We’re obviously seeing a decline [in eelgrass],” Turcotte said. “It gets worse as you go up the harbor. We’re at a point where every year, the eelgrass is getting thermally stressed and we’re having nutrient inputs causing algal growth that’s competing with the eelgrass. Anything we can do to help them along, we want to do. To that end, the Land and Water Council is introducing new 200-pound pyramid-shaped moorings designed to keep the eelgrass in place. Above the surface, it’s a standard mooring. But unlike the traditional moorings, which are affixed to the seafloor with a mushroom-shaped base and a heavy chain, the new moorings use a system that looks more like a bungee that can contract and relax as the boat it’s securing sways around in the direction of the prevailing wind. Eelgrass provides a habitat for several species, including bay scallops. It also helps to hold sediment in place, mitigating coastal erosion, and improves water quality by absorbing pollutants. But eelgrass cover in the harbor has fallen precipitously over the past few decades, reaching 14% in 2024, according to Nantucket Shellfish and Aquatic Resources Manager Tara Riley. Preserving Nantucket’s eelgrass—and by effect, its scallop industry—is therefore a priority for fishermen and ecologists. It’s been the subject of numerous initiatives around the harbor, including efforts to reduce nitrogen loading from fertilizer use, which causes algal growth that blocks sunlight from reaching eelgrass on the harbor floor. Town Meeting has also voted to expand the town sewer to neighborhoods along the harbor, hoping to reduce runoff into the harbor. And nearly 10 years ago, the Land and Water Council undertook another project to transplant eelgrass to an area off Monomoy, which Turcotte likens to underwater gardening. The Land and Water Council’s pilot project for the new moorings is funded by the Great Harbor Yacht Club Foundation. “There are obviously things that are out of our control, like the rising water temperature,” Turcotte said. “There’s not much we can do about that. But anything we can do, including things like this, to make gains and help [the eelgrass] out when it is struggling, we want to do.” This year, the Land & Water Council is starting with 12 of the new eelgrass-friendly moorings as part of the pilot project. If the project is successful, Turcotte’s goal is to replace every mooring with the new eelgrass-friendly model. At the end of the day, it’s a simple fix. “Scour is physical damage,” he said. “It has a direct link and we can figure it out."

Nantucket's newest youth theater group, the Nantucket Stage Company