Our annual retreat to grey days, absent the multiplicity of summer songbird hymnals, finds us with a resting unease and a reminder that our only solace lies in understanding that we must befriend the cold wind. H.D. Thoreau wrote, “Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.”

With the spirit of the North and our own deeply founded habitation, we offer to you this Song of Winter: a rich Chocolate Stout brewed with an abundant addition of fresh cacao nibs sourced and roasted by our neighbors at Prophecy Chocolate in Morrisville, Vt.

Prophecy works directly with indigenous family farmers in the remote valleys of Cusco, Peru, cultivating an ancient heirloom cacao known as Chuncho—“native” in the Quechua language. Fed by Andean rainfall and clear mountain streams, and grown using wholly traditional, chemical-free practices, this cacao offers gentle depth and balance, with softly expressive aromatics.