Oil and Vinegar Tasting Rooms Arrive in NOVA

Olio–1223 King St, Alexandria, (703) 299-3004

Ah love Oil and Vinegar—The Village at Shirlington, 4017B Campbell Avenue, Arlington (703) 820-2210

If you are looking for an under $20 gift for the Secret Santa exchange in your office or a safe bet gift for anyone who likes to cook, head to one of the two tasting rooms in northern Virginia for a bottle or gift set of high quality olive oil or balsamic vinegar. Ah love Oil and Vinegar in Shirlington Village in Arlington and Olio in Old Town Alexandria offer huge selections of both. Each shop is a tasting room, filled with silver urns of olive oils from Mediterranean countries in flavors such as garlic, lemon, and rosemary. Perhaps more popular than the oil are the Balsamic vinegar–sweeter than the product you might buy at the grocery store–and all available for tasting in little paper cups or on bread cubes. Most bottles are around $16.99, and a gift set of four small bottles is about $20. The two shops are unrelated to each other, but are equally appealing. Both offer tastings and special events.

Black Friday sales–Old Town Alexandria

Shops Offering 30% off from 6-8 am, 20% off from 8-10 am and 10% off all day
Appleseed Boutique*
115 S. Columbus Street
6 am – 6 pm

Arts Afire*
1117 King Street
6 am – 6 pm

BeautyFull Boutique
118 N. Fayette Street
6 am – 6 pm

Bellacara*
1000 King Street
6 am – 6 pm

Bishop Boutique
815B King Street
6 am – 7 pm

The Christmas Attic*
125 S. Union St
6 am – 9 pm

Current Boutique*
1009 King Street
6 am – 8 pm

Diva Boutique*
116 S. Pitt Street
6 am – 6 pm

The Dog Park*
705 King Street
6 am – 7 pm
Excludes food
Encore Consignment Boutique
110 S. Union Street
6 am – 6 pm

European Country Living
1006 King Street
6 am – 6 pm

fibre space™*
102 N. Fayette Street
6 am – 6 pm

Gallery West
1213 King Street
6 am – 6 pm
Discount available on blue dot items only.

Gossypia*
325 Cameron Street
6 am – 6 pm

Hooray for Books!*
1555 King Street
6 am – 6 pm

Hysteria*
125 S. Fairfax Street
6 am – 6 pm

Imagine Artwear
1124 King Street
6 am to 7 pm

La Cuisine*
323 Cameron Street
6 am – 5 pm

Monday’s Child*
218 N. Lee St
6 am – 6 pm

Museum Framing
115 South Union Street, Atrium
6 am – 6 pm

Olio Tasting Room
1223 King Street
6 am – 8 pm

Pacers Running Stores
1301 King Street
6 am – 8 pm
Discounts do not apply to BOB strollers or Garmin products

Pink and Brown*
1212 King Street
6 am – 6 pm

Red Barn Mercantile*
113 S. Columbus Street
6 am – 6 pm

The Shoe Hive*
127 S. Fairfax Street
6 am – 7 pm

The Spice & Tea Exchange of Alexandria
320 King Street
6 am-8 pm

The Sugar Cube*
210 N. Lee Street
6 am – 7 pm

Walker Home*
1125 King Street
6 am – 6 pm

Zoe Boutique
130 South Union Street
6 am- 6 pm

Other Discounts and Hours
Fitness on the Run*
109 S. Alfred Street
6 am – 7 pm

10% off of the Introductory Persona Training Package for New Clients (one time only), 10% off of 1 month of unlimited classes
10% off of 3 meals or more with Meals on the Run (must place order by Dec. 1st)

Imperfections Antiques & Great Stuff*
1210 King Street
8 am – 7 pm
20 % off from 8 am – 10 am, 10% off storewide the rest of the day

K Aubrey Flowers*
1401 King St.
Offering 30% from 6-8 am, 20% off from 8-10 am and 10% of the rest of the day on our website. Store opens at 9am with in store discount of 30% until 11am and then 20% 11-1 pm and then 10% the rest of the day.

Kit & Caboodle
218 N. Lee Street
1a am – 5 pm
10% off all day

Lawrence Miller & Co.*
121 S. Royal Street
11 am – 6 pm
20% off all day and free jewelry cleaning
Receive 20% off when you present a Black Friday receipt from any Old Town Boutique District store

The Little Monogram Shop*
106 ½ N. Columbus Street
10 am – 5:30 pm
20% discount on any item in stock containing the color BLACK.

Mindful Hands
211 King Street
11am – 10pm
10% off all purchases when you mention black Friday

Mint Condition*
114 S. Royal Street
11 am – 7 pm
Receive 10% off when you present a Black Friday receipt from any Old Town Boutique District store

Mystique*
10:30 am – 5 pm
20 % off all earring charms in gemstones in yellow citrine, black onyx, white topaz, pearls , and many others.
Receive 10% off when you present a Black Friday receipt from any Old Town Boutique District store

Nina’s Dandy Cruise Ship
Zero Prince Street, Alexandria, VA 22314
25% Off Gift Boarding Passes or personal bookings for Thanksgiving Weekend Cruises
Please mention Black Friday Offer to Receive Discount
Visit in person or call 703-683-6076 or online

The Sacred Circle
919 King Street
6 am – 7 pm
Book an intuitive reading of 15 minutes or longer between 11 am and 6 pm and receive 15% off your entire purchase of merchandise on that day. Appointments may be made in advance at 703-299-9309 or as available on Black Friday.(Cannot be combined with any other discounts.)

Stanton Gallery*
121 S. Royal Street
11 am – 6 pm
Receive 10% off when you present a Black Friday receipt from any Old Town Boutique District store

Treat*
103 S. St. Asaph Street
8 am – 7 pm
8am-10 am: 30% off, 10 am-12 pm – 20% off, 12 pm-7 pm – 10% off
Receive 10% off when you present a Black Friday receipt from any Old Town Boutique District store

Jackson Ward in Richmond a Vital Mix of Old and New Shops

The October 28 New York Times travel section featured an article “Harlem of South” Revived in Richmond, Va, by Julie Besonen, about the comeback of Jackson Ward and restoration of the Hippodrome Theatre in Richmond. Only a mile from the state capitol building, the Jackson Ward area is a hodgepoge of hip boutiques and shops, restaurants, and galleries by day, but not a safe place to be at night. Hopefully that dangerous rep will change with the Hippodrome opening. Jackson Ward is one of the downtown areas to to host First Fridays Art Walk, a once monthly event celebrating Richmond’s art and cultural scene. For a city its size, Richmond has a thriving art and music scene, largely because Virginia Commonweatlh University has a strong School of the Arts. We recently visited a couple of galleries/shops on Broad Street. Quirk, in Midtown Richmond at 311 Main has an impressive array of artistic and practical items, from handcrafted jewelry and scarves to funky sunglasses and nesting dolls, books, and children’s toys. Another interesting place to shop is Turnstyle, defined by its Web site as a store with a mission “to promote the music and lifestyle of the underground dance music movement.” Turnstyle actually sells turnstiles and a limited array of vinyl records, along with streetwear for both men and women. Designers include Manhattan Portage, ESDJCO, and a couple of Virginia-based artists–Virginia Beach’s Restless Bodies and Richmond Tattoo artist Jesse Smith Designs.

Consumer Reports Offers Tips for Black Friday Shopping

James K. Willcox of the Consumer News blog at ConsumerReports.org offers the following bargaining hunting tips to help you get the best Black Friday Deals.

Shop the ads before Black Friday
Shop online first
Sign up for e-mail alerts
Check out QR codes
Shop close to home
Check the warranty
See if you can get a price-match guarantee
Check specially priced “bundles”

He also cautions against buying a product you don’t want just because it’s a doorbuster, being tricked into buying a pricier model than you intended, and getting a great deal but buying pricey accessories.
Click the link to read all 12 tips and the full article, which explains what a QR code is.
Black Friday 2011: 12 Tips for Getting the Best Deals

Copper Fox Distillery, Sperryville, Virginia

Copper Fox Distillery. Open Monday through Saturday–check website for tour times and information

Truth be told, I don’t like whiskey. But I love discovering the unexpected, and that is what happened when my husband and I made a quick left turn at the small “Whiskey Distillery” sign while on our way to the Blue Ridge mountains. In an unobtrusive wooden structure down a gravel road just off the Lee Highway, (Route 211) in Sperryville, is a commercial whiskey distillery producing single malt and rye whiskeys and spirits–all 100-percent Virginia produced, hand bottled and labeled. Even the barley is grown in Virginia.

As you approach, you are invited to “ring the bell” for entry. Since 2000, Rick Wasmund, the Master Distiller, produces Wasmund’s Single Malt Whiskey, which is, according to the company website– “the only distillery in North America to hand malt our own barley, and the only distillery on the planet to use apple and cherry wood smoke to flavor the malted barley.” Monday through Saturday, Copper Fox offers free tours, and even though I am not a whiskey drinker, I much appreciated the smell of smoking barley and distilling spirits. If you don’t know Sperryville, it’s a quaint town at the foot of the Blue Ridge, about and hour and a half from metro DC and well worth a day trip. If you can’t make it to Copper Fox in person, you can buy their products in Virginia ABC stores and many liquor stores in DC and Maryland.

One caveat–Under Virginia law, you can’t sample, but you can smell. There is a small gift shop, which sells the alcoholic products, whiskey candy, and very popular barrel kits, which allow you to age your own whiskey to specification. A great gift idea for any whiskey lover.

Pure Pasty, Cornish Pasty Shop in Vienna

Pure Pasty, open Tuesday through Saturday until 7 pm and Sundays until 4 pm. CLOSED ON MONDAY

It isn’t often that you happen upon something new, unique, and tasty in your own backyard, but we discovered this English pasty shop when we misread a sign as “pastry.” I’m sure we aren’t the only ones who made that mistake and were glad we did. On a side street off of Church Street in Vienna, Michael Burgess and crew are making delicious Cornish pasties–in American terms, potpie-like filling baked in a flaky pie crust shaped like a large empanada or small calzone. That’s a convoluted description, but you probably get the idea–delicious but not without calories. Pasties come in a few flavors: traditional, with beef, mashed potatoes, and vegetables; chicken provencal, with a French country filling; Cornish masala, which is a chicken curry; philly steak; vegetable; and a weekly special. We tried the provencal and the masala–both really delicious, although we slightly favored the masala. For Anglophiles, the shop offers a small number of other English treats.

You can take the unbaked pasties home, as we did, to have for dinner, or eat on the premises, but there is limited seating. Each pasty is a one-serving meal.

Featured Article: Old School Guitar and Amp Shop Near Charlottesville, VA

Check out this article by David Maurer from the The Daily Progress.

http://www2.dailyprogress.com/lifestyles/2011/oct/09/shop-stays-tune-musicians-ar-1367038/

Although this shop is near Charlottesville, there is no scarcity of music stores in the metro DC area. Foxes Music is the go-to shop for sheet music in Virginia and Dale Music is the place music teachers recommend in Maryland. For wind instruments the metro area is lucky to have Chuck Levin’s Washington Music Center, a destination store for the entire east coast (for price and variety). String players all seem to know about two old established places: In Virginia, for 45 years, Brobst Violin has been a family owned destination store for string players. In Maryland, The Potter Violin Company in Bethesda, claims to be “the largest purveyor of bowed stringed instruments in the mid-Atlantic region.”

In addition to theses old standbys, Metro DC has some interesting small specialty music stores: Guitar players hang out at Atomic Music , which buys and sells used musical instruments, mostly guitars, amps, and equipment. It has two locations–Beltsville and Rockville–but the Beltsville store is much larger.

Another well-known store in the area is The House of Musical Traditions in Tacoma Park, MD, which has “exotic, unusual, and vintage instruments” and is so cool it’s worth a trip to Tacoma Park.

While I have don’t have firsthand knowledge of the following, these shops currently are on my radar:
The Guitar Shop on Dupont Circle, a bass player, says it’s hit or miss for basses but “guitar players seem to love it.”
The guitar Gallery in DC.
Middle C Music, a traditional community store that offers lessons, instruments, sheet music, instrument repair, and touts itself as “the only full-service music store in DC.”

Visa, MasterCard risk mom-and-pop ire with debit fee increase

By Dakin Campbell and Donal Griffin, Bloomberg News
Posted Sept. 27, 2011, at 8:15 a.m.
Last modified Sept. 27, 2011, at 1:18 p.m.

Visa, MasterCard risk mom-and-pop ire with debit fee increase

“Old” Old Town Shops Still Thrive

Charming little off-the-beaten path store in Old Town

I visited Old Town for the first time in a year or so a couple of weeks ago and was very happy to find many of the independent stores that I have always loved are alive and well. Open since 1975, near the river at 6 Prince Street, Olde Towne Gemstones still offers the crystals, minerals, and fossil specimens that have made it a unique shop in the area. But I bought a lovely pair of earrings that the owner designed himself (under $40). I admit that I love this store because I interviewed two members of the Young family owners–father and son–a few years ago and they regaled me with stories of fossil hunting near Calvert Cliffs in Maryland. Next to Big Wheel Bikes near the river, I recommend a visit to this store.

Serving the community since 1988, Imagine Artwear , 1124 King Street, has beautiful art-to-wear clothing, jewelry, and accessories made exclusively by American artists. Imagine is a gallery dedicated to displaying the talents of weavers, painters, surface designers, jewelers, potters, glass artists, and furniture makers.

Across the street, at 1117 King Street, Arts Afire Gallery is another great shop featuring American-made goods. Featuring the works for more than 400 artists, the gallery features glass beads and jewelry, art glass, kaleidoscopes, ceramics, and turned wood. Visit the store’s blog for more information.

Made in America Resource Guide: Where to Find American Companies? – ABC News

Made in America Resource Guide: Where to Find American Companies? – ABC News.

I was going to create a resource page for goods made in America but Diane Sawyer and the ABC World News team has made a terrific directory and interactive map that I could never outdo!