(upbeat music) - Today on "All Across Oregon," we're heading back to the charming town of Grants Pass, Oregon.

There we'll find New York style bagels, a super cool distillery, poke bowl, an inspirational potter, and meet some furry new friends.

Grants Pass, here we come.

(upbeat music) This episode of "All Across Oregon" is made possible in part by John Warekois, CPA tax professional and profit builder in southern Oregon and Northern California, Fire Mountain Gems and Beads, located in Grants Pass Oregon with over 50 years of providing jewelry making supplies worldwide.

You can find them at firemountaingems.com And travel Southern Oregon.

Travel Southern Oregon supports a diverse, thriving, and sustainable visitor economy to create a better life for all our regions residents, visit Southern Oregon, do something great.

Grants Pass, so many things to do here.

There's art, culture, vineyards, great restaurants, distilleries, so much history and it's the gateway to the Illinois and Applegate Valleys and of course the beautiful majestic southern Oregon coast.

We start our day at a family run bakery with a husband and wife team that not only make great pastries, but what, New York style bagels?

So here we are, we're downtown Grants Pass at Dassh Bakery.

I want you to be Doug and Ashley, the owners and operators of this delicious place.

(upbeat music) - Are you ready for some coffee?

- Am I ready?

- Yeah, everybody needs a cup.

This is a latte here, made with organic espresso from locally roasted malelo.

- Ooh.

- Our niece Alex makes these cups for us.

- [Vinny] What?

- Yeah, she's a local potter.

Vinny, do you wanna grab that bottle of icing on the counter over there?

- Very nice.

- This is the best part.

Get all the goods and we make this cream cheese icing.

We make the dough.

- These are orange flavored.

- Do you know what's happening in my mind right now?

Do you know?

Do you know?

- All right, this is the best part though.

- These are beautiful.

Okay, this is the best part.

- Wait until you see underneath here.

- Oh yeah.

- See all that goo.

- Oh, look at that.

Look at the stickiness.

That is super, super fluffy.

Super popping outta my mouth.

I don't even know what to say right now.

- That's our thing.

That's what people come in for.

- For this?

- Yeah.

- For the cinnamon rolls?

- Cinnamon rolls and bagels.

- How do you balance that?

So it's perfectly balanced.

- You gotta care about the food.

- When you think about your bakery though, it's not just about all the sweets.

- No, no, we're not just a sugar bakery.

We also do homemade New York style boiled bagels, the real way, no skipping anything.

- New York style bagels.

- Minus the water.

- Look at this.

Look at this New York.

- Yeah, using Grants Pass water, obviously.

- Let's see a New York style bagel here in Grants Pass.

Oh, it's like being back home.

- Yeah, well, I usually get in trouble for too much.

- [Ashley] We like to do a big thick New York schmear on our bagels.

- [Vinny] What inspired you to do the New York?

- When the business started it, we were kind of opening it as a just a bread bakery.

As you know, this town is tough and when your customers come in and say $5 for a loaf of bread, it pretty much ended right there.

- So we adjusted our business to what this area needed and we don't have a bagel shop in town.

We're already doing all this baking.

He loves to bake bread.

So we're like, let's branch out, let's try bagels.

He started researching and he was like, if we're gonna do bagels, I'm not gonna steam 'em in the oven.

I'm gonna do it the real way.

I'm gonna boil them.

So we get out our kettles, he boils them, throws 'em in the oven, bakes 'em at almost 500 degrees.

So real hot and steamy in here.

This is our favorite.

It's the lox bagel.

It doesn't get more traditional than that.

- Oh my goodness.

- And we use a nova cured lox.

It's got some lemon zest, some parsley, some dill, capers, red onion, thin sliced tomato.

- Wow, hope you guys are hungry.

Looks good, ah, what a nice bagel.

Oh, and I love the capers.

I love the salt from the capers.

Red onion's my favorite.

- Oh yeah.

You got the cream cheese to settle some of that saltiness.

- I haven't had a bagel like that since I was back in my hometown of Port Chester New York.

So tell us again what happened.

- So yeah, after meeting here and I mean falling in love, we got married.

We have three beautiful children.

We both had worked in restaurants and knew that was something we wanted to do.

And we decided if we're gonna do a restaurant, we wanna make sure that we get our time with our kids 'cause nightlife restaurants, it's very hard and you're very married to it.

So we wanted to have something where we could work our kids' hours and so we've settled on the bakery and coffee shop and then we moved back home, had another baby, and started this business.

And we started this business.

- We started she carried the baby around in her front.

- Yeah, our youngest was three months old and I would wear her in a front pack while we were making coffee and frosting cupcakes and he was making sandwiches and baking bread.

- This is what it's all about.

- Oh yeah.

- And the fact that you changed what you did to accommodate your kids.

- Oh yeah.

- Oh yeah.

- And go into the daytime.

- That's really what it's all about.

We are so family focused.

Our family lives here.

We have a family business.

We welcome kids, we welcome people to sit outside with their dogs.

Yeah, and now our girls are 17, 15, and 12, and we've got 'em in here working with us during the summertime.

And it's good training for them.

They're seeing us work really hard.

They're coming in here, they're working hard, they get paid and they are learning that you go to work, you grind it out and you take care of yourself but you have a good time while you're doing it and you can enjoy yourself even though you're working hard.

- Well you know what, you guys are a beautiful couple inside and out.

- Oh, we appreciate it.

- And what a, I am so glad I heard about you, and was able to come here.

- Yeah.

- And the food is off the chart.

- Thank you, thank you.

- The bagel, I haven't had a bagel, like, I don't even know.

I mean, I moved out from New York like 20 something years ago and I have not.

That was incredible.

- That's our best compliment, when we can impress an East Coaster, especially New York or Jersey, and they come in and they say, your bagels, I haven't had one of these since I've been back over there.

That's what we want.

That's what we want to hear.

- That's exactly what you want.

- Oh yeah.

- For sure.

- Best compliment.

- Go see the people at Dassh Bakery and get the bagel with the lox.

Mm, now you're in for a treat.

This little lady inspired me, meet Alex, she's the one who made those cute little coffee mugs.

So I tell you what, we were over a Dassh Bakery and that's your aunt and uncle.

I said, these are like the neatest mugs.

They're so cool.

And she says, my niece makes these things.

But we had to see the person behind it and what you do.

So tell me about yourself.

Tell me about what you do in this and you work from home.

- I do, I mostly make mugs because that's what people like.

But I make, I can make pretty much anything on the pottery wheel.

- What, how did you start Potter Deck?

How does someone say I'm gonna buy a 2200 degree kiln and do something?

- Well, I actually started an event, it was a fundraising event called Soup for the Soul.

And it was handmade bowls, and you would come to the event, you get a bowl and you get to eat soup from local restaurants and all the money went to the food pantry here, The Rock.

So I actually decided to learn to do pottery for that event I created.

- So you started this from helping other people?

- The first event I did, I didn't do pottery yet and I had a hard time getting the bowls donated.

So I was like, well for next year I'll just learn myself.

So that's kind of what I did.

- I'm gonna make my own bowls.

- Yeah.

- I mean really?

- Yeah.

- Come on, how cool is that?

Did they already go in the kiln?

- Nope, so they're gonna get hand, they're gonna get trimmed, they're gonna get cleaned up and painted.

I'm gonna put handles on them.

They're gonna go in the kiln once and get fired and then they're gonna come out and get glazed and then go back in.

So it's a multi-step situation.

- I mean this is your ding right here.

- This is the pottery wheel, yeah.

- Alex, what would you like to make today, tell me.

- I'll make a bowl because I actually never get to make bowls.

- Yeah, let's do a bowl.

Let's do a bowl.

- I haven't made a bowl in a really long time.

- Let's do a bowl.

- So the first thing I do is center the clay which a process of pulling it up and down and getting it nice and even all around.

- Gosh, you guys make that look so easy.

- It's the hardest part, definitely.

So now I have a good foundation to start with.

Just go in the center.

- This is like the coolest thing ever.

It is not that easy.

Just so you know, it's not easy.

- This is like the quickest part of the whole process as you see like everything's always in, I always have so many steps and everything's always in a process somewhere.

Like it's a big, it takes me probably a week or so just to get something through and done but this is the funnest part for sure.

I've probably made like a hundred thousand things.

- Seriously?

- Probably, honestly, I thought about it the other day and I was like, you know, I've thrown tens of thousands probably of things on here.

- [Vinny] Who eats out of a bowl this big?

- [Alex] Me.

- [Vinny] This is the, there's a food bowl.

- [Alex] I eat out of a huge bowl.

- [Vinny] How big is your spoon?

- Not big enough.

A little swirly.

- [Vinny] Look.

- And it's done.

- [Vinny] It looks so, you look, you make it look so easy.

- Yeah, you cut it off and I like to pick 'em up.

Set 'em down.

Are you ready to try?

- I failed really bad last time so, okay.

- That's what pottery is about, failing.

- Okay.

- I mean it's like 50% failure.

See, like to make sure it's nice and stuck, get the clay wet.

Start the wheel and I'll help you out.

Okay, a little too fast.

- Too fast, too fast, too fast.

- Okay, now you wanna go, keep going.

This is the hardest part like this.

- Oh, so I didn't even get it centered yet.

- No, this is what takes.

- Oh, that's what you're trying to do.

- This is what takes the most practice.

Okay, now you can stick your fingers in it and just try to do what I did.

- I gotta push harder without trying to.

Oh wow, you're really pushing hard.

Okay, got it.

- Okay, now I'm gonna try to pull it up.

Keep going, I got you.

- She's gonna fire me.

(upbeat music) Wait, this is not easy.

- It's not.

- This is like super humbling, okay.

- Humbles me every day.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- For the lesson and trust me you are probably an amazing teacher, but I tell everybody, I'm an awful student so it's obvious.

- So it gets to around 2200 degrees and it takes roughly nine to 12 hours to cook and then about the same amount of time to cool down.

So it's like.

- Wait a minute, nine to 12 hours at 2200 degrees.

- It slowly builds up to that.

So once it hits temperature, it turns off and then it cools down.

- Okay, got it.

- Yeah, so it starts at room temperature and over the course of nine to 12 hours it goes up and up and up and up slowly and then the last a hundred degrees takes a really long time 'cause it's a lot of energy.

And so, I mean it's like max energy that my whole house can take.

- Alright, well you guys get ready for 2200 degrees.

We'll see you in 12 hours, not really.

- Okay, voila.

- Look at that.

This is after, so this is like 12 hours later, and what's a trip, it even has paper already with all the numbers written inside of it.

- It's already SKUed and ready to go, yeah.

- It even melts the SKU in there.

- Yeah it does it all for me.

It's amazing.

- You are so talented and.

- Thank you.

- I really, Alex, thank you for just sharing a few minutes of the day 'cause this is a, when I saw 'em, I told you I had to come, I had to come meet you and see your work so.

- Well I'm honored.

- Yeah, thank you.

- To show you guys, super thankful.

- And the coffee, just so you know guys, hey, the coffee tastes super good outta these mugs.

Man, that process is so cool and I even got to leave with a new favorite mug.

Now we're heading down the street to Steam Distillery.

Do you enjoy high end bourbons, gins, vodkas?

I want you to meet these two guys, owners and operators of Steam Distillery.

This is Scott and Michael and let's see what they got going on at Steam Distillery on G Street.

(upbeat music) Can we just see how it works back here?

Yeah, I'll follow you.

- So what he is got right now going is making a pumpkin spice vodka.

- So what we do with these, this is called the soxhlet extractor and the idea behind it is anytime we wanna do a new flavor, we can do something in here and try it.

It's quick, this will be done in like 45 minutes.

So what happens, this filled with vodka, it gets boiled.

The vapors come up this bigger tube, hits the glycol system, condenses back to a liquid.

And you can see it's rising up on this small tube.

Once it hits up here, it's gonna siphon back down into here.

Does that over and over and over again until it pulls all those, this will be completely white when it's done and this will be this color when it's done.

So we do 'em like this, play with it until we get the flavors dialed in, if we like it and we're gonna do bigger batches, I've got this one here, which is just a, you know, six liter version.

So I can do it big.

And that's what we use a lot of, most of our flavors that are up there.

Then we blend that with our vodka to make our flavored vodkas so.

- Okay, so sampler, this is where we.

- Sampler, starts out.

- This is where we figure out what it tastes like.

We like what we find out, we like what we have now, we like this.

- We dial in with that then we go to bigger for stuff that we're just gonna pour behind the bar here.

- Okay.

- We do it in this, this will produce a gallon and a half.

It'll last us a month, two, it depends on which one it is.

If it's something we're gonna sell at the liquor store, like our habanero our vanilla our lavender, lemongrass, I've got the big daddy here.

Same thing, that goes on top of that hundred liter still right there.

- So how do you, what, you guys get together and say, hey look, I got like a science degree or something.

Let's do this.

- The thing with distilling in the United States, you know, you can brew beer at home, you can make wine at home.

As soon as you put that beer, wine, through a distillation process it's federally illegal everywhere in the country.

It's from old prohibition laws.

So I got myself a unit and practiced the theory of distillation in my garage because you can't actually distill anything.

- Got it.

- So I made a lot of distilled water.

So right now we're doing bourbon.

- We're doing bourbon, but you know, to be bourbon it has to be a minimum of 51% corn.

And then everything else it has to be a hundred percent grain, but 51% of it has to be corn.

Then you can use whatever other grains you want.

We do, I do corn, a six row barley and rye.

Like Scott was saying, yeah, and this vessel here, we make our vodka out of a long grain rice.

- Okay.

- And we chose, we played around with it for a long time.

So you can see it bubbling away in there and you can actually dip your finger in and taste it.

You can taste the sweetness of that, well, depending on how much it's fermented off.

- Put my finger in it.

- [Michael] Yeah.

- Oh yeah, sweet.

- Yeah, the yeast hasn't eaten all the sugar yet.

I just put it in last week I think it was.

So it takes about 10 days to fully ferment out.

- So we're halfway through the process?

- About halfway through the fermentation process and then I'll start doing 25 gallons a time running through this.

- Let's like see some of this finished product.

- Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

- My head hurts.

- I'm gonna make the smoked old fashioned.

It's our number one drink by far.

It is the one that's, it has a bit of a show to it.

So what we make it with is first one orange and one simple syrup.

- I don't think there's anything simple in the place.

- Little bit of chocolate bitters.

Then we use Buffalo Trace because we don't have our own.

And Buffalo Trace is a, you know, it's a favorite.

- I see where you're going.

There's your smoker right there.

- Yep, so yes, we use the smoker.

We use Apple wood chips.

- There we go.

Let's see what it looks like.

I gotta do it.

You gotta go it.

- I do it, yep.

- Oh man, look at that.

Oh, that app that is, yeah, that's like, I'm at the Barbie.

I'm at my campfire right now.

- Carries through that smokiness with the sweetness.

- Absolutely.

That is the most flavorful drink I have ever had.

- It's got a lot of flavor in it.

- And that smoke is just perfect at the end.

- This is our Maple Bacon Manhattan.

So we first start with one of the ice cubes here, old Forester Whiskey, but we let it sit in bacon grease for a week and then we freeze it and then we strain it off.

Ounce of maple.

Actually we want to use a hundred percent maple syrup.

- Okay.

= A little bit of orange bitters, strain it.

And then to top it off, we take the bacon and we use this gun again.

We cook the bacon just a little bit bore.

- Maple bacon Manhattan, nice.

Yeah, look at that.

All right man.

Oh my gosh, wow.

Now while we were there, they had Dustin come in, the owner of the restaurant next door and make us a fresh poke bowl.

It went perfect with our drinks.

- So we're gonna make an Ahi bowl real quick.

Little rice, we do lime juice, agave, zest and mirin in our rice.

We take our ahi loin diced up.

Take a little bit of soy sauce, give it a mix.

So some marinated red cabbage.

- Ooh, red cabbage.

So is this your recipe?

Did you figure this one out or do you just.

= Yeah, it's not too bad.

- Or did you just kind of work with this?

- Keep it simple.

Don't it mess up, freshly shaved carrot.

- Well I know how busy you are and you came in to make this.

And thank you so much man.

What a couple of nice and fun guys.

Great hospitality and we learned a lot.

Now let's head over to the Rogue Valley Humane Society and meet some hardworking people and volunteers that try to help the ones who can't help themselves.

And today I brought my daughter Sophia with me, hoping to find a friend for my grand puppy that lives with her.

- So the Rogue Valley Humane Society was started in 1965 by a group of animal loving folks.

Over the years we have grown and developed and now we're at this lovely, beautiful property.

Used to be an old dairy farms.

- How, this was an old dairy farm so you kept the whole place.

- Yes.

- The whole piece of land.

- Yeah, the whole piece of land is ours.

So the field area where it used, they used to have their cows is now our dog runs area.

Up here at the top of our hill, we've repurposed the original farmhouse into our surgical clinics.

It's a lovely place to have animals wait for their furever home.

And we're lucky to be here and come to work every day in such a beautiful environment.

In such a beautiful southern Oregon.

- Did you say furever, like fur?

- Furever homes.

- Like fur, furever home.

- Yep, fur on your shirt.

- I like that.

Well, let's go see some animals.

- Alright, well we're gonna start going through our dog kennels and meet a really special little guy and Lydia's gonna tell you all about him.

- So we're gonna meet Boots and Joey, they are 10 month old brothers and they're Border Collie blends.

- I love how loud it is.

It's beautiful.

This is great.

This is like my work.

It's okay, it's okay, it's okay.

How do we know, like they get along with their, because you've already had 'em with other dogs.

- Yeah, so we have the opportunity to do playgroup with certain dogs.

- Look how quiet they got already.

- Yeah.

- I'm a dog whisperer.

They just stop.

I'm just, outta curiosity, I'm here, I'm looking.

There's not a lot of dogs right now.

Is that 'cause?

- Yeah, so right now we are actually dealing with a situation where we had to take on a group of 10 puppies.

So we are sharing some staffing in our puppy room, taking care of those puppies along with our dog staff.

So we focus a lot on capacity for care at the Humane Society.

So we're not gonna fill all 20 of our kennels at full capacity plus have puppies and just have the two staff members a day that we have.

We wanna focus and make sure that we have enough time to spend with each animal and give them what they need.

So as far as the adoption process goes, the first step is someone just making it down here to see if they find a good connection with the dog or cat that they're interested in.

A lot of times people will fall in love via a picture.

So we have staff and volunteers as well, taking really nice photos and videos of our animals to showcase their personality.

So as soon as someone falls in love, what we wanna do is have them meet the animal.

Sometimes seeing isn't always the same thing as connecting.

So we wanna make sure they establish that connection in a bond so that we know that their relationship in the home will be successful.

- Well, Sophia, you ready to see if you connect with an animal?

You wanna see if you connect with Joey?

Come on Joey.

You wanna go out for a minute?

Let's go Joey, you wanna go for a walk?

Was Joey, is Joey surrender too?

- Yes, him and his brother were both surrendered.

Yeah, Boots and Joey both came from kind of a sad situation.

When they came to us, they didn't even know what a toy was.

And so it took him a couple weeks to kind of realize that they get to play and they get to cuddle and they get to have these things that, you know, dogs typically get.

Yeah, they didn't get that previously, so.

- Oh man, well you know what?

There's another puppy named Murphy that you guys would play so much, you'd be exhausted.

Now we gotta go see the puppies.

- We gotta go see the puppies.

So right now we have about 10 puppies in house and we have them in a totally separate area from our adult dogs for disease transmission purposes.

Because they're babies, they do have a lower immunity and we wanna make sure that they don't get exposed to anything that we don't want them to get exposed to.

- Oh my goodness.

- I know.

- Do they all look the same?

Are they from the same litter?

- Yes, so they're a Staffordshire blend sort of puppy.

They're all about 10 pounds now, about a couple months old.

- You are gonna make a lot of people very happy.

- So we do wear personal protective equipment to help.

- I am so ready to play with the puppies.

This is like every guy's dream.

Oh this is like, this is amazing.

This is a puppy.

Okay, everyone needs to have a puppy pile on.

There's nothing like it.

When people do find out that though, that that's their blood, is that an issue?

Even at that age?

Like they, they have that pit bull in them.

- Sometimes people will have misconceptions about these kinds of dogs and we do our best to educate them on why that's a little incorrect.

We don't, we believe there's only bad owners, not bad dogs.

- I'm with you a hundred percent.

I just can't believe guys, they are so thick.

They are so thick.

They're like picking up a little bowling ball of fur.

Now we're gonna go up and see the surgery center in the old barn.

- In our old farmhouse.

So this is our surgery clinic that we have on the Humane Society property.

So we have a veterinarian and a vet tech on staff.

And two days a week we provide surgeries not only for our animals and the TNR clients that we work with, but also to other local shelters and rescues in our area.

Yeah, so this table is our prep area.

So when the animals get induced for surgery, they come out to the table, we trim their nails, we put eyedrops in their eyes 'cause their eyes are open during surgery.

We don't want 'em to dry out.

We shave their belly if they're getting ready to get spayed and sanitize the area for the doctor.

And then we're also at the same time monitoring their breathing and their heart rate to make sure that the anesthesia is working.

It's like our own mini vet hospital up here.

We just do a lot of spays and neuters.

- Wow, well everybody, thank you for letting us invade your space and thank you for your hard work and all the love you have for these animals.

That's, it's, you definitely made my day.

Thank you so much.

I know you probably made their day too, so thank you.

Thank you for having us.

So if you're looking to get a dog or if you're looking to go get a puppy or a cat or a kitten, please visit your local Humane Society, your local animal shelter.

There's so many that need help.

And yes, if you're wondering if we added another fur baby to our family, this is Boots, but he'll be staying with Sophia.

This was such a fun day.

The people, the food, the animals, the City of Grants Pass just keeps on giving.

If you're in Grants Pass, Oregon, or traveling up and down the I5, go get a bagel.

Pick up a new mug, adopt an animal.

Visit these hardworking people and until next time, we'll see you as we go all across Oregon.

This episode of "All Across Oregon" is made possible in part by John Warekois, CPA tax professional and profit builder in southern Oregon and Northern California.

Fire Mountain Gems and Beads, located in Grants Pass Oregon with over 50 years of providing jewelry making supplies worldwide.

You can find them at firemountaingems.com.

And travel Southern Oregon.

Travel Southern Oregon supports a diverse, thriving, and sustainable visitor economy to create a better life for all our regions residents, visit Southern Oregon.

Do something great.

(melodic music)