From Away Mercantile Announcement PLUS GIVEAWAY!

One of the things Jillian and I have always wanted to do is have a small retail shop, where we could sell a collection of our favorite items from the world of food and drink, as well as our one-off finds from Maine’s huge network of dealers of antiques, oddities, and barn finds. The major obstacle to launching our own retail venture was the massive upfront cost; between securing a commercial space and enough initial inventory to fill that space, our dream of owning our own small shop seemed hopelessly out of reach.

The Internet changes the equation significantly, and brings its own series of advantages. Not only do we not have the overhead of maintaining our own brick-and-mortar shop, but we have the opportunity to offer our products to a much larger group of customers. We aren’t limited to selling our collection to the people that happen to walk by the shop; instead, we can sell to a worldwide audience, in a store that’s open 24 hours a day.

It’s with great pleasure, then, that we announce the launch of the From Away Mercantile, a collection of our favorite made-in-Maine items, as well as products that we just happen to think are cool, from the world of food and drink.

We’re starting small, with just a few items. We’ve got rocks glasses made from recycled Jameson bottles, as well as some serving trays re-purposed from old wine barrel staves. This isn’t some kind of drop-shipping, Cafepress-style nonsense. All of our shop’s inventory is stocked and shipped from our barn right here in Rockland, Maine, straight to your door, for a low $5 flat rate shipping fee.

We’ll be adding more and more items as we find more things that we like and believe in. And of course, if you are a dealer or craftsman (particularly here in Maine) and you’d like to see us offer something in our shop, please drop me an email so we can talk about it.

But there’s more. To celebrate the launch of our store, we’re giving away THREE sets of two “Cuppow!” travel lids. What on Earth is a Cuppow! travel lid, you may wonder? It’s one of the products that got us thinking about this whole idea. It screws into the top of a canning jar, turning any jar into a spill-resistant travel mug. That’s right: Now you can show off your indie food sensibilities, even when you’re driving your car or riding your fixed-gear bicycle. We’re giving away three sets of both size lids (one for regular, and one for wide-mouth jars, a $16 total value). To learn more about Cuppow!, or to skip all of this “giveaway” business and buy one right now, click here.

About the Author: Malcolm Bedell

My first memories of cooking start in Maine at six years old, when I wore a yellow rainslicker to avoid getting spattered by the bacon I was frying in a skillet. My interest in both Mexican cooking and recreating classic New England dishes from scratch developed while living in Mexico, on a steady diet of pork and habanero peppers. You can see more of my writing and photography online on Serious Eats, the Huffington Post, BlogHer, and Foodista, as well as in print for Downeast, Indulge, and Cigar Snob magazines.