Gander and Goose Brings Wildcrafted Botanical Cocktails to White Salmon
The exterior of Gander and Goose in downtown White Salmon. Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
By Cole Goodwin
White Salmon, WA, November 10, 2023 – The newly opened Gander and Goose, a botanical cocktail bar primely located in downtown White Salmon at 218 E Jewett Blvd, was busy with the sounds of cocktail shakers and conversation on Friday night.
It’s a busy Friday at Gander and Goose! Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
Sam Schauer, owner of the bar, has over 20 years of experience in the bar industry.
Sam greeting customers at the counter. Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
He’s done it all from bartending, to kitchen, to sound technician. But this is the first time he’s built one from the ground up, floorboards and all. And, according to his mom at this point, everyone at True Value and Tum-A-Lum Lumber seems to know him and her.
Since early this summer Sam’s has been working 15-hour days to turn what was once an empty office building into a swanky gathering space. And last night was the first night he finally got to sit on the other side of the bar, and just watch the magic happen -well for a while anyway- he still got up and helped out a customer or wiped down a table when needed.
Sam steps behind the bar to chat with a customer. Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
“This is the dream,” Sam says, noting that that Friday they are celebrating exactly one month of being open for business. He also says he’s glad to have just hired a bartender so that he can rotate out and focus on other parts of the business when he needs to.
Sam, a self-described jack of all trades, has an eclectic taste in just about every part of his life, he can play almost any instrument, listen to almost any music, and loves to forage for new and exciting tastes in the forests and hills of the Columbia River Gorge.
“I’ve been making my own amaros,” says Sam, “An amaro is a bittersweet herbal liquor that typically a digestive.” or an alcoholic drink enjoyed after a meal. “They’re usually from Northern Italy, the Alps, or North Austria. They’re always super botanical. They almost always started as medicine at some point. They were made in abbeys by monks sworn to secrecy. The recipes are super protected so no one really knows what’s in them. There’s like thirty, forty botanicals in them.”
His most recent cocktail special was called Forest Walk and featured some of Sam’s own wildcrafted amaro.
“I went on a foraging walk in high summer and everything was blooming all at once and I harvested it and processed it and added local wild honey,” says Sam
Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
As for the recipe?
Well, he can't give away all his secrets can he? But he did hint at unique local flavors like Devil’s Club, Yarrow, Arrow Leaf Balsam Root, Angelica and some other interesting local plants most people are unlikely to have experienced in their cocktails before.
“The Gorge is so special in terms of botanical diversity and I really really appreciate it for that. We are right in the middle of the line of wet and dry and there’s all the microclimates you want to forage in, most of it just while on a walk with my dog. I couldn’t do something like this in the city. I’d have to drive three hours just to go forage, but here I can do it daily,” says Sam.
Bartending can be quite the handful! Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
“The creativity of it is what gets me excited,” says Sam.
Sam loves flavors that don’t fit neatly into one category or the other, which is well evidenced by the menu.
It features a blend of draft beer in bottles and cans, wine, and non-alcoholic beverages, as well as complex and carefully crafted and wildcrafted alcoholic botanical cocktails.
One of the most popular cocktails on the menu is the Persian Summer, a gin, sekanjabin (traditional Persian mint shrub, and one of the oldest recorded herbal infusions in history), lime, cucumber, and mint cocktail served on the rocks.
The Persian Summer cocktail. Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
Fresh ingredients make for delicious drinks. Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
Other interesting cocktails include La Luz, which features blanco tequila, a tamarind and habanero shrub and rosemary. The Telson is made of mezcal, cynar, lime, grapefruit, and bitters with a sumac rim.
“I like the suman on the Telson. I love flavors like that that really cross the line between sweet and savory and sweet and sour, they don’t fit neatly into a category,” says Sam.
But perhaps the most novel thing on the menu is the food: savory crispy rice waffles and potato waffles.
The Brussels and Bacon crispy rice waffle. Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
“They’re gluten-free,” says Sam. “This was an idea I saw on TikTok, specifically the spicy tuna waffle is a TikTok thing, we’re doing it a little bit more fancy pants maybe than people do at home, but the whole idea sprang from that concept. I hired a chef, Chris Martinez; he’s awesome, and he turned it from this ‘Oh that will be good’ to ‘Oh, that’s GOOD.’ It’s awesome, I’ll be honest with you.”
The spicy tuna crispy rice waffle. Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
Martinez, who’s been working in the kitchen for almost 15 years, knows how to make fried rice awesome. The secret? You have to age the rice.
“The trick to fried rice is it should be at least three days old,” says Chris. “I grew up making Thai food and we never stopped making rice. We ran the rice cooker overnight. The walk in was just criss-crossed pans of rice wall to wall. We kind of want to get it to air cure, almost like when you dry age meat, it’s the same idea, you’re just dry aging the rice.”
Chris Martinez makes a crispy rice waffle. Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
He also hits it with a little vinegar.
“That tightens up the proteins,” says Chris.
On top of some pretty amazing and innovative menu items, the bar boasts a great atmosphere with a mix of bar and booths for people to gather at.
“I hope people feel like they can come in here in their farm clothes and also get dressed up and come in for a date if they want,” says Sam.
I ask Sam’s mom what she thinks of the place and she tells me that she couldn’t be prouder of her son.
“This was just an empty box,” she says gesturing to the bar with a smile. “Now look at it. Just amazing.”
Sam nods, he tells the both of us “I couldn’t have done it without her. She helped a lot, I have two dogs and I’ve been working 15 hour days. She helped with that. She’s helped emotionally, financially. I really couldn’t have done it without her.”
Sam and his mom say ‘cheers!’ Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
“This is an amazing community; people are so supportive, and I really just want this to be a gathering place for folks,” says Sam. “My favorite thing is watching people get to know each other. You don’t see it too often, but I’ve already seen it a few times here when I’m behind the bar - two couples that don’t know each other start talking and by the end of it they’re going to be co-captains of each others sports teams, and garden and hike together. People just need a place to gather.”
Photo Credit: Cole Goodwin
In the future Sam hopes to finish hanging some art on the walls and make a “pay-it-forward” wall for people to buy drinks for their friends and continue promoting kindness and community. He’ll get to it, but in the meantime he’s got wild edibles to forage and a bar to run.
Want to visit the Gander and Goose? They’re hours are Wednesday through Sunday 4 p.m to 10 a.m.
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Good luck Sam on your new business!
