
A Can’t-Miss Wine Country B&B, a Restorative Liqueur, and More Things to See and Do in the West
From a hip B&B (yes, that’s a thing) to a yuzu liquor that goes with everything, here’s the Best of the West this week

Dave Lauridsen
Santa Ynez Inn
Victorian architecture and B&Bs are not typically my jam, but all that has changed thanks to a wonderful time at Santa Ynez Inn. They made our long-weekend stay totally seamless, helping us to set up our wine-tasting experience (they offer a wine passport that features complimentary tastings for two at over a dozen partner wineries), and went above and beyond to reserve Pedego electric bikes for us, which made the whole experience that much sweeter. If you haven’t visited the Santa Ynez Valley, it’s definitely worth a visit. —Jasmin Perez, digital strategy director
A Cure for the Common Cold Remedy
When I was sick as a kid, my mom would always make me yuja-cha, a Korean citrus tea. She made it with the fruit known in the West as yuzu, a super-fragrant piece of citrus that invokes mandarins and lemons in its aroma and taste. It’s the near-end of citrus season in California, and while our food editors are cooking up some fab citrus recipes, I’ve been hoping to prolong the season in my cocktails. I have about a half-dozen yellow grapefruits left that I picked from a Buy Nothing neighbor’s tree, and I’ve been making simple, refreshing cocktails with a new Kumamoto-made yuzu liqueur called Yuzuri, plus ice, soda, half a grapefruit’s juice, and some simple syrup if I’m feeling sweet. A sucker for citrus, I dig this liqueur because it’s super yuzu-y—the creators take yuzu fruit, peel, and seeds, and steep them in rice and mountain water spirits. I attribute my success in fighting off a cold recently to dosing myself with my own version of cough syrup: a Yuzuri and Japanese whiskey hot toddy. —Dakota Kim, staff writer
The Last Frontier of Wonder
In case you forgot that Alaska is a moss-gilded fairyland of dewy fireweed and velvet-nosed billy goats, Portland- and Fairbanks-based filmmakers Woodruff Laputka and Tehben Dean are here to remind you that magic still exists in the West’s last wild frontier. Diving into a world two decades in the making, The Dean Family Farm follows farmer-artists Ranja and Jeff Dean (Tehben’s parents) at their homestead in Homer, Alaska. Meandering through a menagerie of art and animals, gardens and architecture, we are shown a truly unique lifestyle in the Last Frontier, where form meets function and where love lasts a lifetime. See more of Woodruff and Tehben’s gorgeous work at Woodteb. —Heather Arndt Anderson, garden editor
Springtime Flower Fields

Nena Farrell
San Diego’s northern beach town of Carlsbad has had one of its iconic attractions bud for spring: The Flower Fields at Carlsbad Ranch are open and will continue to be until Mother’s Day in May. The Flower Fields are more than 70 acres of ranunculus blooms, with rows and rows of colors, each row containing a different strain and shade of ranunculus, ranging from pinks and reds to white, orange, and multicolor “café” rows. So far, only some of the sections are blooming, with sometime in April estimated to be the peak time. The ranch is also a farm that grows coffee beans, olives, and blueberries—and the blueberries will be available for U-pick for the first time ever this year. The blueberry fields aren’t quite ripe yet, so they will open in the coming days. If you’re itching for blueberries you might want to visit sooner rather than later before they’re all picked. —Nena Farrell, associate home editor