There are definitely more than a few reasons that I think you should be getting excited about this year’s inaugural Cincinnati Christkindlmarket down at the Schmidlap Event Lawn at the Banks. One of those reasons is undoubted because I’ll be there doing some live podcasting… but there’s more, and I want to try to cover it all, so hang in there with me for a minute!
What The Heck Is A Christkindlmarket?
A tradition pulled from Germany, spreading into Switzerland and Austria, Christkindlmarkets are one of the biggest things for me that make it feel like Christmas. They started as street markets that would happen during the four weeks of advent and became extremely popular in Europe.
Traditionally held in the town square, the festivals would feature food, drink, and lots of local goods being sold out of open-air stalls. All of this would be accompanied by plenty of singing and dancing, too – as you’d expect from any decent street festival.
There’s something really special about a warm, festive, joyous celebration during the cold winter. It makes things feel that much more fantastic when they are juxtaposed against the cold grey winter days.
Bringing That To The Banks
The Moerlein Lager House is teaming up with Servatii this year to bring all that joyous celebration to the city via traditional Chrstikindlmarket that gets a nice, healthy dose of some modern flair, too. They’re turning the Schmidlapp Event Lawn into a winter wonderland with decorations, and open-air stalls just like you’d see in Europe.
You can expect to find tons of candy, strudel, desserts, pretzels, cured meat, cheese, Wursts and Brats, Potatoes, Soups… all the stuff that will warm you up on the food side. Paired up with the food will be a full selection of great European beer alongside the local stuff from Moerlein that you’d expect plus a bunch of fun wine and spirits to get things even more festive.
You’ll find plenty of traditional food, drinks, and entertainment alongside holiday lights and merchandise. It’s going to be an absolute blast… and you won’t want to miss it – especially since I’ll be there making some podcasts LIVE!
Drinking With The Gnome
This part is really exciting for me because I’ll be taking one of my podcasts on the road! Drinking With The Gnome will be spending the whole month of December exploring winter drinking. We’ll take some deep dives into wintery beers, schnapps, and Gluwein to show you how best to drink when the weather gets cold.
The fun part is that if you show up on Thursday nights, you might get a chance to see it all go down live. Just keep your eye on the drink tent! If you’re headed down on a different day that week, don’t worry – I’ll try to broadcast (internet willing) each episode live on Facebook, and YouTube!
Still not enough? It’s a podcast, you can always subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and listen there – or over at DrinkingWithTheGnome.com… stay tuned!