Our ceramics partner, Deneen Pottery in St. Paul, Minnesota, recently informed us that they had developed a new ceramics color for their mugs - caboose red. Seriously. Well, sorta. They notified us that we could now order our Featherbed Railroad mugs in a very red color and we jumped at the chance to order mugs in what we call caboose red.
We figured they'd be pretty popular and we weren't wrong with almost a whole box of them flying off the shelf in the first month. Wow. But this is a pretty terrific color for the mugs.
We also have decided to order a few cases of the popular blue-and-white mugs, which you can use in the dining room. At the recent innkeeper's conference one of our fellow innkeepers indicated that the mugs weren't very popular and we asked why their guests didn't get attached at breakfast.
"Oh, heavens, I wouldn't use them!" We think we've found her problem - these sturdy mugs are safe for your dishwasher, microwave and are great insulators of coffee, tea and we've even been known to enjoy soup from them ourselves.
We also like the fact that Deneen Pottery is a family business that crafts their mugs by hand right here in the good ol' United States. Funny thing about their mugs, the company's blog has lots of stories about folks who actually travel around the country collecting Deneen Pottery mugs from the places they stay. Yep, there are actually people who plan their vacation around these mugs and why not? They're terrific.