Spoon #19: Fraunces Tavern

Earlier this week Ms. Dish and I stopped in to Fraunces Tavern in the Financial District:

Fraunces Tavern is an old building with a new restaurant.  In fact, many sources say Fraunces Tavern is the oldest building in all of Manhattan, originally built in 1719 as the home of Etienne "Stephen" DeLancey.

It seems that any building of such age falls into the "George Washington's Axe" category.  Do you know all about George Washington's Axe?  It's one of my favorite anecdotes, so I'll remind you.  Essentially it revolves around someone saying "This is George Washington's Axe!  The handle has been replaced three times and the head has been replaced twice, but it's his original axe!".  Another example is the Ship of Theseus which will have the philosophers arguing until they are replaced!  Fraunces Tavern certainly falls into this category.  Over the years the building has seen a lot of action; opening as a tavern in 1762, pre-Revolutionary War cannonballs through the roof, George Washington's farewell to the Continental Army, multiple fires, and a bomb attack by Puerto Rican terrorists!  In all that time the building has undergone many changes.  It seems no one knows exactly what it looked like originally, but the current manifestation is the best guess. Many more details can be found on Wikipedia and the Fraunces Tavern Museum website.

All of this history aside, last year a new restaurant operated by Ireland's Porterhouse Brewing Company opened for business at Fraunces Tavern, serving typical pub fare with some fancier options to suit the financial district patrons.  As the Porterhouse Brewing Company name would imply, they have several of their own brews on tap and if you enjoy a nice whiskey this seems to be the place to go.  Fraunces Tavern is a stop on the American Whiskey Trail and their "Dingle Whiskey Bar" is home of the "Fraunces Tavern Whiskey Society".

Now here we have Spoon #19:

We know all about this spoon, because it is identical to Spoon #3, a Winco Continental! 

Do you know what this means?  It means with two occurrences, the Winco Continental is tied with the Oneida Baguette as our most commonly swapped spoon!