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(Images: Still Waters Distillery)
Every now and then, a lovely little crack opens up in Ontario’s booze monopoly: a brewpub here, a wine kiosk inside a grocery store there, the occasional off-site winery boutique. Last month, the GTA gained yet another new venue for hooch hounds hoping to circumvent official channels: Still Waters, a local spirits distillery in Concord that makes and sells its product on-site.
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Today’s Globe and Mail has a piece about the anti-vodka movement, championed by people like the Black Hoof’s Jen Agg, and the growing backlash to it. (Agg penned a memorable rant against the “stupid” spirit last February and Ortolan’s Damon Clements also gets in on the action in the Globe article.) One backlash backlasher, Vancouver’s Lauren Mote, reminds bartenders that they’re in the service industry and that they should act accordingly. Still, she prefers to use small-batch and infused vodkas for her cocktails instead of the mass market stuff. As ever, bar patrons vote with their wallets: vodka sales apparently jumped from 18 to 23 per cent of all spirits over the last 10 years in Canada. Stupid or not, the stuff sells. Read the whole story [Globe and Mail] »
Frances Woolley, a Carleton economics professor, posted an interesting story on the the Globe and Mail’s Economy Lab blog earlier today about a German experiment measuring how a wine’s stated price affects a person’s ranking of that wine’s quality. Not surprisingly, subjects who were told a given bottle of wine cost €20 rated it higher than subjects who were told it cost only €3 (yes, you can get a bottle of wine for €3 in Germany). The interesting twist is that this only applies for people who rate high on a scale of how materialistic they are. Apparently, these people tend to agree with statements like, “I admire people who own expensive homes, cars, and clothes” and “I’d be happier if I could afford to buy more things.” Now, who could fall for that? Read the whole story [Globe and Mail] »
The once-mobbed Hoof Café is set to become the soon-to-be-mobbed Black Hoof Cocktail Bar (Image: Karon Liu)
Back in June, we reported that Jen Agg and Grant van Gameren’s ambitious plans to launch Black Hoof and Company this spring in the former Hoof Café space were being put on hold until spring 2012. Yesterday on his blog, Hoof pal Corey Mintz announced the next stage in the evolution of 923 Dundas St. W.: the Black Hoof Cocktail Bar. Starting this Thursday and running from Thursday to Monday night weekly, the new bar will serve Agg’s inventive cocktails (including, we hope, her barrel-aged manhattans) along with cheese plates for snacking. In September, the bar will be open seven nights a week and will feature guest chefs like Guy Rawlings and Colin Tooke, whose cocktails will go head-to-head against the house list. Eventually, the cocktail bar will take over the space adjacent to the Black Hoof across the street, and Black Hoof and Co., the new fine dining restaurant, will move in.
Agg has often lamented Toronto’s lacklustre cocktail scene, so we’re eager to see what she has in store. Oh, and in the spirit of her hilarious rant of a blog post in February, Agg will not be serving any vodka or vodka-based drinks at the bar.
(Image: Cupcake Vodka)
Underdog Wine and Spirits, an American alcohol producer, is introducing a new niche market vodka aimed, supposedly, at the adult millennial (and not at 14-year-old girls): Cupcake Vodka. The dessert-inspired spirit comes in a variety of flavours, including Original (which we’re assuming tastes like, um, cake), Chiffon, Devil’s Food and Frosting. Cupcake Vodka is also six-times distilled to “remove impurities while delivering a mouth-feel reminiscent of an indulgent delicious treat.” Given the LCBO’s aversion to booze that might appeal to youngsters, we don’t think we’ll be seeing this in Toronto any time soon.
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Guest judge Dan Aykroyd flanked by his blues sisters, Thea Andrews and Shereen Arazm (Image: Food Network Canada/Insight Productions)
TOP CHEF CANADA
Season 1 | Episode 3
Was it just us, or was the level of cooking on last night’s episode of Top Chef Canada miles ahead of the safe, bland fare from the first two weeks? Maybe the chefs have gotten over their first time jitters. Or maybe it was the presence of actor, restaurateur, winemaker, illicit vodka purveyor and guest judge Dan Aykroyd that (ghost-)busted them into shape. Whatever it was, the contestants stepped up their game—without sacrificing the all-important smack talk and clowning around in their under things (this time Origin’s Steve Gonzalez did the honours). Here, our recap of the best dishes, trash talk and product placements.
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Guu Sakabar’s open kitchen (Image: Gizelle Lau)
Despite rumours last week that the opening of Guu Sakabar (a.k.a. Guu 2) would be delayed due to the lack of a liquor licence, we’re happy to report that Toronto’s second Guu location opened this weekend. (Sakabar was originally set to open a couple weeks back, but was delayed due to a broken water tank). After almost a year of renovations, owner James Hyun-Soo Kim and Sakabar manager Natsuhiko Sugimoto, an eight-year veteran of Guu in Vancouver, are both eager to begin serving the Annex clientele.
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Scenes from a never-ending party
2:45 a.m., Cobra
“Let’s get drunk and fuck! Let’s get drunk and fuck!”
I’m at Cobra, a King West club in a sprawling basement underneath a 19th-century warehouse. In this neighbourhood, the best parties are either deep underground or high above in a rooftop bar. Cobra is decorated like a gothic funhouse, with a wall of glowing skulls and lots of black. The get-drunk-and-fuck directive bleats from a techno remix as coloured lights, inducing a kind of electric synesthesia, pulsate on the basement ceiling. To my left, two girls make out and topple over, knocking down their bottle service glassware. Guys eagerly watch from the sidelines, plotting how to make their move. My teeth chatter from the vibrating bass. I down a shot that’s half Sour Puss and half vodka, proffered by a human Barbie doll bartender. Read the rest of this entry »
If we shilled vodka, we'd probably have to wear sunglasses inside too (Image: Chelsea Oakes)
Dan Aykroyd is doing the media rounds to promote his role as the voice of Yogi Bear in the new digital version of the cartoon. In a Q&A about the film with Globe and Mail, he let slip that a third Ghostbusters is sort of in the works. The script is complete and is “probably one of the best comic scripts I’ve ever read.” Aykroyd also divulged that it contains the “the role of a lifetime” for Bill Murray. Anna Faris is also rumoured to be involved.
The Globe also asked the actor about his Crystal Head Vodka, which the LCBO banned because of its skull-shaped bottle. Like our commenters, Aykroyd thinks the boycott is unnecessary but also inconvenient. He spends his summers in Ontario and has to drive to Watertown, New York to buy it. Aykroyd is hoping our stick-in-the-mud liquor control board will come around so we can enjoy the Newfoundland-distilled vodka he happily pushes (and imbibes).
There’s nothing Toronto society loves more than looking at a bunch of pictures of themselves. Or so we’re left to assume after the socialite-studded turnout at last night’s Absolut George photo exhibit, a vodka-drenched soirée in celebration of Toronto’s celebrity shutterbug George Pimentel. It’s not often that so many of the city’s fashion plates are gathered under the same roof. See who sizzled and who fizzled in our slide show.
(Image: Nico Nelson)
We were surprised to learn that National Vodka Day occurs every year on October 4 (and not every weekday at 5 p.m. as previously thought). As our inboxes filled with press releases from vodka companies celebrating the day of fermented potatoes, we wondered what other random food holidays are out there. Turns out, a lot. (Happy strawberry cream pie day!)
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Tove and Hayden Christensen with Thandie Newton (Image: Philip Chin/Getty Images Entertainment/Getty Images)
Hayden Christensen used the force (of his celebrity) to give Ultra’s DJ a break at his party on Saturday night. At the 29-year-old Thornhill-raised actor’s request, Toronto hip-hop artist K-Os commandeered the turntables until around 1 a.m.
With a cardboard cut-out of Darth Vader looming in the window of the Adidas store across the street, the real(-ish) Anakin Skywalker and his 37-year-old brother Tove hoisted Belvedere vodka bottles at a party for their production company, Forest Park Pictures. While the stars were on their best behaviour, the crowd was a little rowdy, with one man dancing with a bottle of Belvedere shoved down his pants.
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James Franco and director Danny Boyle at the Vanity Fair, Belvedere and Fox Searchlight party at the Thompson Hotel to celebrate their film 127 Hours. (Image: Tom Sandler)
The TIFF celebrity brigade was out in full force at the Thompson Hotel on Saturday night to celebrate the films from Fox Searchlight: Conviction, Black Swan, Never Let Me Go and 127 Hours. Cast members (and a few of their friends) who swung by included Hilary Swank, Sam Rockwell, Minnie Driver, James Franco, Josh Brolin, Juliette Lewis, Marion Cotillard and Carey Mulligan. Also spotted were director Darren Aronofsky, comedian David Cross and basketball legend Steve Nash.
Officially dubbed the Vanity Fair, Belvedere and Fox Searchlight Party, the event became a crowded affair once the rain started falling and guests poured inside from the patios, clutching their special-for-the-occasion vodka cocktails (we had a very sweet liquid interpretation of 127 Hours that, to be fair, tasted rather good for a drink inspired by a man pinned under a boulder for five days). The celebs seemed to take the weather in stride, coming and going throughout the night under canopies of black umbrellas and, in one case, lighting up a cigarette in one of the booths.
= Find this story on our Celebrity Sightings Map, where we plot the locations of stars spotted throughout Toronto
A Biutiful night: Javier Bardem at the Soho House on Friday (Image: Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Grey Goose Vodka)
“Name?”
“Paul Haggis.”
“I’m sorry, it’s not on the list.”
Josh Brolin, standing nearby with a cigarette, breaks into hysterics.
This was the scene last night at Soho House—a branch of the international members-only club that’s opened in Toronto just for the duration of TIFF—where stars of the highest wattage gathered to fête Javier Bardem and his new movie, Biutiful. The confusion eventually cleared up, partially thanks to a woman leaving the party who noted “he’s a director” and the hotly sought, Ontario-raised Oscar-winner swung into the lush party space. And yes, Brolin got in too.
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Here's The Situation: Mike Sorrentino has even been hired to flog this stuff (Image: MTV)
A new protein-infused vodka from the States known as Devotion may be making its way to Canada in the near future, according to the product’s Facebook page. “We will be getting Canada devoted this next week. Hold tight,” the page said.
And hold tight we shall. The concept behind Devotion Vodka is as simple as it is incongruous: the 80-proof booze contains a bodybuilding supplement known as PeptoPro—a milk protein derived from casein. The idea was apparently born when company president Drew Adelman realized there was a niche market of people who “wanted to adhere to their lifestyle, and also have a good time.”
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