A Dragon’s Den star who heads up a massive beer, wine and spirits empire. The only female master distiller in the province. And production manager at the 2021 Canadian Brewery of the Year. The spirits and beer scene is going strong in Calgary, and women are front and centre, as I discover during a recent visit. . An hour’s drive south of Calgary, in the bucolic town of Turner Valley, Winnipeg-born, Scotland-raised Caitlin Quinn is the master distiller at Eau Claire Distillery, the first boutique distillery in Alberta. Quinn got an undergrad degree chemistry, but quickly realized it wouldn’t lead Read more
vodka
NEW YORK – There’s Mario Batali leading a New York Jets cheer in his trademark orange sneakers. Oh, look, it’s Giada Laurentiis and her nuclear powered smile. And, BAM, there’s Emeril Lagasse boiling up some southern-style magic in front of a high-powered crowd. The city that never sleeps doesn’t do things on a small scale. They recently staged a truly massive New York City Wine and Food Festival that took up acres of empty piers on the Hudson River and featured hundreds of events with some of the biggest names in the biz, including Rachel Ray, Michael Symon and actor Read more
From one part of Canada to another. Last night the folks from the Calgary Stampede were in town, putting on a humdinger of a party at Rock ‘N’ Horse Saloon in downtown Toronto. The bar was a sea of white hats with red trim, and they had a smokin’ good band called Trinity Bradshaw. They didn’t do a big press presentation, preferring to let the great food and music – okay, and the beer – speak for itself. But I can tell you I went to the Stampede last year for the first time and loved it. The atmosphere at Read more
I’ve always loved this kind of study. Instead of looking at boring things such as the cost of a hotel room and a cab, a Washington Post blogger has used Trip Advisor data on room service costs to come up with the cost of some of the basics for room service. They looked at 15 U.S. cities and tallied up the cost of a club sandwich, a bottle of water, a bag of peanuts, a bottle of soda and an individual serving of vodka. (By individual serving they mean those tiny bottles that aren’t really a proper serving, but that’s Read more
ON THE COWBOY TRAIL IN ALBERTA – I wasn’t remotely prepared for this. I had finished a couple days in Calgary and Banff/Lake Louise following the Calgary Stampede and was headed south for a drive along the famous Cowboy Trail. Rather than drive too far, I elected to try a night in Priddis, just a bit outside of Calgary, at Azuridge , a luxury boutique hotel folks had told me about. I had no idea what to expect as I rolled past lush farms in the foothills southwest of the city. But I soon found myself arriving at a large Read more
