Benjamin T. Johnson

Originally published on blogTO June 27, 2012

The history of Toronto is closely tied to beer, and while there are varying stories about the exact date and location of the city’s first brewery (and a requisite bit of mystery), virtually all are in agreement that there was a brewery very early in the city’s history.

As the population in Ontario began to spread from early settlements such as the one in Kingston, beer was initially brought over with other supplies like pork and butter on ships from Kingston, the Bay of Quinte, and Niagara.

A letter dated 1801 from a Reverend John Stuart to the Bishop of Nova Scotia, however, makes reference to a brewer from Kingston “removed to York lately” who had obtained a vessel to “transport wheat and other Grain from Kingston and the Bay of Quinte, before beer could be made.”

Who that brewer may have been, and where he may have been plying his trade, however, is not clear. Read the rest of this entry »

This post originally appeared on BlogTO on May 2, 2012

Barry Stein and Barry Bernstein, co-founders of Still Waters Distillery, are playing a waiting game. Because Canadian liquor laws require that Canadian whisky is aged at least three years before it can be sold, the duo, operating a small micro-distillery in Concord, Ontario, are patiently waiting for the day that their single malt, rye, and corn whiskies will be ready for sale.

Their oldest whiskies, casked in late 2009, won’t be ready until the end of this year, so until then, they wait. In the meantime, however, the duo has hardly been sitting around twiddling their thumbs.

While they’ve been waiting on their whiskies, they’ve distilled an award-winning single malt vodka. Unique in that it’s essentially distilled from the same spirits they use to make their whisky (then put through the still once more and filtered), Still Waters’ malt vodka is incredibly smooth and retains a semi-sweet malt flavour. I had no problem sampling the product early in the afternoon on an empty stomach, but you don’t have to take my word for it: Still Waters Single Malt Vodka was awarded a gold medal at the 2011 Spirits International Prestige (SIP) Awards competition in San Diego, California — a blind tasting judged by consumers.

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This post originally appeared on The Huffington Post Canada on April 19, 2012.

Wednesday morning, once again citing an obligation to attend his family’s own annual gathering at his cottage in Muskoka, mayor Rob Ford stated he will not be attending Toronto’s Pride Parade.

While much has already been said this and last year about the mayor’s obligation to attend given that the event is a huge financial boost to the city and celebrates the city’s considerable gay population, there are in fact considerable benefits to having RoFo skip the festivities.

I can think of at least seven.

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