13th Street Premier Cuvée Is a Brilliant Vintage Bubbly
Alright, so, I realize that reviewing a sparkling wine during the apex of pandemic pandemonium might be on the odd side of decisions to make, but having recently tried the phenomenally good 13th Street Premier Cuvée, (2013), I simply had to share. And since we can’t…
Wellington Brewery’s Imperial Russian Stout is a Superb Winter Sipper
I’ve been drinking Wellington beers since almost the very first weekend I cared about craft beer. I remember my newfound love of hops lead me to their classic Special Pale Ale (SPA) that became a staple pint for me whenever I visited Guelph, where Wellington…
Colonel E.H. Taylor Small Batch Is a Bourbon Worth Tracking Down
For Americans, finding an amazing bourbon is as easy as popping down to the grocery store and grabbing a bottle for $30. For Canadians, your most basic bottle is gonna set you back a cool $50 — and that’s just for the basics. Outside of…
Ridge Three Valleys Sonoma County Is a Magnificent Zinfandel Blend
My Dad is one of the reasons I fell in love with wine. Not only is it his pure and earnest enjoyment of a good glass or his devotion to St- Emilions, but it’s the fact that every once in a while he’ll get a…
Five Years of Sublime Imbibing: New Look, Same Booze + My 5 Fave Drinks
Five years ago I bought a domain. I didn’t know how to make a website, or really what to do with one. I had a blog at the time which some of you may remember “Sipping with Smoth” hosted on Blogspot and looking closer to…
Flying Monkey’s Sparklepuff Triple IPA Dazzles, Even As it Inebriates
I vividly remember the first time I tried a Flying Monkeys beer. It’s hard to forget, really, going from drinking sweet corn lagers to Smashbomb IPA. It really blew me away — it was loud, it was bitter and by god it was STRONG. I…
The Glenlivet Code: A Secretive Scotch for the Discerning Drinker
Having a scotch-drinking mom and a scotch-drinking aunt certainly has its perks. One of those is when a new, cool bottle hits the market, we can split the cost three ways instead of each nuking our wallets for a chance to try it. And few…
Santa Rita Wine Tour: Vineyard Biking and Vino Sipping in Chile
One of my favourite things to do when travelling is find a nearby wine region and explore it a bit. So far my partner Christine and I have been to Sonoma and Napa in California, and Prince Edward County right at home in Ontario. So…
Muddy York’s Gaslight Helles Lager is Hella Tasty
Lagers, bizarrely, are hip. Again, I suppose, if you count decades of domestic dominance as being “hip.” If we follow the beer trends over the last decade, we went from staggeringly bitter, high alcohol IPAs to sippable session ales, to science-experiment sours. It seems that…
Té Bheag Scotch is Decent as a Dram, Heavenly in a Highball
I’m a recovering single malt snob. Like many novice scotch drinkers, I bought hard into the marketing that single malts were the superior whiskies. After decades of dominating the top shelf, this is true often enough. But turning your nose up at affordable blends means…