I love cider, so everytime I see a new one at the LCBO I must try it. This Reinhart one is by the same people who make Apple Cider and baked goods, so they had to know what they were doing with their apples.
This cider was light, not too tart and had a crisp taste. At only 3.8% alcohol, this is more for pleasure drinking than a night out of the town.
While I was in Ottawa, I tried to find some local beer at the closest LCBO and only found this amber ale from Broadhead.
I enjoyed the flavour that hit in just the right places. There was a tinge of sweetness and a drinkable malt. Bold without being too bold.
This weekend I picked up some KW Craft Cider. I’ve never had it before but I was drawn to its minimalistic packaging.
It is named after the Kitchener-Waterloo region where the brewery is based. At 6.7%, I found the cider rather easy to drink, was only slightly tarty, but full of flavour. In fact, I drank all four no problem at a party.
My sister gifted me a Bodum French Press set for Christmas that has a coffee bean grinder and hot water boiler. Now I’m excited to explore the world of coffee beans.
My first bag was San Diego Coffee’s “Dutch Chocolate” flavour, that I ordered on Amazon. It’s a Medium Roast of 100% Arabica beans. Though I’m still working out the perfect way to use the French Press, I found this coffee very smooth and light. The chocolate came through the most when the only thing added was cream. I found sugar competed with the flavours and this coffee didn’t need to be sweetened (a plus since I’m trying to cut adding sugar to coffee).
What’s your favourite coffee bean? I’m open to suggestions!
I recently picked up some Savanna Dry Cider from the LCBO. I love ciders and I always get excited when there are ones I haven’t seen in stock.
Made in Belgium, the Dry cider is not sweet, it is appropriately tart and crisp. It is 5% alcohol, so not too strong and something refreshing to have with a meal or drink on it’s own.
I love trying craft brews, especially the ones with awesome packaging and branding. Here are a few that I picked up recently.
Grow A Tree pear cider from Double Tree brewing. This one was sweet but had a tartness that made it stand out from other pear ciders which are usually way too sweet.
This Mill Street Lemon Tea Beer was smoother than regular beer but I honestly couldn’t really taste the lemon in it.
Central City’s Hopping Mad Cider Radler was an cool blend of apple and grapefruit. It was kind of like fruit punch and went down super easy.
I bought this Peach Mead for Nash by The Trafalgar Club. If you want to feel a buzz this thing is like 8.5%. It’s a beautiful blend of honey and peach and recommended you drink this one chilled.
On Wednesday, Nash and I hit up the inaugural Luckyrice cocktail event at Berkeley Church in Toronto. Luckyrice is an organization that loves to share Asian culture through food and drink. They have events in LA, San Francisco, New York and Miami and decided to test out Toronto. I find our city is a little unique and the exploration of Asian culture is so common here that I’m not sure we need another event for it.
The event was sponsored by Bombay Sapphire, so all the drinks were gin based. We arrived around the VIP door opening at around 7pm and it was already rammed with people. There was at least a 10 minute line for most drinks. We also arrived with an empty stomach (which probably wasn’t the best decision). There were appetizers being served but the servers were swarmed by people as soon as they came out. We tried a few drinks before we left to go fill our empty stomachs:
The Rivoli’s “His Eminence”: Bombay Sapphire East gin, Marini & Rossi Rosso, Lemon spiced chinkiang & rice wine reduction, honey syrup.
The Rivoli’s “Delicate Warrior”: ST. Germain liquer, Bombay Sapphire East gin, Gekkeikan Plum wine.
Rebel & Demon’s “Mao’s Punch”: Bombay Sapphire East gin, strawberry thai basil white peppercorn syrup, lemon juice, rhubarb bitters.
Brassaii’s “6 shooter”: Bombay Sapphire East gin, aperol, watermelon and jalapeno shrub, dillon’s bitter lime, lime juice, fresh basil.
Out of all of them our favourite was the Mao’s Punch from R&D. It fit the summery weather and contained a perfect amount of sweetness that made it easy to go down.
My parents went on a trip and had a layover in Iceland for a few days. They brought me back a bottle of Icelandic Glacial water. At first, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to leave it sealed as a souvenir forever or drink it. I decided to choose the later. I’ve been trying to get out of the habit of collecting things without using them. Things are meant to be used, played with, eaten, whatever or they don’t have a place in my tiny apartment. Moving out on my own has showed me that for sure.
Bottled water is a strange concept for people that actually live in Iceland because of their ample supply of fresh water. I think the concept must mainly exist to sell to tourists and abroad.
Anyways, I decided to play water connoisseur (this is an actual job someone actually does by the way). The result was that it tasted like… nothing. Which doesn’t mean that the water isn’t different than our water. Our water indeed tastes like something, usually like the bottle, or fridge, or has a tiny bit of sweetness. This really tasted nothing. Does that mean it’s more pure? I don’t know. Nash drank some and thought it tasted like mineral water, which it indeed is.
Do different waters taste different to you? What is your favourite? I want to know! I should ask for a bottle of water as a souvenir from everywhere so I can drink the waters of the world.
I couldn’t resist buying this beer from Gigantic Brewing Company because it has a robot on it! The craft brewery is based in Portland Oregon and have other robot beers but this particular IPA is year round.
I also adored the B-Side Brewing label that described the collective as a record label but for beer. Hope to try some more cool beers from them soon.
This particular IPA was super bold and dark. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart and packs a punch like the robot on the label.
I had a party to attend this weekend so I trekked to the LCBO (it was -15 degrees Celcius so yes trek is the right word). I’m blessed that Toronto and has a great variety of specialty and craft beers and I decided it would be nice to try them all. I don’t drink that often, so I discover something new pretty much all the time.
This time, I settled for Hop City’s Hopbot IPA. How could I not? The packaging is so adorable. What I didn’t realize upon buying it was that it has a 7.1% IBA also that it has a bitterness rating of 70 IBU (which is more than I would have liked). I was also drinking the previously mentioned Chocolate Beer, so the bitterness was enhanced a bit when I drank one after the other. It does have interesting citrus notes. I wouldn’t recommend drinking it at a party that’s for sure. It’s more of a sit down and enjoy in the comfort of your own home while watching Netflix type thing. Going to do that now.
Tiana Feng 