OMG! They’ve Delisted Screech
I’ve had Screech in my cabinet for I-don’t-know-how-many years. I’ve replenished it regularly, and now I’m told that it doesn’t sell…
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What came first, the egg or the nog?
The holidays are upon us, and what better way to welcome in another Christmas season than by enjoying a glass of eggnog?
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Go Big, Jack
Big Bear Donair shares a parking lot with the old Salvation Army and wouldn’t be the first location many would look to for a new business venture.
Bourbon and Words to Live By
On a sunny Saturday a few weeks ago I joined 70 other curious souls at a bourbon tasting and barbecue cohosted by the Yukon Chamber
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Cherries for the Delayed Win
Last holiday season I cajoled members of my family into forming teams and entering a contest, invented by me, entitled, “The First Annual Shake-off, Stiroff
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Matching Wine to Cheese Fondue
I’m always interested whether when people choose the foods for dinner first, and then select accompanying wines, or vice versa. I use both methods. Several
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A Beeline for the Honey Brew
During my frequent beelines to the Fat Tug IPA and other craft beers at the Whitehorse Liquor Store, my eyes catch a glimpse of the
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A Sexy Fall Surprise
I usually wait until Christmas to lurk around the Whitehorse liquor store in search of sexy new beer products, but September brought a surprise: Guinness
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What’s in a Name?
A Fat Tug by any other name would be just as hoppy. But the name of your beer can entice or drive your average beer
The Beer Police are Heroes
A new initiative in the UK’s Somerset County this summer will ensure that beer drinkers are not getting hosed at their favourite watering holes. Trading
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Le Beaujolais Nouveau est Arrive!
November is my favourite month of the wine year. While it is the month where we have to acknowledge, especially in the Yukon, that we
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This Beer Really is For You
One of the things that a business in your community can do that companies Outside cannot is treat you like you — as an individual
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Sweet Dessert Wines For Long Winter Nights
Working the Rotary Wine and Fine Food Festival last month, I was reminded all over again why I love the world of wine. There were
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Have Fun Learning At Wine and Fine Food Festival
Sharing wines is a wonderful experience. Coming on Oct. 23, here in Whitehorse, is an opportunity to gather with friends, try many new wines and
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Good Friends, Good Food and Good Wine
The best wine experiences that I have enjoyed have been dinners with friends, often under unexpected circumstances. There was a night in the mortuary of
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IPAs explained
I’m an unapologetic hophead, and consider no beer too hoppy to drink. I love the constricting bitterness. I love the resiny, citrusy, nostril-doping snort of
Law-Abiding Beer
The Liquor Corporation in New Brunswick has created a wee bit of a stir lately (pun intended). It seems it is losing a lot of
Winter Reds
As Northerners, we are profoundly touched by the end of winter, the slow return of warmth and the rapid return of light to our lives.
Sipping Rosé Wines for Spring
The return of the light and the steady drip drip drip of the snow melting has re-awakened my yearning for all that the Yukon has
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Kitchen Sink Wines
With the exception of New Years Eve, I think I drank two glasses of wine in January — not propitious behaviour for a wine writer.
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One Thing We All Agree On …
Heading into summer = a wonderful time. And no matter how much extraneous snow may continue to fall, nothing can dampen the spirit of the
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A Great Wine Match for Salmon
I suspect salmon and hospitality have been partners a long time in this part of the world. The salmon makes regular appearances in the artwork
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What do you pair with muskrat?
I, like many wine enthusiasts, love the challenge of finding the right wine to pair with a meal. Many people start with this simple axiom:
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Winter Beer to Warm the Cockles
The weather outside is frightful but a beer could be delightful — even if it’s not the first drink that comes to mind after a
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Wine Throughout the Year
As we race toward Christmas and the new year of promise that follows, I can’t help but reflect on the wonderful and poignant experiences that
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Get Thee to the Brewery
I was lucky enough to “help” Rob Monk tap off a cask ale at Yukon Brewing a few weeks ago. Truth be told, there was
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Wine for a Winter’s Eve
So now the rich, velvety darkness of the Yukon winter has descended and the temperatures at my cabin have dropped below minus 20, several evenings.
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In Search of a “Local-ish” Organic Red
I noticed, when I worked as a wine merchant, that wine enthusiasts love a challenge. Occasionally a customer would come into the store, and relate
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Sugar and Spice and … Bacon
Most people know that beer is made from water, barley, hops and yeast. The big four. If you were to glance around the shelves of
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The Ideal Wine Collection?
As I mentioned in my last article, I have been invited to develop a wine list for a restaurant that a neighbour of mine plans
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Legado Munoz: A Terrific Spanish Red
We’re plunging into the winter and holiday season at full tilt and for me this is a season of getting together with friends for dinner
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Spanish Reds and How to Order Wines from Outside
In the days leading up to the Rotary Wine Festival, I felt as if I was eating, sleeping and breathing wine. At that point it
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Monk-made Belgian Brews
I would like to write about a fabulous bar I went to in Whitehorse that served a wide selection of Belgian beer but, unfortunately, it
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Chocolate + Porter = Genius
One of the swell new editors of WUY dropped us an email on the weekend inquiring about the status of our column, and casually mentioned
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Wine and Wine Gift Ideas for the Holidays
As we are invited to holiday gatherings at friends’ homes and begin to realize that our runway for shopping for gifts is rapidly running out,
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Singing the Praises of the Much-Maligned Zinfandel
One of the fun questions I enjoy asking wine drinkers is, if you had one wine to take with you to a desert island, what
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Adios, Corona.
Who isn’t familiar with the concept of the Lawnmower Beer? This is just the one beer, a cool and refreshing drink, the perfect reward for
Open that Bottle of Wine Night!
Last week, I visited the Wall Street Journal website to read the most recent article by my favourite wine writers, Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher
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Wine on the Go
Last week I was cornered by someone who asked what her options were for taking wine along on a paddling trip. For me, part of
Great Scot!
As you may have noticed already, Whitehorse has some new beer in town. Our friendly neighbours at Yukon Liquor Corp have sourced four offerings from
Look What’s Shakin’!
Attention: New beer in town. OK, so it has been around for a few weeks, but if you haven’t yet tried Delirium Tremens on tap
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Five Superb Wines Tried with Beef Wellington
In past articles, I have written about the fun of trying to match wines with food, and have also suggested that there is no one
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Aerating a Red (and a Money Diet Suggestion)
Drinking inexpensive wines does not have to mean you are missing interesting wine experiences. This was brought home to me this past Sunday evening, when
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Message in a Bottle
I try to write a wine column every couple of weeks, unless life gets crazy, as it has over the past month or so. In
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Add Some Wit to Your Winter
One of the perks of spewing your beer brain onto a white page every couple of weeks is that people occasionally give you beer and
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Turning to Argentinian Whites
In the week that followed the holidays, when I returned to earth with a thump to reflect on the fun and parties and food and
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Some of the Best Wines You’ve Never Tasted
This past weekend I had a very tasty bottle of red wine that I will be going back to buy more of. It was a
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Why Wines Differ
Last night a friend stopped by for dinner. He brought moose sausages to grill; I boiled up some Yukon grown red potatoes and added butter
Trying Some Malbecs
After more than a month of grey skies and rain, the sun finally made a re-appearance over my lake. Still, it feels like it is
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Planning a Wine Tasting
Several months ago I was asked by my friend Wendy in Dawson City to plan a wine tasting at her B&B, Bombay Peggy’s. We’ll be
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The Joy of Yeast
That Louis Pasteur was onto something. Seriously. People were harnessing the power of yeast to make beer for thousands of years before they actually knew
Two Fine, Big Reds
This is a funny time of year in the Yukon. The return of the light and the moving forward of the clocks speaks to the
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A Walk Through the Wine Store: Pt. 5
I’m getting thirsty doing this ongoing wine tour of the Yukon Liquor Corp (YLC) store in Whitehorse, but I hope my articles in this series
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Beer Cocktail, Anyone?
Beer adulteration. It sounds dirty. But it’s a way to make an otherwise pedestrian beer seem wildly exotic. So-so wine can be made into sangria.
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Fine Pairings for a Birthday Treat
I’m not looking to expand my writing into the restaurant review arena, but I couldn’t help but relate an excellent dining experience I had last
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A Beer Snob Confesses
I admit it, I’m a beerist. Not quite so harsh a thing as being a nihilist or a sexist, but I have high expectations for
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Near Beer: Part 1
Perhaps the most unspeakable adulteration of beer is the complete, or near-complete, removal of alcohol to make those sad, non-alcoholic shadows-of-their-former-selves near beers that men
We Have Your Beer
When I travelled to Toronto for work in March, my first impression was how I desperately needed new shoes and maybe a decent city coat
Tasting the Money Diet
It wasn’t until I moved to the Yukon six years ago that I heard the term “money diet”, but I immediately liked the concept. Sometimes
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Looking off the beaten path
Searching for wines is a little bit like a scavenger hunt at times, and sometimes it calls for looking at the outliers of the wine
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Beer drinkers, get your wine glasses ready
For most folk, it’ll be a crisp lager after a hot summer paddle and a full-bodied ale after a ski. So what if someone told
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A Quick Tour of Our Local Liquor Store
My most rewarding experiences working in a wine store were sharing my enthusiasm for wines with customers and helping a few of them to overcome
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