A week ago Sunday, Andrea, Nick and I went to the Christmas Market in Toronto’s Distillery District.
The buildings in this area were erected in the 1830s, making them some of the oldest buildings still standing in this city. As the name hints at, it was originally a large distillery, started by the extended family of a clan that had come here from England. Andrea and I went last year too, and I included more of the history on this unique place in the post I wrote then, found here.
The place went from a state of abandonment to being refurbished in the early 2000s, and I just love how it was done. All the doors and fixtures are painted with the same green paint, and you can tell that it was painted over the layers of ancient paint. The thick brick walls are all original, giving the shops and restaurants a look that would be impossible to achieve with new construction.
A cool aspect about the Christmas Market they hold here every year is that, being a former distillery, you can enjoy alcoholic beverages while you look around. And since much of it is outdoors, many of the drinks are served hot.
We had three hot drinks : One was some mulled beer, another some mulled red wine, and the third a Drambuie Hot Apple Toddy. They were all very nice but the beer cocktail was my favourite. I’d never heard of mulled beer before and would never have thought to have hot beer. So when we heard it was on offer at the outdoor patio at the Mill Street Brew Pub where we stopped for a snack, Andrea and I were keen to try some. It was good stuff!
In addition to those drinks, there were free samples of all kinds of wintery cocktails to be had. These tiny servings were a great way to taste a variety of creative cocktails. An interesting one that I tried but the others declined was a drink made with vodka, raspberry syrup and hot sauce. Sounds strange, right? It was remarkably tasty.
Aside from drinking and eating, we did a bit of shopping at the booths, went into a couple of stores (that operate in the Distillery District year ’round), and watched a dance performance by a group of Ukrainian dancers.
↑ Andrea gave me the lovely red infinity scarf for Christmas. I love it and have worn it every day since. ↑
Check out this beautiful shop, called Susan Harris Design. That is Susan in the picture below, and her website is here.
After we’d had our fill, we headed back to our place, where we ordered Chinese food and watched the movie Love Actually. It was a great Sunday.
Thank you for checking out what we’ve been up to. I hope that you too have been enjoying some good times.
xo loulou
