The Simcoe Stopover (or There Ain't No Folk Like Norfolk)

"We've played lots and lots of festivals and I must say that the degree of care and human thoughtfulness that has gone into this festival is really quite unique. We are all very, very fortunate."

Dan Mangan certainly channelled the hearts and minds of nearly 40,000 travellers who had descended upon the little town of Simcoe this past weekend to celebrate together during The Simcoe Stopover. Mumford and Sons travelling roadshow was from the onset bound to be something like my hometown had never seen. A struggling hamlet in the tobacco belt, Simcoe has been for most of my life a place most of us tried to get away from. Fierce pride had slowly eroded over the decades of industrial decline and untapped tourism potential. For alot of us, Simcoe ceased to be a place to be and instead a great place to be from. 

As luck would have it, one of the worlds most successful touring bands saw something that we always knew we had. The way they saw it, the land that cultivated The Band's Rick Danko must be fruitful indeed. And from that random seed, the world's most unlikely music festival came to life before our very eyes. 

For one weekend, all of us who left, would shine up our prodigal son shoes and along with 40,000 new friends light up a revival the likes this town has never known. 

Pulled Into Nazareth, Was Feeling About a Half Passed Dead

I came back to town Thursday night, 24 hours before the festival began. There was a financial boon to be had. Estimates have suggested that The Simcoe Stopover would bring $10 million to the local economy, and nobody was going to miss a beat. Every sign on every business was welcoming the Gentlemen of The Road. For those who stayed behind to keep that Norfolk lighthouse shining, this was the kind of irrigation to mitigate that seemingly endless of droughts. 

My parents had already put themselves a dinner together, which afforded me the chance to check out a new restaurant in town that I had stumbled upon oddly enough through facebook back in Toronto. Its a Shakespearean tragedy, that sitting upon the worlds largest freshwater fishing fleet on Lake Erie, and being an agricultural hub in the province of Ontario, Norfolk County has always kind of lacked on the culinary side. Worst of all, the County Seat of Simcoe was a veritable Siberia for good eats. You could drive North to Devlin's Country Bistro, pioneered in the middle of nowhere by Mark McEwan's cousin Chris Devlin. Oddly it was Chef Chuck Hughes of Montreal who put me on to The Belworth House in Waterford, whose Chef Owner Tracy Winkworth was putting together some pretty proper gear. Alternatively you could always drive South to Port Dover. David's has made a great name for itself in the Dover Coast community, and while fully stuck in 1983, The Erie Beach Hotel remains one of the great (if charmingly out of date) culinary experiences in Norfolk. You want their celery bread. Real talk. And while food snobs may disown me, the Perch and Pickerel platters at Knechtals are a thing of the most pure joy. There is crack in that batter. I am certain of it. Ignore the mural, the grease and the flies. Concentrate on the fish. And the pictures of Pierre Eliot Trudeau doing the very same thing. 

As for Simcoe, for over a decade, your best bet has been the Blue Elephant. Great people and they were doing the brewhouse thing before it was thing to do in Toronto. But ALOT of the food is frozen, and in what should be a locavores dream, Simcoe was a straight up kitchen nightmare. 

Cue the emergence of The Combine Norfolk. Chef Ryan's homecoming wasn't exactly planned, but a recent return inspired him to abandon his Chef's journey across the country in some of the most cutting edge food scenes to set up shop in his birthplace. More importantly, he is doing something that hasn't been done here before. Good honest cooking, fresh locally sourced ingredients, and EVERYTHING made from scratch on site. Its the type of food experience we take for granted in Toronto, but its absolutely a lightening rod for Simcoe. Along for the journey is Jen, whose background at Toronto's trendsetting Drake Hotel adds the kind of savvy that will go along way along with their honest rustic approach to impress the locals. Its an experience that is new enough to amaze the locals without the pretension that could alienate them. So exciting is the project that its attracted another Simcoe expat, Heather Bruce, Wine Steward from the heyday of Marben Restaurant, to move home to join the team.

My arrival on Thursday night was only their 5th night in operation, but already things were seamless. Sitting in their charming and cozy bar area I was in the best of hands with Emily, an aspiring photographer whose always had a hand in Norfolk's dining scene. Its clearly a passion for her and just about all of the staff I meet. 

The cocktail list isn't exactly groundbreaking, but it is very solid. And its a very good introduction to cocktail culture to a community that is most certainly not quite ready for Moses McIntee or Sarah Parniak. My tequila watermelon agua fresca was a thirst quenching delight on a summer night. 

In an ideal world, with all the great starters, the wood fired pizza and locally sourced entrees, I'd have sat down with 3 friends and ordered the entire menu to share amongst ourselves. Alas I am but one asshole at the bar and settle upon the lobster poutine and the perch tacos. Emily assures me I have done good and she was not lying. The poutine isn't exactly breaking new ground, but that is hardly the point of good comfort food. Lobster. Gravy. Fries. Cheese Curds. These are the things of fatness heaven. They should never be over thought. Just simply plated together in all their glory like a glutinous 4x100 relay team destined for the podium of your pending food baby. The Perch Tacos on the other hand were the definition of finesse. Simply put, in spite of the wealth of tasty perch and the decades of hungry mouths that have devoured them, Norfolk has never seen a dish like this. Every component has its place in the choir. And the sound is magical. 

I Picked Up My Bag Went Looking For a Place To Hide, When I Saw Carmine and The Devil Walking Side By Side

Not alot of people can say they have done anything 1,000 times. Life is just too big to allow for that kind of focus. Those few things with which we are so connected, tend to resonate very deeply. I have teed up at Norfolk Golf and Country Club well over a thousand times and as such, the course that once molded me into a professional golfer holds a very special place in my heart. 

I returned Friday morning before the festival, joined by my old man, former Club Professional, and Tony Nagrani, another expat home for the Stopover. I was distressed upon my arrival at the new condos being built along the driveway, stretching toward the right of the opening hole. Standing on the first tee, with the most commanding view of the town, I was a little sad that the character of this landscape was now forever altered by the unseemly capitalistic devil of new home build, in all its cutcorner ignominy. It was not long before all that was lost in the nooks and crannies of one of the oldest golf sites in the continent. For well over a century, these hills have harvested a crop of collective consciousness that the seasoned golfer cant help but soak inside of. There is a subtle genius to the old golf course that the Thomas McBroom's can never seem to duplicate, no matter how large their budgets. Holes carved of necessity rather than human vision are much like anything else in life. We are so often victims of our own intelligence. Its the life carved from the world in front of us that elicits so much more satisfaction than the one set from a blueprint. In golf and in life its our struggle that defines us. Displacing a few trees to build some new homes does nothing to alter that. Instead, the sale and development of this land ensures that the club has the financial stability to reveal its secrets to the future generations. 

From there it was down to Burning Kiln, Norfolk's flagship winery, and another place very close to my heart. From a very young age I had known Front Road outside of Turkey Point as home to my uncle's cottage. A place to fish. A place for family. For a couple of years in college a place to grow Norfolk County's OTHER sweet leaf. Decades later, newly minted as a sommelier, I was blown away that literally 100 yards away from the cottage a vineyard had been planted. Stranger yet, my ultimate hero in Ontario Winemaking, Andrzej Lipinski was overseeing the production. My third visit to Burning Kiln showed off vines that are really beginning to come into their own. Personally speaking Burning Kiln began releasing wines at least 2 years before I would have. Vines need to age, to dig into the soil, before they are worthy of the bottle. But investment requires return, and in the hands of Andrzej's appassimento techniques, they have been able to get away with releasing wines of note despite their youth. Without exception, each new vintage reveals a new layer of expression for these wines. I am seeing a development in these wines which bode tremendously well for the years to come. They are no slouch's on the marketing side either, as I note that they have bottled a bunch of both their Harvest Party White and Red as commemorative Gentlemen of The Road botttlings. This is an exciting property. The best is most certainly yet to come. 

Do Me A Favour Son Won't You Stay And Keep Ana lee Company

Friday night arrived and nobody was ready for what was to come. The downtown core was blocked from traffic and an entire festival inside a festival was displayed. Three stages, beer tents, carnival rides replaced the slow living of downtown Simcoe. The host fairgrounds were opened up in a way we had never before seen. There was a feeling of "how is this going to fit here?" as you walked toward the grounds. Once through the gates however we found a land transformed. At no point for the next two nights were there logistical nightmares. Lots of space. Lots of food. Lots of portopotties. Lots of drinking holes. You needn't worry about a thing but the music. Norfolk County came ready. 

As dusk set in the crowds were treated to one of the most endearing and organic moments I have seen in all my time in the music industry. Dan Mangan was finishing his set with his charming hit, "Robots", and as the song came to its climax, he took to the crowd and surfed amongst the arms of the masses for several minutes, leaving the crowd to take over singing over and again, "Robots need love too, they want to be loved by you." It was a moment that epitomized the entire festival, both from the music and the masses. Something very special was happening here. 

Friday night was closed by the folk tent gospel revival stylings of Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros who unleashed a psychodelic romp that was entirely worthy of the experience at hand. Much like this festival was to Norfolk, this music is not like anything most of us have seen. As the festival poured into the Friday Night Lights, you couldn't shake the vibe if you tried. 

He Said That's OK Boy Won't You Feed Him When You Can

The most glaring lesson learned Friday night was that cell phones were useless in this glut of connected humanity. Most of us took to social media and good old fashioned conversations to decide on meeting places for Saturday. By the time we found our way back Saturday afternoon, it was a homecoming party, for just about everyone I grew up with. I had friends back from as far away as China for this weekend. And it was like none of us had missed a beat. I couldn't help but think of the Eddie Vedder lyric from Corduroy "Everything has changed, absolutely nothing's changed". We have all gone on to our lives beyond Simcoe. From the little shitheads tramping on ginseng fields and dodging cops at bush parties, we have emerged as mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, travellers, entrepreneurs and bums. Over the background of a music festival we all got realize that we are every bit the people we left behind, just in new evolutions. Getting to connect with people that meant the world to you fifteen years before, and realizing how much they all continue to mean to you, even when you are half a world away, that is the kind of thing that goes beyond whose playing Bonaroo next year. This was more than a music festival, but something a whole lot bigger. 

I have heard it suggested ad nauseum in the days since, that Simcoe should do this every year. That we have proven ourselves as ambassadors of the jam, and that with this kind of economic upside, we would be silly not to replicate this. 

I COULD NOT DISAGREE MORE.

First of all pragmatically speaking, booking the kind of lineup that attracts the masses in the busy summer festival season is an Everest at best. You need to look no further than the recent Grove Festival and Riot Fest in Toronto. These were seemingly solid lineups. But we are all busy people. We have cottages, weddings, fishing trips and football games that cramp up that calender. The aforementioned festivals were literally giving away tickets and they still appeared as ghost towns, and certainly at the expense of organizers. What made The Simcoe Stopover so successful was its inherent specialness. You try to replicate those kind of intangibles and you most certainly will fail. Beyond every special moment that we forged over the past few nights, we must be anchored in the reality that is real life. We can yearn all we want but in the words of Dogen, flowers, while loved will perish, and weeds while loathed will flourish. Let us celebrate everything that was special about this weekend by keeping it special, not turning it into a franchise. Maybe in 5 years, or 10, or 20. Remember how long Woodstock waited until we came back. The alternative is to be the junkie, forever chasing the dragon. 

Take A Load Off Annie Take A Load For Free

There was no better ending to this weekend than Mumford and Sons swan song. They concluded their encore by bringing to the stage the majority of the artists who participated in the 2 day festival. As a final testament to Simcoe, and to Rick Danko, the reason we were all here in the first place, the ensemble performed the Band's most prolific gift to the world of music, "The Weight". For 8 minutes 11 bands and 40,000 people were as one, singing and dancing to every note. Anyone who doubts that there is magic in this world is a fool. Trying to capture that magic is just as fleeting. Trick is to keep them eyes open for those big moments in time, and jump right in. 

The Making of a Red Devil

After 8 years at the helm of Everton, David Moyes had accumulated critical acclaim but exactly ZERO silverware of any kind. In his first match as manager of Manchester United Football Club he took home the Community Shield and his very first trophy. This is what it means to be the manager of the world's greatest football club. Its an illustration of what it means to be a Red Devil. Its a club whose very fabric is the resultant legacy of a history drenched in greatness and achievement. A club unhindered by the devastation of the Munich Disaster, which took the lives of half of the team. A club whose grounds were not to be victim of Hitler's bombing runs, instead to be reborn into the Theatre of Dreams. A club whose modern era has been molded by the most decorated manager in the history of the sport over the past 27 years. Its in the personification of the history of greatness that breathes life into each new day for this most glorious of clubs.



You are your path.



I feel that this same truth applies to each and every one of us. We are a product of each and every day that has lead us to here and now. And I don't just mean our lives, but those that came before we ever drew breathe. At least that's my experience in the making of this particular Red Devil.



People often seem quite taken with the oddball road that has lead me to my twisted place in the world of fine wine and spirits. I sprung from the gate as a Public Policy graduate who never quite found his way into relevant fieldwork in the bureaucracies of this great nation. Instead, halfway through my undergrad I turned to the family business and achieved entry into the Canadian Professional Golfers Association. From there, in spite of 15 years in the business, 5 as a professional developing quite a progressive teaching program (if I do say so myself), I 180'd my way into the punk rock concert business. Always a tad restless, I had been moonlighting my years in the golf game in the bar trade since the age of 18. I had been playing disc jockey in a Guelph nightclub whose owners had just opened a dive bar which they wanted to feature live music. They needed a manager and I loved punk rock. Turns out Channel 62 Productions seemed alot more interesting than chasing little white balls and 300 plus concerts and 5 years later, I had arrived as kind of a big deal in the small time game of DIY punk rock. Yet having done everything I was gonna do in that trade, I said goodbye to Guelph in the hope of finally getting to some policy work in Toronto. Turns out though degrees are not much more than $50,000 rolls of toilet paper and I found myself bar backing at Bymark in the financial district. Strangely here, as I was trying to get OUT of the booze game, I discovered the most incredible passion (and justification for my suspiciously rampant thirst for alcohol), fine wine. Over the next few years I dove into wine and spirits, getting my face on a bottle of Maker's Mark in 2010, and gaining certification as a sommelier in 2011.



Pretty cool I guess. It goes a long way as to explaining why I am nowhere near the sommelier you are expecting to greet you in Yorkville.



But to me, my path was cleared through a long time before I was ever walking that shit.



The story gets all sorts of badass back towards the start of the 20th Century. My great grandma Anna Kuzyk was a bit of a warrior. I knew her as a mother of 16 kids who lived well past her 100th birthday (I was the little 9 year old making her sing Ukrainian folk songs whilst I attempted enthusiastic dance moves at her big birthday party). What I came to learn is that she was ahead by a century in my desire to get people shitfaced. Turns out that feeding 16 little Ukranians in the Prairies is no picnic, and while her husband Metro earned his blue collar keep, Anna helped finance their survival by making moonshine out of a hidden still. Alas, the Fork River General Store that retailed her secret homebrew was busted and they didn't blink at ratting her out to the authorities. Problem was property laws being what they were, her husband Metro was hauled off to jail for the illegal moonshine and her still was destroyed. With no husband to bring home a paycheque, and no still to make her contraband, she had ran out of any means to feed 16 hungry kids. Her solution to this problem was a thing of beauty. She marched 11 of the kids (those up for a bit of a hike) to the Dauphin Manitoba jail where her husband was locked up. She arrived explaining that without Metro, she had no way to feed her kids, and that until he was freed, they'd have to take on 12 new mouths to feed. Less than a week of 11 rambunctious Ukie kids crawling around the grounds was all it took for the jail to free Metro in full pardon. Dont play chicken with a Ukranian. Real Talk.

Dad's side of the fam is a bit more traditional in nature, But no less Old World. My grand dad was a bit of a jack of all trades, who had a penchant for mastering all kinds of random hobbies. Naturally winemaking was one of them. I tend to remember his immaculate wood working shop, where he was one of the last living craftsmen who were certified to refinish persimmon golf clubs, But when I look back, I couldn't miss the cold cellar devoted to a giant oak barrel in which he continually made homemade wine for decades. My dad followed suit, dropping the oak barrel for plastic bottles which in which he bottled an admittedly questionably tasting home beer.



It turns out though, that my Michael Corleone like connection to tending bar (I keep trying to get out, but they keep pulling me back in) comes pretty naturally as well. While I long knew my mumsy gave up her nursing career to join my dad in the merchant side of the golf business, I learned only recently that Deb was a barmaid. And not just any barmaid, but in fact, Hamilton Ontario's first ever female bartender. For all my rebellious posturing, my mom is the real deal. A true life renegade who broke a gender barrier in the very field I would one day call home. I think there might have been a time she wanted better for me. I think she has come to see that I was always coming here. And what is better than that?

And I haven't even touched on my Uncle Bud...but that is probably for the best.



You are your path. Your path just starts a little farther back than you think.



My hope for David Moyes, and his new charge at the helm of Manchester United, is he trusts that his path has been long paved. The making of a Red Devil is centuries in the making.

Up In Smoke (Or Don't You Dare Call It Ardberg)

I will always have a lifelong bromance associated with cigars. My old man doesn't smoke cigarettes and my mumsy won't let him smoke the reefer (which leads to the occasional stealth mission of idiotic hilarity), so our sole bonding smoke experience has centered around the cigar. The years are littered with the ghosts of Old Balls and myself sharing Cuban cigars and whatever occasion we were celebrating. Life, death, weddings, football games, successes and failures. I'll never forget our trip to Cayo Coco and our daily siesta which would begin with a glass of rum, a pair of Partagas Series 4 and my dad's introduction to hip hop.



But as natural as rum and cigar's from the home of their pinnacle performance in the land of their birth may seem, I'm certainly not spending the rest of my life in Cuba. Something gets lost in translation as the cigar travels north. Not in the tobacco, not in the bonding, but in everything else. The cooler air, the industrial smog and the daily grind alter the experience at a fundamental level. Suddenly the rum seems a little sweet in the tooth for a stogie in the Big Smoke.



This has always been where Scotch has come to the rescue. And not just any scotch. But something in the grimey peaty flex of an Islay scotch makes babies with the finest Cubans that I have smoked here at home. While i keep discount minded Bowmore around for my Partagas shorts, I have always saved Ardbeg for my Romeo & Juliet Churchills and other such luxury cigars.

Islay is a land that is very much befitting its rugged style of whiskey. A peat covered rock standing in defiance of the North Atlantic that beats its coast in eternity. Its people survive almost entirely on the backs of Deadliest Catch style fishing and making whiskey.



Ardbeg tells a story that is uniquely Islay both in its history and in the glass. Earlier this summer I shared a lunch with Brand Ambassador Ruaraidh MacIntyre at my home turf, One Restaurant. Our host Kate More of Charton Hobbs suggested some Ardbeg ceasars, which were a smokey delight. I've long been a fan of the whiskey ceasar but the peaty streak of Ardbeg made magic. Lobster spoons and smoked trout had the Turkish Bath treatment inside of that cocktail masterstroke. While Ruaraidh seemed to be blown away by the spread ("I never knew you could do foie gras on a pancake" he laughed as the huckleberry compote covered slab of goose-liver portion of lunch came to the table), I was simply mesmerized by his tales of his homeland.



While I'll leave his tales of Islay for the moment rather than for the reader, I will touch on the history of the distillery. Decimated by the oversaturation of whiskey in the 1980's, the ancient distillery was shuttered for decades, only to eventually go all Jesus after a couple of days in a cave. Strangely enough, this one time victim of over supply is amongst the best positioned to deal with the present day whiskey shortage. While many of their peers have long hung their hat on the oldest possible age designations, Ardbeg's style has always been one to reward a shorter period of aging. While many scotch whiskeys are their best in the 18-25 bracket, Ardbeg's style rewards the freshness of 10 years or less in some cases. Their finest whiskeys in fact, bear no age designation whatsoever and did so long before Macallan decided to do away with their 10, 12, 15 and 18 year olds.



But at the heart of Ardbeg, and really ANY Islay scotch, is the peat. Its what defines the island and it's whiskey. And it what makes it the ultimate cigar companion. Thus I was not about to miss out last month when Ardbeg hosted a scotch and cigar tasting at Bymark.

Once again Ruaraidh held court, no easy task in a crowd of Bay Street Alphas getting all fired up on whiskey. Things got started with some Glenmorangie. Out of place perhaps stylistically, the parent that bought the spunky child out of insolvency was at the very least a means to get our whiskey palates tickled. The scots are a frugal bunch by their nature, yet also social types. Where the Toronto club set get together at Musik Saturdays over bottles of Grey Goose, the working class Scots are famous for getting together at their local pub, pitching on a bottle of The Original and drinking theirselves into a state of stupor.



Phase 2 of the tasting took us to Ardbeg 10 Year. A few years back this wasn't general list here in Ontario, and its magical predication to cigars made it my special occasion partner for my biggest cigars. My first trip to Old Trafford, THIS was the whiskey I filled my duty capacity on. The nose explodes with peat and zesty citrus notes that would be clobbered to death with another decade in barrel. Ruaraidh also brought attention to a subtle briney note he attributes to the distillery's proximity to the sea crashing on the shore, spraying a constant terroir unto the whiskey. On the tongue, its a veritable forest of mushroom, cinnamon, black pepper marshmallows and coffee. The best part, is that it just don't stop.

We moved next to the Corryvreckan. Named after the famous whirlpool that lies north of Islay, its name comes honestly as it is certainly a whirling dirvish of flavour. Free of the limitations of age designation, this is a whiskey that is crafted entirely toward a vision. All that familiar Ardbeg elements fuze with chocolate blueberry vanilla, cherry and menthol. Its likely the least cigar friendly Ardbeg, but wino's will simply marvel at the complexity in this maelstrom.



We finish the tasting with what is now, bar none, my ultimate Cuban cigar pairing, the Uigeadial. The highest scoring whiskey of all time may bring the fanboys, but I am not the type to hang my hat on scores. This is the peaty magic of Ardbeg 10 on steroids. There is a depth and sincerity to this whiskey that I have genuinely never tasted anywhere else in wine and spirits. Its equal parts Christmas, championship football, and the day you lost your virginity. I wanted nothing more than the finest cigar money could buy to high five this little glass of heaven.



I didn't get that exactly...but instead the most pleasant of surprises.



I have to admit, while I am wide open to new experiences in wine and spirits, my mind is kind of closed when it comes to cigars. I have tasted alot. And while there are many good cigars from the Dominican Republic to the United States, there is only one place that makes GREAT cigars, and that is that little exiled home to Che Guevaraism, Cuba. There is something magical in the farming, the focus, the attention to detail, and even the civic pride that elevates the Cuban cigar beyond what a little boycot driven, supply and demand could generate.

But then, I had never had Mombacho from Nicaragua. Don't get it twisted, these won't compete with the finest $30+ a stogie brand of cigars that reign as best in show. But at $10-$15 each, these are absolutely on par with their Cuban counterparts. After talking shop with their owner, he says all the right things in regards to production methods (right down to field rotation, something that's coming to haunt even the most esteemed Cuban producers). Add to this the willingness of Nicaragua to arrive as something other than a arms centre and a path on the cocaine highway, and the recipe is there for Mombacho and Nicaraguan tobacco to arrive on the world stage.



I'll say this. It takes some kind of experience for a born rebel to sit in the capitalist cottage, surrounded by the Titans of Bay Street, and having the time of his life. This is supposed to be where me and my old man bitch about the man and how we won't be undone by the New World Order. Instead I'm Zach De La Rocha insisting Che Guevara should be our mascot. Killing in The Name Of. Sellout whiskey. Shit is real.