Wizards, and burgers, and beer, oh my!

#27 THE DISTILLERY DISTRICT 


Now a national heritage site, the Vicotrian-era Gooderham and Worts Distillery has been reborn as one of the city's uniquie-chic neighborhoods. The best preserved collection of Victorian industrial architeture in North America has appeared in Hollywood block-busters and is home to an appealing mix of art gallerires, studios, restaurants, and one-of-a-kind boutiques.

DATE: Thursday, August 22, 2013.

TIME:

Hi! And welcome to another adventure. As you already know, on this particular evening we decided to take on the pretty Distillery District. The neighborhood is not new to either of us, and I'm sure we'll both share a few stories before this entry is done. If you've never been, the Distillery District is a cute and trendy little neighborhood about a 25 min walk east of Union Station. It's a great place for an evening on the patio (and there are a few) particularly because you're far away from car fumes. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've eaten at all the actual restaurants (and on their patios). There's not that many so it's really not that impressive.

Now at the end of the evening I realized I forgot to make my preplanned Harry Potter reference. Really bugging me because I honestly planned this reference out like 3 years ago. I'm going to compare the Distillery District to Diagon Alley. (See, in the books, Diagon Alley is a secret little wizarding neighborhood in London. It also has cobblestone roads but the real similarities is the idea that both neighborhoods are kind of tucked away in the middle of a bustling city.)

I'm a bit interested in the tidbit of information the cards just gave about the neighborhood appearing in Hollywood Blockbusters because of its architecture. I wonder what movies have been filmed here.....

More than  you think! Cinderella Man, X-Men and Chicago! I've always been able to recognize the Distillery by its brick buildings and their distinctive green shutters.
I can't remember the first time I was here or who introduced me to this place, but I did think it was a neat since it's prolly the only place where there's cobblestones ...  

Our traditional starting picture!

And you can kinda see where we are... for once!

A little note: the "addresses" on the cards refer to building numbers that have been assigned. Little foreshadowing, it's a bit confusing. Also, we didn't do this walk in order.



1. Thompson Landry Gallery (#5)

...exhibits works by artists from Quebec

This bronze sculpture is called "Desire Bruts", by the artist Jean-Pierre Lafrance

   

Alma mimicing the movement of the waves in the sculpture
I dunno why my hand is firmly gripped to my bag... 

It's closed... so we don't go in. Though those who know us know that we probably wouldn't have gone in if it was open anyway. Eek. Alma, we better make sure we do the "Gallery Row" walk along Queen St. W. with Sean... we're bolder with him around. (Of course, he's not allowed to come on another walk until he writes and passes our test)

The neighborhood has lots of different works (some interactive like this) along the paths. If there wasn't a little kid on it, I'm sure I would have talked Alma in climbing it for a picture.
There's a lot of pictures of making me do stuff... okay.. maybe there isn't. I'm just thinking of Monica wanting me do to do the hockey hall of fame picture.

2. Gisbone Jessop Gallery (#4)

...a launching pad for emerging international artists.

Oops! Alma, we kind of forgot to find this place. Well you'd think building #4 would be right beside building #5, but not in the distillery district! We meant to see if we could access it from the other side of the building, but then we kind of came along the next site and just forgot about it..... Well, chances are, the place doesn't exist anymore. right?????

Oops! Just looked it up. It's still there. But on the other side of the neighborhood. Here's the website if you'd like to check it out.

http://www.gibsonejessop.com/

This is basically the heart of the distillery district. The central square or path if you will. There's a couple of sculptures but because I took pics of them later at night they didn't turn out so well.  So here's a borrowed pic:

Hmmm... that sure does look like a sculpture of the distillation process! 

I've never noticed that before.

My bro and his wife took their wedding pictures here! 

Actually... The Distillery is a place to come and take pictures! I remember more than 10 years ago...(oh man we're old), Stef and I came here to specifically do that. We took our fancy (at the time) digital cameras and walked around trying out different shots. It was a good time :)

3. Sandra Ainsley Gallery (#3)

where breathtaking contemporary glass is shown

I would have liked to have seen this. I think glass blowing is cool. But alas, she's moved (actually, close to you're work Alma). Check out her website:
http://www.sandraainsleygallery.com/

Was curious so I looked for some pictures. Isn't this cool?  Think it's called the "End of Days Tower"

Now the building that used to be the Sandra Ainsley Gallery is now John Fluevog. Looks like they might actually make the shoes here.
Triva time! Name another walk that John Fluevog has appeared on.

This is as good as a time as any to make my first rambling anecdote. So the last time I was at the Distillery District, was about a year ago with my friend Brianne who used to do theater reviews for postmagazine.com. She would usually get 2 press tickets and would occasionally invite me to see productions with her. We once saw 'The Price', an Arthur Miller play at the playhouse here in the distillery district. But the last time we were here was quite unusual. She was reviewing an 'interactive movie' for lack of a better word. Basically, this company takes a movie and hires actors to act out key scenes from the movie. They also have various props and scenery recreated as well, and interactive stations. The idea is that for the first 2 hours you walk around and visit the various areas and figure out what the movie is. And then in the next 2 hours they actually play the movie on a large screen. Now we had pretty much no information before going in. All we were told was to wear all black and dress like soldiers and the day of the event we were told the location (which was in the case here at the Fermenting House in the Distillery District). When we enter the place, I immediately knew it was Fight Club. We soon also figured out, this was supposed to be like a mixer. But no one was really doing it right. There were a few hors d'oeuvres but you had to catch them the minute they came out of the kitchen. And there was an expensive cash bar. After about half an hour we had visited all the scenes, and were starving and a bit bored. We also had no clue that the plan was to show the movie at the end. Love the movie, but we were starving so we left when the screening began and went to grab dinner at the Italian restaurant beside John Fluevog. The idea of the interactive movie is kind of cool. I don't see why the location needs to be a secret. We got in free with press passes, but what killed us was finding out that those who actually bought tickets, paid $80! That's just crazy. Anyhoo, the best part of the evening was what happened after dinner. When we were eating dinner, Brianne realized that she probably should have interviewed some ppl for her review. Then as we were leaving we ran into a couple of guys and a girl that we saw and when we left. So I started talking to them so she could get a quote. We remembered each other cause they teased us when we left the "movie". So they invited us to join them for a drink, and yeah, we spontaneously made a couple of new friends. They were funny and had some good stories. I think Brianne added them to Facebook. Wow, that was a long digression. 

I think that's my favourite Mill St. beer

   
Note the repeating numbers and the lack of logic in their numbering system on this map of the district.

Oh my!

4. Soma Chocolatemaker (#48)

... a must for foodies

See that greenery to the left of the pic. That' part of another outdoor restaurant-lounge. On my first foray into the distillery district, the twins and I went there for a drink. They didn't have prices on their drinks. I ordered a green apple martini (one of my favs). It was really funny cause it was super small, and in a cheap plastic dollar store glass, and it was like $14. Wow, I probably sound super cheap.

Everything here looks yummy but is way out of our price range.
On the way out the door, I noticed their 'CLOSED'. It says that 'the Oompa-Loompas are resting'. Cute!
But look how delicious those truffles!
Maybe on our indulgent day we can should buy 1! 

6. Mill Street Brewery and Brewpub (#63)

where adventurous tipplers will enjoy sampling unusual offereings like organic lager or coffee-accenter porter.
I'm not a fan of their coffee or pumpkin spice beer....

So we were walking away from the Mill Street Brewery to finish the walk when we had to stop and turn back cause we were way too hungry and the smell of burgers from the restaurant wasn't helping.

We got carded.
I love how Monica always blames me.

Hehe. Alma chomping down on a Lifesavers Wintergreen mint.
A few weeks before I shared some Gr 10 Science curriculum with Alma, Alan, and Darlene. I taught them all about trioluminescence. This is when light is produced by friction. (Ex, when you knock to stones together and produce a spark) What you do, is clear your mouth making it as dry as possible. Stand infront of a mirror in a pitch black room. Then put the mint in your mouth and chomp down. You should see sparks! (Really what's happening is that light is being released as the bonds in the sugar of the wintergreen are being broken). When I do this demo in class, I put the candy on the lab bench and attack it with a hammer.

5. Balzac's Coffee (#60)

...serves coffee in a dramatically renovated pump house

Their coffee is really good!

I'm no coffee aficionado... but it's a fine damn cup of coffee (twin peaks quote)

If you can't make it all the way here there's another one @ the Toronto Reference Library! 

Interesting shot

Reminds me...

The Distillery has an annual Christmas Market, where there's a giant Christmas tree and everything is decked out in lights. I went last year with Alex - it was tough finding parking (one guy stole a spot we were signaling for!).  We ended up parking somewhere really far... but at least it was cheaper! 

Anyway, the atmosphere is really nice. There are several wooden(?) booths around selling hot snacks, hot chocolate and christmas crafts.  There's a stage for entertainers - we caught a bit of christmas caroling... It's actually all really charming.  

Go check it out!

Cute. Obviously a joke right?

But it appears to be a functioning meter that you can actually put money into.

Curious how many ppl have actually put money in.

8. Artist Studios (#74)

where artists produce and sell a range of wares.

Mon sneaking into the building...

It's open to the public

Excited to explore!

Blog readers, do a shot. Yet another pic of me reading a plaque.

This is a Simplex Pump. It was used to pump alcohol to and from the railway cars. Also used to pump antifreeze. Hope there wasn't any cross contamination.

:S

how they used to weigh alcohol back in the day

This guy took a photo everyday for 3 years!

Love this photo of mon!

Mon's interpretation of the above photo! ;)

I was also trying to blend into the background with the pictures. 

This is a Tail Box. It was used to measure the strength of the alcohol coming off the still.

7. Lileo (#35)

a boutique that caters to Toronto's ultra-stylish set, with everything from art books to limited-edition sneakers and gifts.

 Stef and I went here, everything is overpriced... I remember plain shirts being more than $50. It's a huge store though and you can really spend more than half an hour just trying to see everything cause this store kinda covers it all! So if you're meeting someone at the Distillery and they're gonna be late... go here! You'll get lost in all the merchandise!

So that was pretty much it for the night. We left the distillery district and walked down the Esplanade (which does not have a walk and maybe deserves one) back to union. During the walk back, we passed an interesting guy. Alma, I'll leave it to you to describe:

This slim guy with a goatee was walking towards us with his wife and child?! Well I noticed him because he had a candle lit lantern in his hand and a long black cape! It wasn't a flimsy cape too... it had weight to it! Maybe be even velvet! But who wears a cape and carries a lantern???? I didn't say anything to Mon at first cause it's rude to just point stuff like that out when this family is in earshot range... so I mentioned it to Mon when there was quite a distance between them. But man! 

Clearly, this guy is a wizard! Who else would dress like that?

Now, Alma said she'd sketch a picture and post it, but she is backlogged on the homework front. So I've found some pics. Alma, which one would you say most closely resembles the man?

Haha! I did do a sketch (days later) but it doesn't really look like him. I made him more fat, bearded and cartoony - he's clearly neither. These pics are more help, fun and probably more accurate... 

Very close!!!

He wasn't wearing the hood though and he had glasses and a much friendlier expression!

Also the lantern was more long and cylindrical than rectangular.

No... like not at all...

This guy a miner? or a train dude?

No.

Cute but no.

ummm... no.

MONICA'S RATING: Hmm... well I don' care much for the route the cards took or the venues it pointed out, I think the distillery district is a great place to visit and spend the evening if you're visiting Toronto or if you are a Torontonian. Might be neater to go a bit earlier in the day when there are craft stands around or a particular event going on. Explore on your own (it's not big and you can't get lost). Just remember it is a bit pricier than other places.  My rating is not actually for the walk but the neighborhood. I give it a 4 pitchers of beer out of 5.


Alma's Rating: I thought Mon's rating would be higher since we bumped into a wizard. But anyway, I have the same feelings as Mon - this is quite a different part of Toronto that is worth exploring or revisiting. If not for the sights... meet Mon and I for beer! I also give this walk a 4.