Tidings Magazine

Christmas has come early. This year Tidings is offering you a free copy of our food and wine magazine. Click on the link below and you'll be able to download an interactive PDF of our recent magazine with unabridged articles on food, wine and living well.

Download the PDF of the Maverick Wine and Spirits Awards Issue
(12.5 megs) published in November 2008. 

I always thought that Scotch whisky was an ancient tipple. If I’m right, how come so many of my favourite distilleries claim to have been established only in the mid-to-late 1800s?

It depends on your definition of both ancient and Scotch. I’m no spring chicken, but anything coming on line in the middle of the nineteenth century seems pretty darn ancient to me. Now, before you get your Braveheart face on and start rallying the troops for battle, let me say that I do get your point. Surely the Scots were mixing up a little moonshine to ward off the cold winters (not to mention the oh-so-warm summers) of their not-so-forgiving home and native land well before the date shown on the labels at your local booze shop.

They were — some claim whisky came to Scotland from Ireland back in the fifth century, and many were having a gay old time selling it to their friends and relatives. Problem is (and here comes the government-conspiracy part, Agent Mulder), anything that makes life more tolerable is worth taxing.

Last-minute shoppingfor the gourmet in your life is futile when you don’t know what toget them. Tidings tothe rescue once again! There is something here for everyone. Whoknows, you may even find a little stocking-stuffer for yourself.

Whether it is new, innovative or inventive, Tidings is always on the look out for the food and wine maverick. Every November, we will follow up our Maverick Chefs issue — published in October — with the Mav Wine & Spirits Awards. Focusing on the best in assemblage, the editors and tasters of Tidings laboured perilously — we stained two tableclothes and a shirt — to highlight the finest in a winemaker’s main d’oeuvre. At the same time, we are featuring spirits that have adopted the truest nature of its elements. In essence, we distil the critical facets of wine and spirits and bring them to you, for the final analyse. Please enjoy this year’s selections of Mavs.

Every emerging wine region needs a magnet. Something to draw us city folk into wine country. In British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley, it is the magnificent temple to Dionysus that Anthony von Mandl built at Mission Hill. In Quebec, it’s the Chapelle Ste. Agnès Vineyard, a tiny piece of the Rhône in the Sutton Mountains of southern Quebec, established in 1997 by Montreal antique dealer Henrietta Antony. In Ontario, it could have been the proposed Frank Gehry winery for Le Clos Jordanne, until Constellation put the project on the back burner after they purchased Vincor. Currently in Niagara, the draw is such architectural eye-openers like the ones of Stratus, Tawse, Flat Rock Cellars and Jackson-Triggs.

For Nova Scotia I predict that the crowd-puller will be a new winery in the Gaspereau Valley called Benjamin Bridge that is set to open in an interim building early next year. In keeping with the new wave of Canadian wineries Benjamin Bridge’s owner Gerry McConnell made his fortune in another field (mining) before getting his feet into the vat, so to speak.

Excellent paired with crystal blue lakes

Great wine, exquisite food and breathtaking views can’t help but leave you wanting more.

Enjoy a wide range of delicious and decadent products at Summerland Sweets. Their mouth-watering fruit jelly candy is made with real Okanagan fruit, and their intensely flavoured jams contain 20% more fruit that most others. Try the scrumptious fruit syrups as well. Maplapple Syrup drizzled over pancakes, ice cream or cheesecake can’t be beat.
(250) 494-0377   
6206 Canyon View Drive, Summerland, BC