Jully Black
Singer performing at the Music For Life benefit for the Dixon Hall Music School at Daniels Spectrum November 22 and at Hugh’s Room November 23.
What is your favourite drink?
I took a bartending course for fun, so I’m always making up new drinks! The odd time that I do drink, my usual is Amaretto and Diet 7-Up. We call it the Sweet Seven. Hope nobody steals it.
Do you have a favourite holiday drink?
My favourite holiday drink is a Caribbean one called sorrel. My mother boils these red leaves and adds ginger, pimento seeds, wine, sugar and I think something else. I’ll have to get her to teach me.
Graham Abbey
Actor at Stratford, in CBC-TV’s The Border and in Snow White from November 23 at the Elgin.
What’s your favourite drink?
Usually any Scotch I can get my hands on. My ancestors are from the Isle of Skye, so I’m partial to Talisker, but if someone is buying and/or I am employed, a dram of 15-year-old Balvenie is my drink of choice.
What’s your favourite holiday drink?
Because I’m a method actor [and I’m playing 007 in Snow White], I’ll be drinking vodka martinis this holiday season at my local, F’Amelia in Cabbagetown. The morning after, a Jet Fuel latte usually does the trick… stirred, not shaken.
Todd Van Allen
Stand-up comic hosting live Movember podcast and comedy show November 28 at the Comedy Bar (heyitstva.com)
What’s your favourite drink?
Drinking, like trying to decipher Rob Ford quotes to see who he’s offending today, requires context. Am I having a single snooty cocktail while exchanging pleasantries with the missus’s boss? Or am I armed and hammered on a dive patio and not leaving until I find the blood of at least three other people on my pants? It depends on where I am and what I’m doing. So I’ll just say “free.”
What’s your favourite holiday drink?
When Kevin Brauch (of TV’s The Thirsty Traveler) did my Comedy Above The Pub podcast, he created a holiday cocktail called Purple Draaaank 2: equal parts bubble-gum-flavoured soda, vodka and Vicks cherry cough syrup. I’d like to say it’s my favourite holiday beverage, but my body is still expelling it from my liver. That was last Christmas. So I’ll say one part eggnog, three parts Mount Gay Extra Old Rum. It silences the noisy children. Merry Christmas.
Kristen Voisey
Owner of BYOB Cocktail Emporium (972 Queen West, 416-858-2932, byobto.com)
What’s your regular drink?
If I’m out I’ll always let the bartenders make whatever they want. At home my favourite cocktail is a twist on the classic old-fashioned called the Kraken Fashioned, a drink I first had at Acadia. The ingredients are Kraken spiced rum, demerara simple syrup and Bittermens Xocolatl bitters muddled with an orange slice. I serve it in an old-fashioned glass with a giant ice cube and an orange twist as a garnish.
What do you drink during the holidays?
My go-to holiday cocktail is a Newfoundland staple (I’m from St. John’s) and the only thing my dad will drink – Lamb’s and Pepsi. There’s a very strict ingredient list: Lamb’s Amber Rum (no substitutions) and a drop of Pepsi (cannot be Coke Newfoundlanders will know) over ice. Christmas wouldn’t be the same without it.
David Laurence
Davy Love
Owner/chef of Bristol Yard, 146 Christie, at Pendrith, 647-716-6583
What’s your favourite drink?
I am a rum man! Preferably Rhum Barbancourt from Haiti if I can get my hands on it. My sister lived in Haiti for many years, and I developed a taste for it. I will drink Appleton’s Jamaican rum or Mount Gay from Barbados if I can’t get my first pick. I also love Oban single malt Scotch. Very smoky.
What’s your favourite holiday drink?
“My traditional tipple is shrub, a liqueur popular in the 18th century with pirates in southwestern England and Wales. It was originally used to disguise the taste of sea water that seeped into the rum barrels on ships coming back from the Caribbean. I can still hear the laughter of the two old codgers who bought me my first one. I nearly choked to death, but I learned to love it!”
Brian Joseph Davis
Emily Schultz
Author of The Blondes (Doubleday)
Favourite drink?
Margarita with salt rim. Along with the pill, I consider the margarita a cornerstone of sexual liberation.
Fave holiday drink?
Eggnog and rum – it’s like Christmas cookies in a glass.
