Visiting the Toronto Wine and Spirit Festival

As part of my previously mentioned “getting to know Toronto” goal I attended the Toronto Wine and Spirit Festival this past Friday. I had previously heard about the event last year but wasn’t able to attend unfortunately. This year a few friends from university wanted to go and it worked out as a communal meeting place in Toronto.

I had hoped to have a ton of photo’s to post on here, but given my really shotty iPhone that is still chugging away I only have a few to sprinkle within the post courtesy of my friend Steph and the photo below from the Wine and Spirit Twitter page

Checking out the Toronto Wine and Spirit Festival

We ended up going on Friday which was the first of 3 days that the festival was running down by Sugar Beach on the Toronto waterfront. I had only been to Sugar Beach once before but loved the space, since it’s a old ship docking area turned urban beach. Thanks to my friend Faye for being more on top of things than I am, we realized we could save some dollars purchasing our tickets online ahead of time.

Upon arrival we received 5 tickets for either drink or food (who uses it for food at these things anyways) and our universal drinking/sampling cup that we would use for the remainder of the evening. Right away we learned that you should definitely go to the vendor shows that happen every hour where you get to taste product for free. This means you get to save your tickets and learn a little bit more about wines or other beverages, it made me feel pretty sophisticated a classy. We also realized that the event name is a bit of a lie, you can get beer and cider too!

Throughout the afternoon and evening we wandered around the beach and went to various booths tasting anything from cotton candy wine to ciders. There were some interesting mixed drinks to check out and even some photo opportunities like at the ONE Coconut water booth.

Given that tickets were currency you could usually snag yourself a liquor beverage ie rum, vodka for 3 tickets mixed into some very interesting cocktails, a half to 1 cup of beer or wine for 1 to 2 tickets and food ranged from I believe about 3 tickets to 6 or 7. Towards the end of the night you may also start to figure out what vendors give you more for your tickets (money?) and you can take advantage of that if you so choose.

The weather wasn’t amazing (notice I’m basically wearing fall clothes) but it was still a great time, no rain and a cool way to experience the “new” Toronto waterfront. I would suggest making sure you bring enough cash so you can avoid the ATM’s, either eat before or just have a few food items here and there and check out the vendor shows. Overall the Toronto Wine and Spirit Festival was a great experience I would definitely check it out next year and maybe go on the Saturday instead to catch some rays.

Up next the Toronto Beer and Cider Festival in September!

What food/drink festivals have you attended this summer?