Jack Daniel’s 160th Anniversary at the Drake

My ol’ pal Alen from Media Profile invited me out to an event they were putting together: the 160th anniversary birthday party for Jack Daniels. In commemoration of the late, great Tenessee whiskey God, it was primed to perfection with great cocktails flowing all night, JD-infused nibblets, and a varying cast of great people from Toronto and further out.

First let me preface: I suck at taking photos. I hate flash so I took most of the photos without it. I liked the red hue that the Olympus PEN E-PL1 gave anyway.

I took my cousin (and at times, my older and much wiser brother) Sailor Jerry, who I’ve fully associated Jack Daniels even from before the legal liquor age. Didn’t even get time to throw him the invite before he said “I’m coming”.

We refer to Sailor Jerry as the greatest samaritan in Toronto. The saviour of common folk. Saviour Jerry. Two stories come to mind:

• The guys were casually walking the street until Sailor Jerry, in the sense of danger, does a 90 degree turn and dashes across the street, dodging cars in traffic. The reason? To prevent a parallel parker from running over some shards of glass.

• Outside of Dufferin Mall, a young Indian child in lost and standing in the middle of the road. Leaping out of his car, he again dodged traffic towards the kid and prevented him from getting hit by car. The lost boy didn’t speak any English, so he took him into Walmart and to meet with security & staff. The child was terrified of everyone except Sailor Jerry, so he stayed with him until the mother was found.

Us Maritimers rock.

Jack Daniels to me is equivalent to almost any sort of whiskey or other liquors – I drink it when I’m drunk. The Jack + Coke thing has been standard for me (like most people), except I’m not exactly a fan of mixing pop with liquor. It burns. But the experience from this night changed it – just like Smirnoff.

The two main cocktails were the Jack 160th, which featured Jacks, lime, bitters, and ginger beer. For some reason I misheard one of the bartenders as saying, “The 160th has Jacks and LSD”. I had that face of lolwut. Tasted refreshing but it was my least favourite of the two.

My drink of choice for the night was the Maple Jack Sour – made with Jacks, lemon juice, and maple syrup. A sweet but not too sweet collection of easy going flavours to put your taste buds in a frenzy for more. The bartender said that a good drink only needs three ingredients, and this was a great representation of it.

The food had me wishing I brought some Pepto, but the infused whiskey gave the flavour an extra kick. Pulled pork sliders were an easy hit, but mainly because I’m Jughead when it comes to burgers. The baby back ribs with Jacks maple glaze looked extremely appetizing however I turned them down twice because I was already stuffed from Poutini’s (nom). The Jack Daniel’s marinated shrimp and watermelon actually just tasted like shrimp and watermelon. Chicken fingers with Jack & Chipolte BBQ sauce was a sincere repeat.

Didn’t get to meet up with the master distiller. Dude looked really friendly and approachable, but he was always talking to someone. Jericho was stoked to but at the last minute, chickened out: “I’m too nervous. I might slip and spill my drink on him”. Chickening out reminded me of my incident (or lack thereof) with the Sloan look-a-like in Amsterdam.

Saw and met a lot of people there – @JasBanwait, @UrbanNativeGirl, JJ from @CompendiumDaily, George Sully from TCHAD/Sully Wong, Michael Yarde (@mediaacrobat) his colleague Maria the hairstylist, a country singer from Australia, Preston from @UniqLifestyle, and of course, @alensadeh who hooked this up!

It may be interesting to note that I shared a streetcar afterwards with the crazy Eaton centre guy.

To Mr. Daniels, I salute you. Happy 160th buddy.