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Culture

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My parents went to Cuba a few years ago and loved everything about the island – the people, the hospitality, the weather, the natural scenery – they went on and on. My dad even went old school and set up a slideshow after Sunday dinner. Of course, all I really wanted to know was, how was the food? My parents, almost as much as I, are food fanatics and, sadly, were not at all pleased with the dining options made available. I think this was one of the more shocking things about Cuba. This tropical island is just a stone’s throw away from their native land of Jamaica, and if you’ve even been to Jamaica you know one thing is for certain; the food is incredible. But in Cuba, the food was so horrendous, in fact, that fellow resort guests rejoiced when one decided to share their tomato-y contraband…

I am a lady that loves her whisky; more specifically I am a Canadian that loves whisky. But until I connected with Dr. Don Livermore, Master Blender, I didn’t realize how little I knew about one of our nation’s historic pillars. Canada has been producing whisky (without the ‘e’) before it was its own country. Whisky is just as much a part of the Canadian identity as the maple leaf, the beaver, even hockey (with an ‘e’ of course). Gooderham, Corby, Seagram, Walker, and Wiser are names any whisky drinker would recognize, but did you know for the first fifty years of Canada’s independence, the only tax revenue was generated from the distillers. I guess one may call them founding fathers of sorts. Believe it or not, Canadians started off trying our hand at rum (and have been moderately successful in the Atlantic provinces). As the settlers moved further…