A Trip to Wolfhead Distillery in Amherstburg, Ontario

-








Tom and Sue Manherz owners of Wolfhead Distillery, pride themselves on being local and combining home-grown ingredients. Corn, barley, rye, hot peppers — and even local limestone, which are used to filter their water —to create flavour profiles for their premium blends of double-barrelled whiskeys and small-batch vodkas.  Wolfhead is Windsor-Essex County’s first premium craft distillery, since prohibition times, and is located in Amherstburg, Ontario.

We recently took a trip to Wolfhead Distillery for a tour tasting and dinner on the outdoor patio. The distillery has a tasting room, a retail store and a 100-seat prohibition-themed restaurant. There is additional seating for 120 on the rustic, lined with whisky barrels patio.

Chef Larry Girard’s menu features Lake Erie perch, charcuterie, portabella fries, barbecued and chicken flatbread.  Chef’s signature dish is garlic fried linguine with mushrooms, green onions, olives, banana peppers and fresh garlic sautéed in olive oil butter. The ingredients are flambéed in "Wolfhead Vodka” tossed in linguine noodles, and finished with parmesan and feta cheeses.

Kavi Reserve Whisky at Wolfhead Distillery

Jackie De Marco and business partner, Steve Wright, are co-founders of Kavi Reserve. Wright a master blender, worked with DeMarco’s father in the business for years and both work as consultants for craft distillers, including Manherz.  Kavi Whisky made at Wolfhead is blended and matured specifically to blend with coffee. It is crafted with a base of aged Canadian whiskies made from a combination of rye, rye malt, barley malt and corn. It exhibits rich oak and spicy rye character, which enhance and complement the coffee. Locally roasted coffee beans (Colonial Coffee in Windsor) are sourced for their unique profiles; cold brewed and then barrel-blended with an exquisite craft whisky. Kavi Reserve is double-aged in barrels, once for the whisky on its own and then again after blending with the coffee.



The rise of small batch spirits in Ontario is driven by indie distillers who craft local takes on whisky, gin, vodka and niche spirits like moonshine. Amherstburg’s Wolfhead Distillery just released Kavi Reserve, another hot new product. It’s the harmonization of cold-brewed coffee and Canadian whisky. An easy way to reinvent the classic Old Fashioned is by simply adding a dash of your favourite bitters and twisting in the oil of the orange zest.
Kavi Old Fashioned
Stir:
2 oz Kavi reserve
2 dashes of bitters
Orange zest 

Pour into rocks glass. Top with ice and orange zest.


7781 Howard Avenue, Amherstburg
www.drinkwolfhead.com

DISTILLERY AND RESTAURANT
·        MON-TUE: CLOSED
·        WED-SAT: 11am - 8pm
·        SUN: 11am - 6pm

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Remembering Ann McColl's Kitchen Shop

-
Image
Ann McColl Lindsay and David Lindsay: A Brief History of a Road Less Traveled Hospitality and the culinary arts have always gone hand in hand. In London, Ontario, we have a history of exceptional restaurateurs, chefs and culinary retailers. Among the latter are Ann McColl Lindsay and David Lindsay, the former proprietors of the legendary Ann McColl’s Kitchen Shop, one of Canada’s finest cookware shops. Ann and David met, married and taught school in Windsor, Ontario from 1961 to 1968. They resigned their positions, sold their red brick bungalow, and embarked on a year-long food pilgrimage across Europe while camping in a Volkswagen van. Travelling in the van with a gas burner allowed them to truly enjoy the local terroir. The first six months of their trip , which ended at the French border, is described in Ann’s memoir Hungry Hearts – A Food Odyssey across Britain and Spain . The second volume, Hearts Forever Young, includes their travels in France, Italy, Austria...
Read more

Homage to Toronto's Yorkville Landmarks the Coffee Mill and Le Trou Normand

-
Image
Homage to Toronto's Yorkville Landmarks the Coffee Mill  and  Le Trou Normand U p until just a few months ago, Le Trou Normand remained the oldest operating fine dining restaurant in Yorkville. Coincidentally, The Coffee Mill a venerated European-style cafe which recently celebrated 51 years in business closed earlier this month. Martha von Heczey’s Coffee Mill opened in May, 1963, in the now-demolished Lothian Mews, on Bloor Street. In 1973 , von Herczey  moved two blocks north to a mini-mall with Yorkville Avenue on one side, Cumberland Street on the other. There was a secluded terrace with an expandable awning in the event of rain. The Coffee Mill was practically right across the street from Le Trou Normand and it was one of my Yorkville haunts for over 30 years. Ms. von Heczey’s late husband Laci, a well-known wrestling champion, liked to wander around Yorkville with a tame cheetah on a leash.    Interestingly, in 19...
Read more

Thaifoon - London’s Premiere Upscale Go-To Thai Restaurant

-
Image
Manisay Visouvath and Fouzan (Rafael) Beg are the proprietors of Thaifoon, downtown London’s upmarket Thai restaurant. The restaurant remains a family affair. Visouvath is the youngest sister of Eddy and Alex Phimprhrachanh’s mother, Arounvaty, who is the head chef at Thaifoon and the matriarch of a Thai food dynasty in the city. Several of Arounvaty’s sisters have opened successful Thai restaurants in the city after being mentored in the kitchen by her.   Visouvath was born in the Southeast Asian country and came to Canada with her parents in 1980. Rafael is from Hyderabad India.  (Hyderabadi cuisine comprises a broad repertoire of rice, grains and meat dishes and the skilled use of various spices –  Indian cuisine has a longer, slower burn, rather than the sharper, built-up spiciness of Thai cuisine .)  Thaifoon’s with-it and tasteful take on the ancient Thai culture, with a décor that honours the past while embracing modernit...
Read more