Who should teach our teenagers about drinking at university?

By the editors - Monday, September 19, 2011 at 10:10 AM - 0 Comments

Dave Chidley/CP

Some predictions can be made with absolute certainty. The tides will shift. The sun will rise. And young university students will drink to excess.

From Tom Brown’s Schooldays to Animal House, exuberant drinking by underage students has long been a part of the experience of going away to school. Realistically, there is little society can do to change this fact of life. But what can we all do to cut down on the harm it may cause?

Last week, Canada’s university community was shocked by an orientation-week death at Acadia University in Wolfville, N.S. A first-year student from Calgary, just 19 years old, was found unconscious in a basement dorm room at the school suffering from severe alcohol poisoning. He later died in hospital. Fellow students told reporters he’d been playing a competitive drinking game called “flip cup” and had consumed an estimated 40 ounces of alcohol during the night.

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Cocktails at the Soho House with Jessica Allen

By Jessica Allen - Tuesday, September 13, 2011 at 5:33 PM - 0 Comments

Drinking to get ahead in China

By Alex Ballingall - Wednesday, September 7, 2011 at 11:30 AM - 1 Comment

Conventional wisdom tells us binge drinking is an indulgence typically reserved for the young and irresponsible. In Canada, that seems to be the case. Most binge drinkers are between 15 and 24 years old, according to the Canadian Medical Association Journal. But not in China, where those most likely to binge are men between the ages of 35 and 44, according to a recent study that surveyed nearly 50,000 people. On top of that, the study found that both drinking frequency and quantity increase with age. On average, Chinese men who drink consume 47.8 grams of pure alcohol every day, just shy of the 50-gram cut-off for the study’s definition of binge drinking. Such drinking in China, the study concludes, has reached “epidemic proportions.”

Yichong Li, the study’s lead author, speculates that Chinese business culture is largely to blame. Peter Chi, a school principal in northeastern China, feels similarly. “If I drink, it doesn’t necessarily help me get promoted. But if I don’t, it’s less likely that I will be. So I must drink, even if it’s not pleasant at all,” he told Britain’s Guardian. Job advertisements are even known to list “good drinking capacity” as a required credential. It seems binge drinking in China is largely a white-collar affair.

Brits spend five years of their life hungover: poll

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 11:59 AM - 8 Comments

The average British person will spend over five years of their life with a hangover, according to new research reported in the Daily Mail. That same person will suffer through a day-long hangover (usually on a Sunday) at least once a week between the ages of 21 and 38. During that time, 12 days a year will be spent “retching, sweating and feeling lousy” from drinking too much the night before. The frequency of hangovers reduces with age, the study shows, but they tend to continue at an average rate of 22.8 days per year until age 60. In the course of a lifetime, the average person spends more than five-and-a-quarter years (or nearly 2,000 days) with a hangover, according to a survey from Sweet Lady Beverages, which makes alcohol-free drinks.

Daily Mail

This navy is hardly shipshape

By Jane Switzer - Monday, April 4, 2011 at 9:58 AM - 0 Comments

Rob Griffith/AFP/Getty Images

Following revelations of a “predatory culture” full of drunken misconduct, the head of Australia’s navy has orders for his troops: shape up or ship out. Addressing the entire navy by video link last week, Vice-Admiral Russ Crane threatened to ban alcohol consumption during overseas port visits following the release of a report detailing bad behaviour on board the HMAS Success in 2009. The report accuses sailors of preying on young female recruits and betting on how many colleagues they could sleep with as part of a “sex ledger.” At the end of a tour, mariners would also receive a cash prize for outlandish sexual conquests.

But alcohol and sex aren’t the only problems in the Australian military—it was revealed last year that nearly 600 military personnel had been caught taking illegal drugs and steroids in the past five years. While he threatened mandatory breath tests, drug testing and curfews, Crane said the recent report raises more serious issues about the treatment of women in the navy: “I cannot accept a situation where women feel threatened by their male counterparts,” he said. “This type of behaviour must and will be eradicated.”

It’s time to make St. Patrick’s Day a national holiday

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, March 29, 2011 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments

Graham Hughes/CP

Holidays in Canada fall into three general categories. There are holidays that involve presents, holidays that involve candy and holidays that involve alcohol.

And judging from the evidence last week, St. Patrick’s Day has become this country’s most popular and widely celebrated day for raising a toast, far surpassing New Year’s Eve or Canada Day. In the minds of many Canadians, March 17 even appears to have replaced Easter as the true herald of a coming spring—and in ways that have little to do with the self-restraint of Lent. What should we make of this annual outbreak of Irishness?

Bar owners across the country report St. Patrick’s Day is now the most popular event on their calendar. “It’s the biggest one-day sales for us every year,” says Tania Richards, director of sales and marketing for Granville Entertainment, which runs three bars in Vancouver. Pub owner Grant Sanderson of Edmonton notes that “in the last five years it has gone from being a good day to being the best day in the pub business—it’s two or three times as big as New Year’s.” The reason is to be found in the length of time people spend celebrating. Richards observes that New Year’s events typically don’t begin until dinner time, while “St. Paddy’s is a flow of people all day long. It lasts 16 hours.” It’s become common to quit work at lunch to perfect one’s brogue on St. Patrick’s Day.

The same holds for students. Many university professors now debate the wisdom of holding classes on March 17, as attendance drops precipitously. This year herds of well-refreshed students were spotted wandering about in plastic green bowlers and green facepaint (and leaving behind bright-green messes) in many Ontario cities such as London, Waterloo and Peterborough. St. Patrick’s Day parties have become as reliable an indicator of spring on campus as short skirts and final exams.

Of course all this excitement has properly caught the attention of police as well. St. Patrick’s Day is now one of the most important days of the year for scheduled drunk-driving patrols.

How did all this happen?

History tells us the real Saint Patrick was likely born somewhere in Britain around 385. He was kidnapped by Irish pirates as a young man and brought to Ireland. He escaped, studied for the priesthood and eventually returned to organize the Church in Ireland. He died around 461, after a life of poverty and religious dedication. It hardly seems the raw material for a day of good cheer and green beer.

Nonetheless, several centuries of Irish immigration, and those immigrants’ well-earned reputation for conviviality, have turned St. Patrick into the patron saint of all. It probably doesn’t hurt that the middle of March also marks the coming end to a long winter for residents in most parts of Canada. The combination of melting snow and the opportunity to spend a day celebrating this fact has turned a once-obscure ethnic celebration into a rare unifying secular event that all Canadians seem to agree on—like Olympic hockey, only less stressful.

Montreal’s long-standing St. Patrick’s Day festivities nicely illustrate its broad crossover appeal. The annual parade, which dates back to 1824, appears as popular with French-speaking Montrealers and recent immigrants as with Anglos. It is a moment for all to enjoy, regardless of the shamrocks in their background.
Given that Canadians across the country have already voted with their feet, and mugs, to make St. Patrick’s Day more important than other existing public holidays, perhaps we should be making it official.

Many provinces have arbitrarily declared the third Monday in February to be a public holiday. It’s called Family Day in Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Manitobans call it Louis Riel Day. Prince Edward Island has Islander Day. While these provinces seem eager to give their citizens a day to relax, February has little to recommend it by way of weather or relevance. So why not simply shift the date to March 17?

Official recognition of everyone’s inherent right to be Irish for one day a year would sanctify the fact many people already take the day off. Combining St. Patrick’s Day with March break would broaden its appeal away from drinking and encourage more family-friendly celebrations. It would also serve as recognition of Canada’s proud reputation as a nation of immigrants. And allow Canadians a glimmer of hope that spring is just around the corner.
They say that if you’re lucky enough to be Irish, you’re lucky enough. On St. Patrick’s Day, that ought to apply to everyone.

WHO report urges governments to do more to prevent alcohol abuse

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 11, 2011 at 1:07 PM - 6 Comments

A new report by the World Health Organization says governments aren’t doing enough to prevent alcohol abuse, which the agency estimates is killing 2.5 million people each year. While Canadians’ booze consumption was categorized as “stable,” marked increases in alcohol consumption were recorded in Africa and South-East Asia between 2001-2005. Men in Eastern European countries continue to be particularly hard-hit by alcohol abuse: one in five men in the Russian Federation and neighbouring countries die due to alcohol-related causes each year, according to the study.

Associated Press

World Health Organization

No beer, please—we’re Ozzies

By Jane Switzer - Thursday, February 3, 2011 at 12:20 PM - 1 Comment

Daniel Munoz/Reuters

Aussie lager lovers are a dying breed, according to the latest statistics on alcohol and wine consumption. The report by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, titled “No Longer a Nation of Beer Drinkers,” shows beer consumption recently dropped by almost half to its lowest level in 50 years. Beer accounted for just 44 per cent of all alcohol consumed by Australians in the 2008-’09 financial year, compared to 76 per cent in its 1960-’61 heyday. Statistics show Australians drank 107 litres of beer per adult—an average of 3.6 pints a week—down from 190 litres (6.4 pints a week) on average 50 years ago. Over the same time, wine consumption has tripled from 12 to 36 per cent, attributed to evolving palates, the availability of more affordable domestic wines, and an increase in women drinkers who generally prefer wine to beer. But while wine sales are set to overtake beer in the next decade, the country’s beloved brew is far from hearing its death knell—because wastage and alcohol used in cooking are factored into the numbers, the report admits to slightly overestimating the consumption of wine and spirits.

Why is your government standing in the way of cheaper beer?

By the editors - Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 12:20 PM - 38 Comments

Dario Ayala/THE GAZETTE

Canadians find beer an endlessly interesting topic. We enjoy drinking it, brewing it, watching ads for it and even following the delivery of equipment used to make it. Consider, for example, the daily press coverage of the recent transportation of six massive beer fermenters, each seven metres high and capable of holding one million bottles of beer, to the Molson Coors brewery in Toronto. The $24-million operation required shutting down several highways and lifting 1,600 service wires: it also had its own logo, website and Twitter feed. Despite all this fermented fascination, however, there’s one aspect of beer in Canada that receives far too little attention: the fact that nearly every province mandates minimum prices for the stuff. These policies stifle competition and choice and force all Canadians to pay more than they should for their favourite alcoholic beverage.

The issue of minimum beer prices made a rare appearance in the news last week with reports that the Quebec Brewers Association is lobbying the provincial government for a bigger boost in the floor price of beer. Quebec’s minimum price is reviewed annually and adjusted for inflation. The brewers, however, are arguing beer prices should be hiked by more than the national consumer price index. At current rates, they warn, beer will soon be cheaper than milk. We can only hope.

Every province except Alberta mandates minimum retail prices for beer across a wide variety of categories. (Manitoba only mandates the price for single-serving cans.) Using a case of 24 bottles of light beer as comparator, minimum prices range from $26.55 in Quebec to $38.14 in Newfoundland. (In Alberta, tax hikes in 2009, and the fact of a monopoly distributor, has meant prices aren’t always lower than other provinces’ minimums. Still, retailers are free to put beer on sale, as it was in Calgary this week, where 24 Bowen Island Special Light could be had for $24, plus GST.) Most provinces also regulate the price of beer sold in bars. In Alberta, for example, the lowest legal price for beer in a bar is $2.75, or 16 cents per ounce for draft.

Minimum beer prices, or “social reference prices” as bureaucrats like to call them, are designed to keep Canadians at a distance from our own baser instincts by making beer too expensive to binge on wantonly. Whether such prohibitionist regulations are successful in preventing public drunkenness or excessive private drinking is open to considerable debate. Unfortunately, consumers appear to have no say in this matter. Politicians, lobby groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the big beer companies are all strong supporters of minimum prices.

While the Brewers Association of Canada frequently complains about federal and provincial taxes on beer (at 51 per cent of the average retail price, our beer taxes are among the highest in the world), it has no such qualms about minimum prices. Last year the organization’s president extolled the benefits of Canada’s floor prices to the Scottish legislature.

The brewers’ association claims it supports minimum prices as a damper on excessive drinking. And yet floor prices are also quite handy in preventing bothersome competition. In 2008, following an apparent request from the brewing industry, Ontario quietly moved its minimum price from $24 a case to $25.60, thus shutting down popular “buck a beer” promotions by cheaper brands. This is how beer price wars are avoided.

It is hard to escape the suspicion that increasing revenues is the real motivation behind the brewers’ support for social reference pricing. Consider the influential National Alcohol Strategy report from 2007. This document, assembled with input from government, addiction researchers and the beer industry, has a particular fascination with U-Brew operations. The report recommends that these do-it-yourself outlets be forced to charge the same minimum price per bottle as retail stores, which would amount to an enormous price increase. Raising U-Brew prices would do nothing to prevent spontaneous binge drinking—it takes several weeks to produce a drinkable product—but it would certainly reduce the competition faced by beer companies.

Problem drinking as a social issue already receives considerable government attention. A very high level of taxes boosts the price of beer and provides ample funds for necessary intervention efforts. From this perspective, minimum pricing laws are redundant and unnecessary. It’s impossible to raise beer prices sufficiently to discourage all under-aged drinking without punishing legal-age adults as well. And where there’s an identified problem with specific products, such as high-alcohol single-serving cans, Manitoba’s specific approach seems appropriate. Beyond this, if a beer maker or retailer wants to compete on price, why should the law say no?

Ultimately, minimum pricing punishes the vast majority of Canadians who enjoy their beer in an entirely responsible manner by reducing choice and raising cost. For a nation that loves its suds as much as Canada, that seems warm, flat and stale.

Flowing from underground

By Julia Belluz - Thursday, January 13, 2011 at 12:40 PM - 1 Comment

Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty Images

Step one of 12 for addiction recovery is admitting you have a problem—something a growing number of Pakistanis are doing, despite the fact the country has been “dry” since 1977. Alcoholism is reportedly booming: addiction clinics cite a growing demand for counselling, an Alcoholics Anonymous group has popped up in Karachi, and one prominent addiction counsellor recently told the Guardian that of the 10 million Pakistanis who drink, one million have a problem.

Under Islamic law, the punishment for boozing in “the land of the pure” is 80 lashes. But that doesn’t stop smugglers from bringing vodka across the Chinese border, and whisky in on boats from Europe. The country’s only brewery, set up to serve non-Muslims, flourishes near Rawalpindi. Bootleggers will also deliver right to the home.

There have been efforts to overturn the alcohol ban. As recently as 2007, parliamentarians called on the government to relax the laws, arguing that prohibition was turning more people on to hard drugs, or forcing them underground to drink. For now, though, rising alcoholism and religious fundamentalism will continue to coexist.

When squirrels drink

By Josh Dehaas - Thursday, December 16, 2010 at 2:20 PM - 7 Comments

Russian Government anti-alcohol campaign

The Russian government is using a squirrel in the throes of alcohol withdrawal in an attempt to scare its people into putting down the bottle. The animal was chosen as the star of a new anti-drinking ad because delirium tremens—the period when a withdrawing alcoholic starts to sweat, shake and hallucinate—is known as “belochka” or “little squirrel” in Russian. In the commercial, which has been viewed by more than a million people, the animated animal literally climbs up the walls. At the end, he warns: “Are you a boozer? Then I am coming to your place.”

The ad is part of Russia’s latest campaign to fight alcoholism, and thereby its decreasing population trends. A 2009 study published in The Lancet showed that 52 per cent of all Russian deaths among those aged 15 to 54 were related to alcohol. It was then estimated that more than three million working-aged Russians died as a result of alcohol in the 1990s—the decade during which the country’s population began to fall. And it’s still a problem: Russians drink more than twice what is considered healthy. But if the deranged squirrel doesn’t work, Moscow has another plan. Last January, it set its first minimum price for booze—$5.70 per litre.

Mitchel Raphael on politicians and drugs, plus the metalhead MP

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 12:00 PM - 7 Comments

A Tory’s take on the drug war
NDP MP Libby Davies spearheaded, and MPs from all parties co-hosted, what was billed as an Expert Panel on Drug Policy Reform. All panellists agreed the war on drugs has been a huge disaster and a waste of money. Portuguese Ambassador Pedro Moitinho de Almeida spoke of his country’s success with decriminalizing drugs. Conservative MP and host Scott Reid noted that Prohibition killed his great-grandfather, who drank alcohol that was distilled improperly. Reid also remarked on the similar effects cocaine and caffeine have on the brain, yet with caffeine we “developed commercial products, regulations and a free environment.” Reid confessed he’s never taken illegal drugs or even smoked tobacco. (He does, however, host an annual beer tasting party, one of the most popular events on the Hill.) He declared he was “perplexed” by “hypocrites who used cocaine themselves, like Barack Obama, and then [allow] someone else to go to prison for life” for doing the same thing. Reid’s guest Pierre Lemieux, an economist with the Université du Québec en Outaouais, stressed that casualties of the drug war include civil liberties: the state now has licence to invade citizens’ privacy. This, Lemieux said in his speech, is inconsistent with a free society. He added that as governments continue to go bankrupt, the time may be ripe to end the wasteful war on drugs. This meeting took place as the Conservatives push on with Bill S-10, which toughens drug sentencing rules.

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Smoke shacks and a waterslide

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 11, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 1 Comment

Getty Images

Nova Scotia: A 33-year-old man is suing a pub in Dartmouth, alleging that early one morning last May he was left “highly intoxicated” after being “over-served alcohol.” He claims that the bar is liable for the resulting car accident and injuries he sustained as a result of driving drunk. A bartender at the pub denied the charge.
Ontario: Tobacco farmers in Ontario have launched a $500-million class-action lawsuit in federal court against Ottawa for failing to collect taxes from illegal smoke shacks. The suit alleges that Ottawa ignored “flagrant violations” of the prohibition on the sale of black-market tobacco.

Manitoba: A Winnipeg man is suing a North Dakota hotel for damages, alleging to have suffered head and neck injuries because an attendant was not in place on the receiving end of a waterslide. The man is seeking $194,000 for medical bills and other economic losses, and at least $75,000 for personal injuries. Lawyers for the hotel say the lawsuit has no merit and asked that it be dismissed.

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Don't drink and drive. Run, instead.

By Michelle Magnan - Thursday, November 11, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 5 Comments

Chris Bolin

Trevor Soll and his buddies are good at drinking beer. They’re also very good at running. And mixing the two, they believe, results in a very, very good time. Thirteen years ago, they devised the Wineman Duathlon: runners down a beer before and after each mile in the six-mile race. It’s no small feat. But when Soll and his friends started the event in Regina, they were world-class triathletes. Today, the annual race attracts both Olympians and weekend warriors looking for a challenge. Others are just looking for a buzz. “They don’t run,” concedes Soll, now 36 and the owner of a sporting events company, “but they sure can drink.”

Aside from introducing two new distances—a sprint (three miles, four beers) and an “AA” length race (13 miles, 14 beers)—the Wineman hasn’t changed much. It still starts in Soll’s backyard, now in Edmonton, and involves one-mile loops through his neighbourhood. The prize is still a cheap bottle of wine. On a chilly Saturday near the end of October, nearly 50 people have gathered for the 5:30 p.m. start. “I’ve probably done 25 races this year, and this is my favourite,” says Trevor Durie, 34. “Everybody’s got a gift, and drinking and running might be mine.”

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Canada's shame

By Cathy Gulli with Patricia Treble - Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 3:30 PM - 0 Comments

Chris Windeyer/Nunatsiaq News

Talk to people living in the North about why the violent crime rate is so high compared to the rest of Canada and you’ll hear about the “complex” or “unique” problems “up here.” But it’s not until you listen to Peter J. Harte, a lawyer in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, tell the unimaginable story of a young woman he knows that you can begin to understand what that means.

At 13, the girl was sexually abused by her brother. This only came to the attention of police when they questioned her about why she was trying to put her little sister into hiding. Her brother wound up in jail, and the teen was placed with a foster family in another community.

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The battle of pubs vs. pot

By Nicholas Kohler - Thursday, October 7, 2010 at 2:00 PM - 0 Comments

Getty Images

For years, France’s wine industry backed the efforts of temperance advocates to demonize absinthe, the emerald-green spirit remembered today primarily as the tipple of choice for fin-de-siècle bohemians in Paris. The drink remained widely criminalized for decades as a result, a boon to vineyards everywhere.

The same tactic may now be at work in California, where voters are poised to decide on a ballot proposition to legalize another green substance—marijuana—but where an alcohol industry lobby group is funding a campaign to keep the drug verboten. This month, the California Beer & Beverage Distributors donated $10,000 to Public Safety First, a committee opposed to Proposition 19, which, were it to pass in November, would permit the regulation of marijuana.

Though it’s not commenting on the donation, the beer distributors’ group has good reason to worry that pot would cut into beer’s market share. Observers expect other beverage groups will soon contribute to the anti-Proposition 19 campaign. It’s a fight that makes for odd bedfellows: another big backer of the anti-pot Public Safety First lobby is California law enforcement. The police worry about impaired drivers—though not enough, it seems, to be wary of joining forces with the alcohol industry.

How to solve Britain's problems? Ale.

By Leah McLaren - Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 11:20 AM - 0 Comments

Horst Friedrichs/Redux

Once a year at the Old Spot pub in Dursley, Gloucestershire, barman Steve Herbert hosts a beer tasting for graduating students at the village school. He calls it finishing school for sixth formers. “The point is to get them off the fizzy, sweet stuff before they head off to university,” he explains, “so they don’t end up rushing into pubs, drinking shots and throwing up all over themselves.”

Welcome to Britain’s Campaign for Real Ale—a growing movement to preserve the traditional drinking habits of a culture whose relationship with alcohol is as historied as it is confounding. For years, Britain has seen the decline of local pubs. At present, 39 traditional boozers close each week. At the same time, binge drinking—and its attendant hooliganism—is on the rise. According to the most recent study conducted by Britain’s Office for National Statistics, more than a third of adults drink over the safe alcohol limit at least once a week.

What’s the solution to this cultural conundrum? According to a growing number of Britons, the answer may be fermenting at the bottom of a traditional cask of local ale.

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Baby, Can I have a drink?

By Cathy Gulli - Monday, September 27, 2010 at 12:57 PM - 0 Comments

Getty Images

Until now, a doctor wouldn’t usually ask a woman having a routine pap smear how many drinks she enjoyed that week. But new national guidelines recommend that alcohol consumption become a regular topic of conversation between female patients of child-bearing age and their physicians. “We’re not here to moralize or be pejorative,” says Dr. Vyta Senikas, associate executive vice-president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada, and a co-author of the report. “This is a question of awareness and harm reduction.”

The guidelines, published in the August edition of the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of Canada, recommend that doctors ask women who are or could become pregnant about their drinking habits, and record that information in their charts. Previous guidelines focused on diagnosing cases of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, which affects as many as three in every 1,000 births, and results in neurological and behavioural problems.

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Tough love among the Ahousaht

By Ken MacQueen - Monday, August 30, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 0 Comments

Keven Drews/ Mike Deal/CP

In tiny Ahousaht, an isolated Nuu-chah-nulth community off the coast of Tofino, B.C., concepts like the Criminal Code of Canada and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms are called “European law.” For many on the reserve, which has seen more than its share of tragedy, it remains a foreign justice system, one that has done little to curb a plague of addiction and all its ugly friends: despair, violence, accident, suicide.

This spring, community leaders—concerned by the poisonous impact of addictions, bootlegging and drug dealing—turned their back on modern legal remedies, and drew on the authority of their ancient laws. Hereditary chiefs and traditional law keepers went door-to-door on the Flores Island reserve in a lightning quick sweep of chronic offenders. They issued an edict: get clean or get out.

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100-year-old scotch, on ice

By Josh Dehaas - Thursday, August 26, 2010 at 11:00 AM - 0 Comments

Getty Images

After a day of dodging icebergs, an Antarctic explorer could be excused for warming up with a glass of scotch (hold the rocks, please). Mackinlay’s was the drink of choice for Sir Ernest Shackleton during his famed expedition at the turn of the 20th century.

Five crates of Mackinlay’s and two cases of brandy were found in 2006, buried in the ice beneath the hut at McMurdo Sound where Shackleton and his crew wintered during the Nimrod expedition. After convincing the 12 Antarctic Treaty nations to allow researchers to drill through the ice, the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust extracted one case in May. It spent several weeks defrosting at the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch before it was cracked open last week to reveal 11 bottles wrapped in paper and cushioned by straw. (One bottle was missing, and another was half-full, suggesting one of the explorers helped himself.)

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Not for public consumption?

By Stephanie Findlay - Thursday, August 19, 2010 at 2:20 PM - 0 Comments

Michaela Rehle/Reuters

Following increasing levels of disruption from imbibers, politicians in Germany are campaigning to ban public drinking. While places like Heidelberg have had success enforcing bans on alcohol sales at night, politicians in Freiburg, for instance, are having a tougher time stopping people from drinking in the streets.

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Follow the Intrepid Explorer; One-Stop Arizona Shopping

By Takeoffeh.com - Monday, July 19, 2010 at 11:04 AM - 0 Comments

Celebrated Explorer to Lead Tours to the Far Corners of the Earth
Kensington Tours is a different kind of tour operator. It is the creation of explorer and Royal Geographic Society Fellow Jeff Willner, whose passion for travel was incubated during a youth spent in Africa. He’s now a veteran of expeditions to over 70 countries. During his years of travel, Willner realized the vast difference between a typical package tour and a journey of personal discovery — where the deep knowledge and personal attention of a local guide transforms a trip into an experience. While private-guided touring sounds like it would be prohibitively expensive to most, Kensington’s private tours with guide, vehicle and driver are on average 30% lower in cost than group tours offered by other quality travel companies.

Willner says he is now taking his vision to a new level with an Explorer-In-Residence program which will launch tourism to the Congo. The first member explorer is Mikael Strandberg, considered one of the 50 most important explorers on earth by the London-based Royal Geographical Society. Willner and Strandberg recently undertook a scouting mission to The Democratic Republic of Congo to assess its potential and readiness as a destination for intrepid travellers. Congo itineraries – featuring endangered Eastern Lowland Gorillas, Pygmy tribes and the Nyiragongo volcano – will be the first in the Expedition Series. Other trips under development include Antarctica with polar explorers, motorcycle safaris in Kenya, Tanzania and Russia, a deep dive submarine trip into the Cayman Trench and cultural discoveries in Yemen, Oman and North Korea. These itineraries will appeal to intrepid global explorers, but not all of Kensington’s offerings are so exotic or demanding – there’s everything from a four-day tour of Montreal and Quebec City to a seven-day Costa Rica discovery tour.

For Peat’s Sake: Porter Puts The Fun Back In Flying
Many Porter Airlines passengers have a nose for business. Now Porter is betting they have a nose for fine Scotch too. The airline has partnered with Glenfiddich, the world’s most awarded single malt, on a time-limited pre-flight experience for travellers departing from Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport. Until July 23, Porter customers can participate in a guided tasting of the Glenfiddich 12 Year Old, 15 Year Old and 18 Year Old single malts. Experienced “Malt Specialists” will be on-hand to lead travellers through the nuances and subtleties of tasting and understanding the complex but rewarding world of single malts. “We place a great deal of emphasis on each detail making up the overall passenger experience,” says Porter CEO Robert Deluce, president and CEO of Porter Airlines. “Partnering with Glenfiddich is a new way we can make the journey for travellers as enjoyable as the destination itself.” Whisky nosings will be offered to Porter passengers between 4:00 and 8:00 PM on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays through July 23.

Website Features Arizona Summer Bargains
The Arizona Office of Tourism (AOT) has launched a website featuring packages created by the state’s many tourism providers. The website is aimed at state residents in a bid to boost tax revenues through domestic tourism, but it is open to Canadians as well, providing a one-stop shop of travel deals available around the state through the end of September. Tourism is big business in the Grand Canyon State – in 2008 visitors spent $18.5 billion in Arizona and the industry employs nearly 200,000 residents. The Travel Deals section of the website is packed with special offers on hotels and lodging, vacation packages, seasonal specials, outdoor adventures, golf and sport trips, dining and more. There are literally hundreds of offers featured on the site, including a one-night stay at the Days Inn Lake Havasu and a two-hour Jet Ski rental for just $100, or an overnight stay with unlimited golf and cart for just $45 per person per night at the Francisco Grande Hotel and Golf Resort.

Photo Credits: travel.nationalgeographic.com, arizonaguide.com, glenfiddich.com

Canadian brews up a comeback

By Tom Henheffer - Thursday, May 20, 2010 at 9:20 AM - 1 Comment

The Canadian Press

After four stagnant years, Canadian is back. The beer, brewed by Denver- and Montreal-based Molson Coors, posted a surprising five per cent jump in sales in its first quarter over the same period last year, and its overall market share is on the rise. “Over the last few years we’ve wandered away from the roots of the brand,” says Dave Perkins, president and CEO of Molson Coors Canada. Now, he says, “we’ve rediscovered our roots.”

A big part of that is a return to the patriotic brand of ad it made famous 10 years ago with its “I am Canadian” rant. The new campaign, called “Made from Canada,” proclaims that Canada has “more square feet of awesomeness per person then any other nation on earth,” and features sweeping shots of mountains cut with scenes of shinny players and cheering, snow-covered crowds.

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Jaffer & Guergis: a power couple, unplugged

By Colby Cosh with Chris Sorensen and Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 12, 2010 at 6:00 AM - 114 Comments

Photograph by Andrew Wallace/Toronto Star

Wearing a navy pinstripe suit, a blue check shirt, and a vibrant yellow and lime-green striped tie, Rahim Jaffer cut a dapper figure in a courtroom in Orangeville, Ont., a sleepy town of 27,000 northwest of Toronto. The former politician, his hair gelled neatly in place, sat near the back of the gallery on the morning of March 9 while the court dealt with its quotidian diet of scandal: a domestic dispute, a 17-year-old arrested for marijuana possession, a woman caught skimming from her employer. For his part, Jaffer, 38, looked confident. With good reason.

Jaffer would shortly plead guilty to a charge of careless driving, and promise to pay a fine of $500; the court was told he had already made a charitable donation of an equivalent amount. As part of the plea deal, the Crown had agreed to drop two more serious charges against Jaffer—drunk driving and possession of cocaine—but did not offer much in the way of explanation. On the morning of Sept. 11, 2009, Jaffer had been pulled over by police for speeding through the village of Palgrave. The OPP officer detaining him was said to have smelled alcohol on his breath; the ex-politician was reported by the OPP to have failed multiple breathalyzer tests, and when he was arrested and searched, an unspecified quantity of cocaine was allegedly found “on his person.” Nonetheless, there were “significant legal issues” surrounding those charges, Crown attorney Marie Balogh told the court, and she foresaw no reasonable chance of conviction. She refused to answer questions from reporters after the trial. Brendan Crawley, a spokesman for the attorney general of Ontario, stated later that “there were issues related to the evidence that led the Crown to determine that the most appropriate way to proceed was with the plea resolution.”

Justice Douglas Maund wrapped up the proceedings, telling the accused: “I’m sure you can recognize a break when you see one.” Outside the courthouse, Jaffer did not respond to the judge’s remark or to any questions about the dropped charges. “I know that I should have been more careful,” he said. “I once again apologize for that and I take full responsibility for my careless driving. And that’s really all I have to say this morning.”

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