Nothing signifies the start of the holiday season in Toronto quite like the return of the annual Distillery District Winter Village, and while plenty of visitors who pass through are voicing their displeasure about the cost of food and drink at the event, some businesses are putting in work to give you an extra bang for your buck.
If you, like me, have spent your fair share of time at events across the city, from the CNE to Toronto’s deluge of yearround food festivals, you also know that picking up a bite or beverage can come with a hefty price tag, which is why, when visiting the Distillery District Winter Village this year, I wasn’t terribly phased.
Sure, a hot chocolate there could run you up to $10 and an $18 raclette eaten outdoors under portable heaters is a splurge I’m not personally willing to make. But it’s more or less par for the course — just another one of those things you get used to living in Toronto.
Regardless of my desensitization to the perhaps laughable prices at this, and every other, event, it doesn’t detract from the fact that plenty of people in Toronto (myself included, frankly,) just can’t justify splurging on heaps of novelty nourishment on top of the price of admission, which, for some, can mean the difference between making the trip and staying on the couch.
Or, at least, that’s how it might appear on the surface, but a deeper look reveals a subset of people and businesses in the area who are actually working towards making the Christmas market more accessible.
Despite a landmark few years for inflation particularly affecting food prices paired with the recent increase in Ontario’s minimum wage, the prices on some of the market’s most popular food and drink offerings have actually gone down this year.
Poutine, a market staple, dropped from a shocking $13 to a more palatable $11, mini doughnuts are now $9 for a dozen rather than $12, and a number of cocktails at the much-loved Naughty and Nice bar now start at $11, rather than $14 as in past years.
In the case of Cluny’s now-viral S’Mores Hot Chocolate, the price is ramped up by the extra craftsmanship required to create it, along with premium ingredients like Belgian chocolate, torched marshmallow meringue and whipped cream.
If you’re willing to sacrifice the theatrics in favour of saving a few bucks, you can pick up a cup of hot chocolate at the Laura Slack ‘Chocolate of the Gods’ hot chocolate cart on Tank House lane for just $4, or grab a $7 cup topped with whipped cream at the Naughty and Nice Bar.
It also bears mentioning that, for anyone who’s planning on skipping the market’s outrageous food and drink offerings entirely, you can attend the market without spending a single cent (save for TTC fare or parking), as the Distillery District Winter Village offers free admission on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday or before 4 p.m. every day of the week up until Dec. 16, at which point tickets are always required.
While you can expect to drop a substantial amount of cash on a drink or meal at the Distillery District yearround, not just during the Winter Village, there are also resident businesses who are committed to keeping their pricing accessible without sacrificing any of the experiential value of the historic district.
Port Perry-based brewery, Old Flame Brewing Co., which operates a location in the Distillery, is one such business.
Founded in the small town north of Oshawa a decade ago, the brewery is inspired by classic romance, as the name suggests, which comes through not only in the historic buildings they’ve transformed into their brick-and-mortars (in the case of Port Perry, an 1800’s carriage house, and a 1950’s firehall in Newmarket), but also the experience they offer.
When if comes to their Distillery District location, they also pay homage to the past with almost unbelievably accessible pricing, charging $5 for a glass of their award-winning Craft Lager, a price that, according to Old Flame President, Richard Park, is the same as it was when the brewery first started a decade ago.
“While we are a brewing company, so much of why we believe we exist is really just the heart of bringing people together, and by the nature of that mission, we have to make it accessible,” Richard tells blogTO.
“It’s in our soul to be able to eliminate as many barriers as possible.”
More than just a beer, though, Richard notes that your $5, at Old Flame, also buys you a unique experience, and one that won’t leave you eating canned tuna for weeks afterwards.
“It’s really this idea that for $5, you’re buying an experience at Old Flame, which includes an award-winning craft lager crafted by some of our most dedicated brewers, then you come into this space that we’ve very much hand created so that it’s an atmosphere where people are coming together,” he says.
Paired with communal seating, live music and a slew of other special events throughout the year, Richard tells blogTO that keeping the prices accessible at Old Flame is an essential factor to upkeeping the brewery’s greater mission and serving not only the tourists who pass through the Distillery, but the thousands of residents who live and work in the area, too.
Still, Richard admits, the idea of inflating prices for the surge of visitors to the Winter Village is tempting — especially as the cost of operation in the city only continues to rise — but, ultimately, it just doesn’t jibe with the way he wants to do things, and it just so happens that this mentality has earned the brewery major props from budget-conscious visitors.
The experiential element is alive and well beyond the walls of Old Flame’s Distillery District location, too — for your $5 pint, you can also stroll the charmingly festive alleys of the Distillery, checking out the sky-high, 55-foot Christmas tree and window shopping at the stalls, without needing to sink yourself into more holiday-based debt than you already are.
Events in the city — and, well, most things about the city — tend to get a bad, though perhaps not wholly undeserved, rap for being expensive, but it’s nice to know that, while plenty of businesses seem unrelentingly committed to boosting their prices, in the case of Old Flame Brewery and the Distillery Winter Village, some are not.
