Sizing up a tricky 60-yard chip from the woods, which required me to perfectly thread the needle between two trees, carry over the sand trap, and stick the landing on a downhill sloped green, I knew what I had to do first: take a long, thoughtful sip from my delicious whisky lemonade.
There’s something particularly satisfying about enjoying a nice drink while out in nature, among the trees and the grass. A sneaky tipple of whisky from a flask, an ice cold beer from the cart girl, doesn’t matter, whatever your drink of choice, I guarantee it inexplicably tastes better outdoors surrounded by the flora and fauna.
Not everybody golfs though. For reasons I don’t understand, some people actively dislike golf. Which is a shame because golf offers the rare (in Ontario at least) opportunity to enjoy a nice nature drink.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. What feels like a decade ago because of the pandemic time warp, but was actually only four years ago, the provincial government urged municipalities to loosen their ties a bit and relax drinking regulations. Be a bit more European.
But because everything at the municipal level takes forever, it was only last summer that anyone actually took the province’s suggestion and made drinking in public parks legal. Toronto took the lead, and it’s now perfectly legal to drink alcohol at 27 different public parks there. By all accounts, the pilot project was a resounding success.
So now some other municipalities are dipping a toe into the pool and will be allowing alcohol consumption in public parks. A few weeks ago, St. Catharines asked for a report on the possibility of bringing drinking to its public parks. Which means in about six more years you might be able to crack open a cold one in a St. Catharines park, because after the report there will be a public information session, followed by a consultation period, then a stakeholder engagement roundtable, then a feasibility study, a few quick surveys after that, then a second public information session for some reason, and finally, maybe, a restricted pilot project that allows public drinking in one St. Catharines park for a two-hour period on the second Thursday of every month from June to July.
There’s something particularly satisfying about enjoying a nice drink while out in nature
Pelham is actually ahead of the game. Late last year, councillors voted (somewhat reluctantly) to allow drinking in public parks. Or, rather, park. Singular.
The public park drinking pilot project in Pelham is bafflingly narrow in scope, limited to a single spot, Peace Park. Bizarrely restricted as it is, I don’t wanna dump on Pelham council too much because even their meagre public drinking pilot project is far better than the rest of Niagara’s municipalities, most of which still have zero public parks with legal drinking.
And really, “legal” is a key word here. Middle-aged baseball dads are slamming beers in the park after their game and college kids are chugging White Claws on weekends, so really all we’re doing by relaxing the rules is allowing people to do what they’re doing without the threat of bylaw showing up to hand out pointless hefty tickets.
Are some problem drinkers going to have a few too many in a park? Definitely. But if you have a drinking problem, it’s definitely not the local bylaw ordinance that is the thing keeping you from over-indulging outdoors. It’s like they say about a locked door, it only keeps out the honest people; if a bad guy wants in bad enough, it’s not the locked door that’s going to keep him out.
Besides, drinking outdoors, provided you are not driving home afterwards, is the perfect environment to let loose and have a few. Legend has it, golf is based entirely around this idea.
While no one seems to be able to find out if it’s actually true, the story goes that the reason golf is 18 holes is because a standard bottle of Scotch contains 18 shots—one for each hole.
Again, not sure this is actually true, but what I do know is that if I ever attempted this shot-per-hole ratio, there’s no chance I would finish a round of golf while still standing.
James Culic has found that he shoots his best golf after about a half-flask of Suntory Toki single malt Japanese whisky. Find out how to yell at him at the bottom of this page or send in your own whisky recommendations in a letter to the editor.