Whiskey Rocks – literally whiskey on the rocks
Posted on | May 10, 2010 | No Comments
A video review of Teroforma Whiskey Rocks. These awesome soapstone rocks won’t dilute your drink like ice will! Keep the integrity of your expensive scotch or whiskey without watering it down with melting ice cubes.
We have this product available in a number of themed crates:
- Dublin crate (for the Irish Whiskey fan)
The Teroforma Whiskey Rocks is also available in our custom crates section when you want to fully personalize your gift.
Perfecto Cigar Case – Ultimate Travel Humidor
Posted on | May 5, 2010 | No Comments
This time a video product review for the Perfecto Cigar Case – Ultimate Travel Humidor. This is a cool hard plastic cigar case that has a humidifier section. Really cool product to take out on the golf course, holds 3 cigars.
We have this product available in a number of themed crates:
- Dublin crate (for the Irish Whiskey fan)
- Miami crate (scotch and cigar lover)
- St. Andrews (for the golfer)
The Perfecto Cigar Case is also available in our custom crates section when you want to fully personalize your gift.
Big Rock Brewery beer ad
Posted on | April 23, 2010 | No Comments
This time from the guys at Big Rock Brewery out of Calgary, Alberta.
Don’t imagine we’ll see this on air anytime soon, good work Internet!
Awesome commercial for the Mini
Posted on | April 23, 2010 | No Comments
Alright, well I never thought I’d use the word “awesome” in the same sentence as “Mini”, but this commercial is great.
Also cool is that is was done by a Toronto ad agency Taxi 2, well done guys and gals! Moobs, hehe
New items have arrived, awesome!
Posted on | April 15, 2010 | No Comments
Got a bunch of new products in from Fred, their products are always fun.
Polluted – I had originally thought this was a shot glass, but when it arrived I see that it’s a 13oz cup, really cool! Includes a recipe to make a fittingly coloured beverage with it.
Out Cold memo pad – I would have killed to have one of these back in the day. Now I’m old and likely to be the first one to pass out. As stated, they include 100 pages of SHAME!
Winestein beer/wine mug – Wanna look fancy drinking your beer, no problem. Or maybe “that” buddy wants to try and fit in while he drinks his chardonnay during the game.
LucKey bottle opener – With summer coming up, this is the PERFECT addition to your keychain. Likely to be the most important key of all!
All of these items are in the custom crates section of site.
Difficulties of running a business in Canada
Posted on | April 12, 2010 | No Comments
There are probably a LOT of items that I could outline with the above title. However the latest is just enough to really infuriate me.
After adding King’s Crate to Google Local Business Center (this will enable our company to show up in Google Maps), I was encouraged to check out the Google Merchant Center. Upon further reading, it appeared as though I would be able to add all of our products, and they would then show up as direct links to our site for potential customers to view.
Now mind you, this was AFTER I had submitted all of our company location information, so the Google “machine” was well aware of where we conducted business.
To add the products to the program, I had a choice of adding an Excel tab delimited spreadsheet or an XML document. Since we are often adding products to our database, I thought it best to create a PHP file that would read our database and extract the relevant information in the required format, therefore creating a dynamic XML file, eliminating the need to constantly update our products within the Merchant Center. I was fortunate to run across a great little video by John Morris to help me out with some of the little details (How to Create an XML Data Feed File for Google Product Search Using PHP).
So after hours of coding and testing, finding all the proper attributes I could use, I was ready to upload my XML document. That is when I discover the “Target Country”.
Now I see the drop down box, and notice United States is the default. Well, no biggie, I’ll just change it to … United Kingdom or Germany. What, no Canada? I start to frantically search the internet looking for where I screwed up, but no, it seems that Canada is not supported.
Yes, I realize that while my business may be located in Canada I could sell to other countries, could they not have given a little warning that I won’t be able to target the country I’m listed in? I came to this section FROM Google Local Business Center, a place where I specifically entered in all of my geographic information, INCLUDING a 60km radius that we deliver to.
I guess it’s another case of one hand not knowing what the other hand is doing, but it’s just another slap in the face when you’re trying to run a business in Canada. Why here, look who is at the top of the list of largest trading partners to the United States – oh it’s little old Canada, above even China and Mexico.
This was more of a rant than anything, a little Rodney Dangerfield self pity. Just frustrated at the number of times this happens, whether it’s products that are unavailable in Canada or the price of books that are never modified even though our dollar is almost at parity with the US greenback.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on any similar roadblocks you’ve faced, but more importantly we’d like to hear of companies/services that are inclusive of Canada. We are – after all – the Olympic Men’s Ice Hockey Gold Medal holders. Show a little respect 
Sighting at the National Bridal Show
Posted on | January 26, 2010 | No Comments
First let me say that I will be adding a rather comprehensive article on the amazing weekend at the National Bridal Show at the Direct Energy Centre. We would like to thank all the MANY people that stopped by our booth, we were nearly overwhelmed with the response, and actually ran out of the over 2000 pieces of printed material that we brought with us.
But this post is about the rather strange encounter we had there. First let me bring you back a year.
On February 1st of 2009, I was out enjoying a rather memorable Superbowl XLIII where my Pittsburgh Steelers picked up their 6th Superbowl ring. Much eating, drinking, and general merriment was had by all.
As per usual, I had booked the Monday off, as did my friend Ed. At around lunch time when we were finally able to stand vertically, we decided a pigout was in order, so we made our way to the local Mandarin buffet, with a plan to hit the couch after to watch a movie.
During what must have been the 2nd or 3rd plate, Ed got my attention. Please bear in mind that this was a Monday afternoon, so the restaurant wasn’t very busy. I turn around to see a slightly overweight grown man (in his 50’s), dressed in a bright green dress that flared out in an outrageous tutu, a giant green hat, a black purse and black combat boots. The shade of green we are talking about reminds me of a leprechaun. 
As a matter of fact looking at the image I found on Google Image Search, the hat was also very similar.
Now this gentleman was by himself, and was absolutely mesmerizing. It was such a ridiculous outfit and situation, everyone in the restaurant was snickering.
Adding to the intregue, he was completely serious, never cracking a smile, and completely engulfed in his food. It was this seriousness in his demeanor that made us doubt the only reason he was in this outfit was that he had placed a wager on the Arizona Cardinals, and was serving out his punishment.
Although I’ve only told this story to a few select people, I would have told MANY more had I had a camera on me at the time to accompany this story. It was a story that only Ed and I could truly relish.
Now, almost a full year later, I find myself working our booth at the bridal show. Beside us we have a great lady named Deniz, a true entrepreneur, and owner of Designs by Deniz.
During a time in the show where traffic was light, Deniz called me over rather hurriedly. Upon rounding the corner, my jaw dropped as I set my eyes on the very same gentleman making his way around the show. The exact same guy, in nearly the exact same outfit, 58.3 kilometers away from his original sighting. The only variance I could find was that he was wearing some black ballet slippers.
I will apologize for the poor image quality, I was trying to be somewhat discreet, and was using my iPhone. You can only imagine what creative words Ed used when I sent him a text with those images.
I don’t think there’s really much I can add to this posting, please feel free to comment if you’ve encountered him!
To prove that a picture is worth a thousand words, I present you the man in the green dress:
Superbowl recipe – Pulled Pork Sandwiches
Posted on | January 12, 2010 | No Comments
Recipes are always good to share, and I’ve decided to start of with one of the easier ones. This recipe honestly has the best effort:results ratio around.
Born and raised around Toronto, Ontario, I haven’t had the good fortune to grow up around “real” down south BBQ. That hasn’t stopped me from growing an appreciation of meat cooked “low and slow”. I’ve purchased a number of cooking instruments over the years to aid in my education of BBQ, but for this recipe I move away from the traditional and towards the practical.
Slow cookers or Crock-Pots (a brand name) are fantastic general use kitchen appliances. You can easily cook a chili, beef stew or hearty soup in one, and they all turn out wonderfully.
Traditional pulled pork sandwiches call for slowly smoking a pork shoulder over low heat using any variety of wood chips/chunks to create a nice smoke flavour to the meat. Although some of that flavour will be missing from this recipe, you’ll find that the tenderness and sweetness of the finished product will not leave you wanting.
Pork shoulder
Pulled pork uses a pork shoulder (also known as Boston Butt, pork shoulder butt) because of the fat content within the meat. This ensures that the meat stays juicy over the long cooking period. You’re okay to go with either bone-in or bone-out, depending on what your butcher/grocer has on hand. This is usually an inexpensive cut of meat, and you’ll find you can feed a small army with a 5lb cut.
Ingredients:
- Pork shoulder/Boston butt (5lbs)
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 3/4 cup chili powder
- 1/4 cup garlic powder
- 1/4 cup mustard powder
- salt and fresh ground black pepper
- Worcestershire sauce
- your favorite barbecue sauce
Putting it together:
Mix together the brown sugar, chili powder, garlic powder, mustard powder, and generous amounts of salt and FRESH GROUND black pepper. Now get your hands dirty you pansy and rub the mixture into the meat, ensuring that you’re getting into the crevices all over. You can do this with the meat inside of the slow cooker, just please make sure you haven’t turned it on already.
With the meat properly rubbed and the fat slab facing upwards, splash a bunch of Worcestershire sauce all over, having a small amount pool at the bottom (probably use about 1/3 cup).
After thoroughly washing your hands, turn the slow cooker on. You’ll need to cook this for 4 hours on high, or 8-10 hours on low. If you have the time, use the low method, you’ll have better results.
Once the cooking is finished, you’ll notice that the slab of fat, as well as the bone if you had it, slide extremely easily off. You know it’s done then. Using gloves, gather all meat into a big bowl and shred away. You can use two forks if you want, but I’ve always found it easier this way. Pour in your desired amount of barbecue sauce, I’m partial to Diana’s Gourmet Rib and Chicken sauce for this recipe.
Please make sure you’re using FRESH BUNS for this meal, I use a nice soft dinner roll or something.
To top your sandwich, I usually sauté (a fancy word for cooking things slowly in butter or oil) some sliced onions, green peppers and hot peppers, depending on who I’m serving.
As you can see, all this recipe requires is a little thinking ahead, as time is a factor. It’s super easy to accomplish, and your guests will keep coming back for more!
Hopside Down beer glass
Posted on | January 5, 2010 | No Comments
Nick pack!
Hopside down
As I was going to take my own advice (for once) and prepare to chill for tonight’s game with a cold beer, I wanted to post a review on one of the products we feature at King’s Crate called the “Hopside Down“. We have this awesome beer glass in our Oh Canada! crate, and it really is the centrepiece to the gift.
One thing to note immediately is that this glass is hand-blown, and sort of confuses the eye for a moment. People aren’t sure what to make of it at first. It fits a 350mL bottle of beer perfectly, so a beer can won’t fit.
One thing I didn’t expect was how cool it keeps your beer. Because the beer sits in the internal “funnel”, your hand is never directly palming the beer! Really cool!
Well, ends up I’ve had to open a beer about 3 hours before gametime, but it was all in the name of SCIENCE!!
World Jr. Championship – Canada vs. U.S.
Posted on | January 5, 2010 | No Comments
“It was a game so nice, they’ll play it twice”
That’s the byline on the TSN article about tonight’s upcoming gold medal game between Canada and the U.S., and I couldn’t agree with it more! We played each other on New Year’s Eve, and it was a hell of a thrilling game! Best of all Canada won it in the shootout, advancing us to the semi-finals.
Even with that win in such recent history, tonight will be no easy task for our juniors. An injury to a key defenceman, the fact we gave up two short handed goals last game, and the knowledge that we are both the favorite to win AND going for a historic sixth consecutive win can be daunting.
So grab a cold one (or dozen), this should be one for the ages!