Not to brag (okay, maybe a little), but High Road has an amazing group of employees with creative, strategic thinking, problem solving, time management, and all-around awesome skills. As a company who likes to work hard and party hard, we thought we’d consult the pros at Toronto Institute of Bartending and add another skill set to our resumes – martini madness bartending skills!

Some of High Road’s keenest learners recently headed over to TIB for a lesson on how to make the best martinis and cocktails. Our instructors Brad and Clint started us off strong with a Vesper Martini (from Bond girl Vesper Lynd) and a Manhattan, and progressed into sweeter drinks like the original Cosmopolitan (not to be confused with the bright pink, too much cranberry juiced version from Sex and the City), to the interesting Spiced Breakfast Martini (which involved a spoonful of marmalade and a piece of orange peel lit on fire!) to the crowd pleasing “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” created by Ernest Hemingway during his time in Cuba, which involved freshly squeezed grapefruit juice and amber rum.

Some key learnings we discovered:

• Always use fresh juices whenever possible (grapefruit, lemon, lime), it makes a world of difference
• Sometimes the most interesting or odd ingredients make the best drinks (marmalade, egg whites)
• Homemade pickled celery sticks are perhaps the best Caesar garnish ever
• The easiest way to impress your guests is to slice off a small piece of orange peel, squeeze it, and hold a lighter up to it – the oils will create a large flame and caramelize the garnish

Cheers to that!

What do you get when you combine pro athletes, gamers and Xbox? One kick-butt media launch event for Kinect Sports: Season Two — that’s what.

October 24 was no ordinary Monday night on Queen West. Xbox 360 Central was transformed into a world-class sports arena, complete with AstroTurf, and played host to Toronto Blue Jays Catcher JP Arencibia, and recent CFL Hall of Fame inductee Damon Allen, as they engaged in some friendly competition in many of the six new sports featured on the soon-to-be best-selling title.

Toronto media from outlets like TSN, Sportsnet, The Score, Toronto Star and National Post turned up for the fun and went toe-to-toe with the athletes and Xbox Canada’s Jeff Rivait.

Two lucky gamers from the East coast also attended the exclusive launch event and got the pro-athlete treatment as the winners of Kinect Sports: Season Two’s All Star Challenge. They were flown to Toronto, put up at a luxury hotel and had the chance to meet and play with JP Arencibia and Damon Allen. “This is awesome; we don’t have anything like this in Fredericton!” exclaimed Scott Mazerall after stepping up to the plate with Allen and Arencibia.

You can check out all the fun in this video.

Canada Goose has elevated its stature to become one of Canada’s most beloved brands in recent years so it’s only appropriate that its president and CEO, Dani Reiss, found himself elevated high above the streets of Toronto for his recent speaking engagement at the Economic Club of Canada.

Stop 33, a spectacular ballroom on the 33rd floor of the Sutton Place Hotel Toronto, was the venue for an October 21st presentation about Made in Canada and the large role that Canada Goose has played in reintroducing domestic manufacturing to Canadian industry. In this one hour engagement secured and curated by High Road, Dani spoke about the explosive growth that Canada Goose has enjoyed in recent years, becoming not only the extreme weather outerwear of choice for Canadians but for many other cold weather regions across the globe.

Quality, style and authenticity were major themes as Dani talked shop and answered questions for a crowd clearly enjoying Canada Goose’s tale of homegrown prosperity. In fact, the Q&A session that concluded the presentation alone ran over 20 minutes–a testament to the level of pride and affinity that attendees had for the brand.

With winter on the horizon and Canada Goose expecting top-line growth of 60% for 2011 (as reported by the Sun News Network’s coverage of the presentation), this Economic Club of Canada luncheon served as an unofficial sneak peek for Canada Goose’s plans for 2012 and beyond, all served up in a high flying fashion by this amazing Canadian success story.