BeatRoute Magazine BC Edition October 2018

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FOOD & DRINK THE DARK MANOR INN HAUNTED WHISKEY BAR SERVES UP SPOOKY COCKTAILS WITH A TWIST JOEY LOPEZ Rod Moore is getting ready to open the doors of his new haunt just in time for Halloween. Walking through the large door and stepping into the Dark Manor Inn is like travelling back in time. The wallpaper is reminiscent of Crimson Peak or The House on Haunted Hill with old portraits of people long dead that look as if their souls occupy the frames themselves, their eyes following your every movement between bookshelves of ancient tomes, a stair case that leads nowhere and a gilded throne that once sat the late founders of the Dark Manor. “There was a husband and wife in the late 1800s who ran the Dark Manor Inn. The story is that she might have poisoned him with his favourite whiskey cocktail. Their pictures are over there on the wall,” says Rod Moore, owner of the Dark Manor Inn, pointing to the wall across from him. “That’s the backstory and the whiskey cocktail will be served on our menu, if you’re brave enough to drink it. I want this to be a completely immersive experience for people who come in here. It’s an escape and we want them constantly looking around and seeing new, scary things. There’s going to be something new in here all the time.” When you want to escape the mundane and the mainstream, where do you want to go? Moore wants the Dark Manor Inn to be the place you run to when you want to experience something you can’t find anywhere else. Each book on the shelf was hand picked by Moore himself, each one older than the last, trying to find the perfect piece to add to the creepy atmosphere. The paintings on the walls are of real people, some nearly 200 years old. The 12 Photo by Jamila Pomeroy real aspects of the Dark Manor Inn could make one believe the hands that touched the spines of those books so long-ago may be the very same hovering over your shoulders, creating that chill running down your spine as you sit inside this haunted bar. “We want this to be super cool and immersive. I even have hundreds of different pieces of music for this place. We have the theme from the haunted mansion ride. Now, you couldn’t listen to Disney music all night or else people will be offing themselves for real, but I found a whole genre of haunted, spooky instrumentals. The theme from Halloween will play alongside everything John Carpenter ever wrote. Vincent Price doing his blurb from ‘Thriller’ will be playing over tapa music. It’s going to be awesome.” Everything in the Dark Manor Inn lends itself to a haunted history and the potential for a run-in with a ghost or two. Be careful of what you touch, you don’t know what kind of things you might bring home with you. As for those stairs that lead nowhere? “That’s grandma’s attic. She might still be up there,” he says.” Her picture is on the wall, staring up at the wife probably wondering what the hell she’s doing The Dark Manor Inn will be open in time for Halloween. Grab yourself a dubious whiskey cocktail and experience all the dark and terrific horrors it has to offer. The Dark Manor Inn is located at 4298 Fraser Street. GOOD COMPANY LAGER PUTTING CANS IN HANDS ACROSS THE COUNTRY CARLOS OEN Imagine that after playing for two years on Vancouver’s best stages you’ve just been signed by a major record company with plans to take you touring across Canada. Now trade your axe for a keg of cold beer and your tom-toms for tasty six-pack of crafted lager, for you are in Good Company now. It all started at the Cobalt, one of Vancouver´s favourite bars (currently under undergoing upgrades). From years of experience behind the bar, entrepreneurial Patryk Drozd realized live music lovers and bar patrons alike wanted an affordable beer. Two years ago, all customers could get in the $4.50 range was a boring, generic and industrial can. Drozd and his partner Michael Kiraly, a biology professor at Capilano University, decided to do something about it. Good Company Lager was born with a specific mission — Putting cans in hands. “What we wanted to do is create a local craft value brand that we could introduce to the market and support the local community,” said Drozd. “We wanted a brand that was reflective of what we represent in the community. What that wanted to be is a local-draft-beer alternative to what doesn´t exist in Canada.” Vancouverites are known for supporting local brands, and this one started by supporting local music bands and artists. A virtuous cycle was formed and Good Company Lager became a success. Little did Drozd and Kiraly knew they were being watched by one of North America´s most important wine and spirits distributor – Southern Glazer´s Wine & Spirits. A year-and-a-half after the kickoff, the distributors of brands such as Grey Goose, Bacardi, Bombay Sapphire and Patron contacted Drozd. They wanted a beer in their Canadian portfolio. The conversations resulted in a signed deal to distribute Vancouver´s Good Company Lager across Canada. These local guys went national. “Suddenly this fun little project turned into something really serious,” said Drozd. “We were just a little company with two guys and a truck. Just slinging beer. All of a sudden we are getting to that level now. It’s pretty interesting.” The first stage is to distribute Good Company Lager in B.C. and Alberta. It’s all part of a three year project to take it across Canada. Drozd is calm and keeps his feet on the ground, telling himself he will believe it when he sees it. Hard work and vision have helped Drozd to co-own the Cobalt, the Boxcar and the American. These are Main Street´s Holy Trinity of bars. He sees much of his success coming from supporting the community. When Good Company Lager came out, many of the communities that Drozd has helped turned around and gave their support. “People are excited about Vancouver. People are very excited about things from Vancouver. And people want to support people that do things in Vancouver. There is a growing support network for local stuff. For a long time Vancouver never had that,” said Drozd. It is time to raise the pint high, wishing success to this fermented, yeasty, and local band. Cheers! Photo by Brendan Meadows Michael Kiraly and Patrick Drozd are taking their Good Company brand across the country. October 2018
CHRIS GRIFFIN ON THE PERILS OF STORYTELLING GRAEME WIGGINS Different kinds of comedians bomb differently. If you’re a one-liner, punchline kind of comedian, recovering from a failed joke is pretty straightforward: you move on to the next one. They might just not like your style and that might not work either, but your chances are easier. If Photo by Rebecca Blissett Chris Griffin’s comedy brain has been mapping his path to success as a stand-up storyteller. you come from the line of comedians that are more storytelling in concept, if a bit isn’t working, recovery can be much tougher. Vancouver comedian Chris Griffin belongs to the latter camp and recognizes this difficulty, but has developed a sense of how to succeed. “I just did a show a couple of weeks ago at a senior’s home at noon. Average age: 84,” he says. “I couldn’t get anything. Half of them weren’t even awake. It sucks the life out of you, doing two minutes of set up and then you ditch the joke so that’s now three minutes where nobody has laughed. It’s brutal. You learn to get out of that. And you learn to have the confidence to get out of that. Like, look, we’ll get through this and you’ll laugh. You exude that and they’ll buy it.” There’s a sort of chicken-or-the-egg paradox to storytelling comedians. Are they people who end up in situations that allow for funny stories to turn into comedy, or are they comedians who actively seek out experiences that they can turn into comedy? For Griffin, it’s a bit of both. “I think the stories come first,” he says. “But I also have the type of personality where you chase them. I think, as you do comedy and get years into it, you really develop a comedy brain. It’s always in the back of your mind – an eye for what’s funny. So when a situation presents itself that’s going to be crazy or people want to go do something that’s nuts, I’ll always be all in.” This sense of chasing stories, especially the kind Griffin traffics in, doesn’t come without a cost: “For my own well-being, in the last year my friends had a bit of an intervention where ‘you have to tone COMEDY down’ putting yourself in crazy situations.” Griffin is recording material this October for a possible new special. It should showcase where he’s come since his last one, which was recorded back when he lived in Calgary. “This is sort of the culmination of the years in Vancouver,” he says. “I think I’ve grown as a comic since then. I’m excited. I’ve toured non-stop until now. I feel the hour is as ready as it will be.” Ideally the situation will be a little better than the circumstances surrounding his last recording. He recounts, “The flood happened, and it flooded the theatre, and I had to postpone it into midsummer, which is the worst because Calgary has two months of no snow. I still managed to get a lot of people out.” With this recording comes a sense that he’ll have moved to a new point in his career, and to carry on progressing: “It’ll be nice to put this material to bed officially. I’ve forced myself the last six weeks to not write and just polish. And then it’s back to the grind and write a new hour, or try a one man show or something different. It’s freeing and terrifying. To start fresh like what I did when I came to Vancouver.” Catch Chris Griffin live on October 18 at the Biltmore Cabaret. October 2018 13
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