🍸 History in a Glass: Kingston LCBO’s Ben Walmsley Turns Every Tasting Into a Story You Won't Forget

It started with a scotch. 2 actually.

On a Friday afternoon at the LCBO on Midland Avenue, Ben Walmsley was behind the tasting counter with Macallan 12 Sherry Oak on one side and Johnnie Walker Green Label 15 on the other, when a local wine and spirits expert wandered in. The kind of guy who hosts sold-out masterclasses comparing seven different types of sherry casks and their effect on a finished whisky. He pulled up to the counter, and what followed was exactly the kind of conversation you don't expect to stumble into at a liquor store.

That's Ben's corner of Kingston. And if you haven't found it yet, you're missing out

Ben was born and raised in Kingston, in a historic farmhouse on Albert Street that his family only recently sold. The house shows up on old maps of the city, back when Albert Street didn't yet connect all the way to the waterfront. A previous resident was a local artist. There was once a stable out back. When the family dug a pool, they found evidence it had been burned down the old-fashioned way, torched to recover the hand-forged nails because back then, nails were worth more than lumber.

Growing up in a house like that will do something to a person's sense of history.

Ben studied history and archaeology at the University of Ottawa, and during summers back in Kingston, landed a student position with the City's heritage department. He spent those months digitizing mayoral records and cataloguing dozens of warship crests, each one a wooden plaque representing a vessel with its own story, its own coat of arms, its own connection to Kingston's naval past. He loved every minute of it.

He never did finish his degree. He's fixing that now, one course at a time at Queen's. But the curiosity that drove him down those archival rabbit holes never went anywhere. It just found a new home, one aisle over.

Ben has been at the LCBO on Midland Avenue for eight years. For the last year, he has held the role of product consultant, one of the team responsible for the spirits and wines section, for educating staff, and yes, for those Friday and Saturday tastings. He didn't arrive knowing what he knows now. That came later, and it started with a walk down the Italian liqueurs aisle.

While studying Italian unification at university, Ben noticed something odd: almost every Italian liqueur on the shelf had a founding date that mapped to one of three narrow windows in history. The Napoleonic era. Italian unification in the 1860s. The Mussolini years. "When I was able to walk down the aisle and just pick out that pattern from looking at the bottles, I was like, wow, this is something really worth studying," he says. During COVID, with formal tastings on hold, he put himself through an informal education, budgeting $15 a week to try one new wine at a time. His first scotch was Laphroaig. "It tastes like a burning swamp," he says. "I've come to appreciate the nuances of that swamp and its fire."

Ask Ben about your gin and tonic and he'll tell you it was invented by British soldiers stationed in malaria country. Quinine, the active ingredient in tonic water, is a mild antimalarial. It was bitter and hard to stomach on its own, so officers mixed it with their gin ration. That's the G&T. A cocktail born out of necessity in a field camp somewhere in the Empire.

Ask him about bourbon and he'll point out that most American bourbon companies trace their roots to after the Civil War to the Bottled in Bond Act of 1897. During the war itself, union soldiers were getting their whiskey rations from Canada. "Don't tell the Americans," he says.

He'll also be the first to say that history is only part of it. The other part is the people. The small craft distillery on Georgian Bay that lets wild juniper do the heavy lifting. The Mermaid Gin is made entirely from botanicals on the Isle of Wight, including oranges grown in an indoor grove on the island. The Italian family that trademarked their liqueur in 1863 because suddenly they had a whole country to sell to. Every bottle on the shelf has someone behind it, and Ben seems genuinely delighted by all of them, even the ones he doesn't particularly like to drink.

Every Friday from 2 to 7pm, Ben and the team set up at the tasting counter at the Midland Avenue LCBO and pour spirits. Saturdays are for wine. Two samples per visit, a quarter ounce each, no charge. The theme rotates weekly. For spirits, one month it might be gin, the next scotch, the next tequila. Whatever is on the counter, Ben has done the research and he's happy to share it.

And these aren't just everyday bottles. The tastings regularly feature premium and high-end products, the kind you might not want to commit to a $60 or $200 bottle without knowing if you'll like it first. It's a genuinely rare chance to try before you buy, and maybe discover something you never would have reached for on your own.

These are not deep-dive masterclasses. Two pours, a conversation, maybe a story about where the bottle came from. But that's exactly the point. You don't need to know anything walking in. You just need to be curious enough to stop.

A trade dispute turned into an accidental palate expansion. There are worse outcomes.

Wine is where Ben's mind goes first. Not because it's the fanciest option, but because he finds it the most intellectually rich. "It's the most diverse within one category," he says. His favourite grape is Pinot Noir, and he'll happily explain why: from a single variety, depending on the soil, the climate, the oak choices, and the time spent on the skins, you can pull everything from cherry cola and cold smoke to cedar and mushrooms. One grape, infinite expressions.

But most evenings? Beer. "I spend all day talking about that sort of thing," he says. "Sometimes I want to enjoy a thing that tastes like dinner."

As for least favourites, Ben reserves special distaste for anise-heavy spirits, the ouzo and sambuca end of the spectrum. "All the ones that taste like black licorice," he says. He'll grant Sambuca a pass for being sweet enough to be tolerable, and he has genuine affection for Glayva, a Scottish honey whisky with herbal and anise notes that manages to stay on the right side of the line. But gin loaded with both juniper and anise? "May as well just drink Buckley's," he says.

And then there's the rest of life. When he's not behind the tasting counter or deep in a history book on audiobook during the drive to Toronto, Ben is building a home bar, sourcing a thick slab of finished walnut from The WoodSource on Days Road. He's also a musician, though he's keeping the details to himself. The man contains multitudes.

He's being modest. Getting to Ben's level takes something more than just showing up. But his point stands: showing up is where it starts. Which, come to think of it, is exactly what the Friday and Saturday tastings at the Midland LCBO are designed for.

For a city that has watched its live music and arts scene shrink venue by venue, The Spire is doing something that matters.