Unique treats, gifts and baskets for unique people.

Your specialty food, gift and treat shop, the Mercantile is chock-a-block with everyday luxuries for home and palate.

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Christmas Giving Made Simple

Christmas Box Sets

The Mercantile Christmas Gift Boxes are back - and they're the perfect solution for so many of those hard-to-decide people on your list...

For the home chef in your life, the Chef Essentials box features Maldon Flaked Salt with matching pinch bowl, a classic local mustard, some fine Sicilian olive oil and a little Mercantile chocolate bar;

For the fan of the YouTube show, HotOnes? Get them the HotOnes sampler set featuring a variety of our most popular spicy condiments;

For someone into elegant entertaining? The Spanish Sardines set includes Conservas de Cambados sardines in olive oil, deluxe crackers and a preciously themed serving plate and fork;

For someone who skates outdoors or is getting a new toboggan, the Keep Warm box will be waiting for them with gourmet hot chocolate, two double-walled glass mugs, shortbread cookies and, of course, marshmallows;

For the Yoatam Ottolenghi fan, the Ottolenghi Simple Essentials box features a selection of some of the great chef's most commonly called for spices and ingredients. And if they're not an Ottolenghi fan yet, bundle the box with a copy of the book also available in store;

And finally, for the person on the verge of a New Year's resolution, the Mocktails set includes Seedlip distilled alcohol-free spirits, Partake near-beer, dried orange garnish, FeverTree tonic and a stainless steel jigger.

Our Christmas boxes take the guess-work out of buying for that hard-to-buy-for person.
Each box includes a flour sack tea towel to cushion the contents and they're so elegantly wrapped you can put them under the tree as is!

Find them across from the cash desk in the middle of the store.

Posted on December 12, 2019

Tap in to Winter

Tapped Out and Ni9

Well, we didn't expect it so soon or so fiercely, perhaps, but it was inevitable. Winter.

But let's not forget that winter has its benefits - including a chance to focus on indoor pursuits, to create warmth in whatever style suits you. Cocktailing is one such activity (in moderation, of course!) and we have a couple of very special ingredients to mention as we anticipate warm flavours to battle the cold outside.

First, Graeme Foers has a history right here in our neighbourhood but much of his time is spent in the woods handcrafting his Tapped Out Bourbon Barrel Aged Maple Syrup. Now, if you ever went to a sugaring off in the bush you might have a memory of taps in the trees and lines running from all around the lot to a tank in the middle. To some people that's quaint and they know that maple syrup operations run the gamut from mom & pop farms to industrial scale evaporation processors. Tapped Out makes even the mom & pops look like a factory floor. He is literally asking each tree for permission to take sap and collecting it individually, keeping the fires burning all season long to make the best maple syrup there is and then aging it in bourbon whiskey barrels brought up from the States.

Nickel 9 Distillery is also very close to home - just a few blocks away in the Junction - and making a mark with a couple of spirits available at LCBO stores. But they've also released this wonderful line of aromatic bitters. Some - like the hibiscus or the lavender citrus or the grapefruit orange - could be used to summon summer in a glass if you're so inclined. But I'm looking at the smoked apple and the cedar cherry bark and the rosemary black peppercorn and thinking I could just lean into winter quite comfortably.

Posted on November 13, 2019

Boo!

Halloween Stuff

It starts with the Pumpkin Fudge that arrives early October. Not only does it taste and smell fantastic, it triggers something - something in the air. Then the Bat Signal really goes out! And before you know it the Mercantile is filled with spooky stuff.

For school treats try our YumEarth peanut free dummies. There's murderously hot mustard, scary Scoville sauces, bloody eyeball candy decorations for creepy cookies, special edition Laura Slack chocolate skull lollies, halloween lights, mugs, bottle openers, tea towels and other seasonally themed decor items.

Of course, there's also black cat and black bat pasta from Queen's Pasta - spinach and ricotta filled black pasta ravioli made just for Halloween night dinner and available in our freezer at the back of the store.

And adults know we're a grown up trick-or-treater's dream store!

While we're at it, witches hats off to the people in the neighbourhood who make ours one of the most fun parts of the city to stroll at night with their awesome halloween yard displays. If you haven't walked down Grenadier lately......

Oh. And if you come in late and find we're out of treats, please don't TP our window. We're doing our best to make sure there's enough for all you ghouls and goblins.