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Artscene 19 | Friday, March 13, 2015 | OAKVILLE BEAVER | www.insideHALTON.com "Connected to your Community" Oakville comic's troupe joins Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival by John Bkila Oakville Beaver Staff Sage Mixology co-founders, Cam McDonald, 23, of Oakville (centre); Daniel Bartek, 26, of Toronto (left); and Bobby Besant, 23, of Waterloo, Ont., appeared on Wednesday night's episode of Dragons' Den to pitch their idea. The Oakville-based company is marketing a bottle that holds juice and vodka in separate compartments and measures the flow of every drink for a consistent pour. | photo courtesy CBC Sage Mixology serves up readyto-drink idea to Dragons' Den Dragons' Den, which airs on CBC, features entrepreneurs presenting their business ideas and products in order to secure financial investments from a panel of Canadian business moguls -- the "dragons." The trio were seeking $500,000 for 20 per cent ownership of their business -- in the Dragons' Den episode, their company was valued at $2.5 million. Arlene Dickinson, one of the show's "dragons," said she owns a distilling licence for vodka and gin and offered the trio $500,000 for a 40 per cent share in their company. "I think this is a real opportunity to do something Canadian-made with a licence that is going to make this thing skyrocket," she said on the show. Although, the trio took her deal during the episode, which was filmed last April, McDonald said since then, the deal has been put on hold due to "engineering issues." "Over last summer, we had to overcome a lot of hurdles on the production side," he said. "Our motto is, `Let consumers be our compass', meaning in everything that we do, the most important thing is to try and deliver a good product for the consumer. Everything else is secondary to that. "We're just three guys trying to launch our product to the LCBO and we didn't have the capacity to divert our attention to another fundraising plan. We wanted to dedicate 100 per cent of our attention to getting the right product to market," he continued. "(But) we're definitely not opposed to doing a deal with Arlene in the future." Sage Mixology is aiming to relaunch its product later this year and plans to expand across Canada, added McDonald. by John Bkila Oakville Beaver Staff Oakville-based company Sage Mixology faced off against a group of "dragon" investors during Wednesday night's episode of Dragons' Den. Local resident Cam McDonald, 23, is co-founder of the company that specializes in the ready-to-drink (RTD) alcoholic beverage market, along with Daniel Bartek, 26, of Toronto, and Bobby Besant, 23, of Waterloo -- the three met while in university. McDonald and his partners pitched their patented bottle, which has two compartments -- one that holds juice and another vodka -- and measures the pour to consistently give every drink a 10 per cent alcohol mix. Their product, the brainchild of Besant during his time at Western University, comes in two flavours and is sold at the LCBO. McDonald says, although it's early to tell, he believes appearing on the TV series will definitely help Sage in its financial future. "Whenever you're on a TV show that reaches millions of viewers... one of the things that we need to do to be successful is educate consumers on what we've done with our bottle, why it's different and the benefits of it," he told the Oakville Beaver in an interview Thursday. "I think the pitch articulated that pretty well. I think it will go a long way." Oakville's Chelsea Larkin is performing at the 10th annual Toronto Sketch Comedy Festival as part of the sketch troupe Interrobang. "I'm so honoured to be performing at Toronto sketchfest," said Larkin. "This will be my third time doing it but this year we have two shows and this is our biggest time slot yet, which we are so glad to get. "Toronto comedians are so talented -- it's unbelievable. To be associated with this community is such a lucky, fulfilling feeling and Interrobang is so grateful to be a part of it." Chelsea Larkin The Sketch Comedy Festival kicked off March 5 and runs until | photo courtesy Bella Agency Sunday (March 15) at several venues across Toronto. Larkin is no stranger to the stage or comedy scene -- she's been performing since she was 10 years old in acting class recitals and community theatre in Ottawa. When she moved to Oakville, she gravitated towards musical theatre shows while attending Oakville Trafalgar High School and eventually performed at the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts. "I've been performing comedy unofficially since birth," she said, jokingly. "I always made people laugh and could sing and play characters, so my parents naturally adhered to my request to put me in acting classes, and soon came the school plays. I noticed, as did my university professors, especially, that all of the acting roles I excelled in happened to be comedic." Larkin studied theatre at McMaster University and in 2005, enrolled in the Comedy, Writing and Performance post-graduate program at Humber College. From then on, she would perform regularly in comedy shows, including sketch, improv and standup, in Toronto. "I love performing because it gives me a chance to express myself in a way that I'm not always able to in every day life," said Larkin. "I love entertaining people and above all I love making people laugh. I always say, `It's the only thing I can honestly say I'm pretty good at'." The Toronto-based Interrobang was officially created in 2013 after the troupe met while performing in a variety show at The Second City training centre. The troupe includes Larkin, Maddox Campbell and Paul "PK" Kingston.