Canada's only magazine dedicated to distillers, spirits and cocktail culture.
Tickets are now on sale for the third annual Vancouver Cocktail Week presented by The Alchemist magazine. Save your seat for the best seminars, most exciting cocktail-paired dinners and unmissable signature events like the closing Green Garden Gala.
Max Curzon-Price is a bartender who is willing to go there, whether that means dressing in bonnet and matronly frock to represent an old Dutch portrait for a cocktail competition or serving a drink made with fresh blood. Now his fearless approach to cocktailing has earned him the prestigious Michelin’s Exceptional Cocktails Award, in the second year the Guide has covered Vancouver.
Does your cat, dog, or parakeet need a little help from the great beyond? Or do you just need a fun new spot to grab a drink?
What looks like a pet psychic business in Gastown at 238 Abbott St is actually the clever cover for an upcoming new cocktail bar and restaurant from the creative minds that brought Vancouver its beloved—and departed—Storm Crow bars.
If you’ve ever seen, or taken part in, a round of welcome shots offered to insiders at a mixology-forward bar, you’re already familiar with the bartender handshake.
The cocktail renaissance of the last 20-some years spurred the tradition of bartenders pouring a little something (often something unknown or slightly unpalatable to the general drinking public) for visiting colleagues. To enter a bar and receive a so-called bartender handshake drink is like being part of a secret society. Global trends started this way, as uber-local greetings: San Francisco bartenders were pouring handshake shots of Fernet-Branca 20 years ago, and Chicago has cornered the market on ultra-bitter Malort. There’s even a world-ranked bar in Mexico city called (wait for it…) Handshake, which has a menu of little welcome snack-tails.
If you are going to pick up one cocktail book this fall—or if you are looking for one to gift your cocktail-loving friend—make it For the Love of Cocktails by Evelyn Chick (Figure 1 Publishing).
There’s a decided chill in the air and that can only mean one thing: It’s whisky season! True, we’re happy to sip whisky and whisky cocktails year-round, but fall especially cries out for their sweet, spicy, smoky notes.
Pro tip: Book March 3 to 10, 2024, off work right now. That’s when Vancouver Cocktail Week, presented by The Alchemist, returns to town, and you won’t want to miss one spirited minute of it.
The city’s third annual celebration of Vancouver cocktail culture will have even more bar stars from Canada and around the world shaking things up with planned takeovers and mid-week pop-ups at Vancouver’s most popular cocktail venues.
On September 29, amid confetti and cheers, Toronto’s Jacob Martin became the World Class Global Bartender 2023, the third time a bartender from Canada—or any country—has won the world’s biggest, most prestigious cocktail competition. It’s an extraordinary accomplishment, and a fitting finale to Canada’s 10th year of competing in the event.