Canada's only magazine dedicated to distillers, spirits and cocktail culture.
Something has shifted in drinks lately. Indulgence and excess have been the operative trends, shown off in drinks that are over-the-top, party-starting and a little bit naughty.
Martinis, icy, high-ABV and garnished with an olive, are on every cocktail menu in the country. They’re unavoidable on Instagram—perched in influencers’ hands like a new Fendi bag.
Drink trends come and go—remember the Negroni Sbagliato? Frosé?—but through it all, the Martini persists. For over 100 years, fans of the drink (James Bond, Lucille Bluth, Carrie Bradshaw, Winston Churchill) have sipped fervently and ask for theirs by specifics: bone-dry, brine-packed, with olives or a twist.
Recently, the drink’s popularity has been pushed into overdrive. “The Martini has become really trendy,” says Calum Wilson, director of food and beverage at the downtown Toronto hotel Revery. “It’s having a huge resurgence right now.”
My early memories of punch are from college parties—party drinks cobbled together from curious arrays of cheap spirits mixed with saccharine juices and sodas and ladled from whatever vessel was large enough to quench the crowd. A mixing bowl in the best of times, a plastic trash can in the worst.
Nevertheless, we’d gather around, clink glasses and share stories over the ever-flowing bowl.