Canada's only magazine dedicated to distillers, spirits and cocktail culture.
There was ice and fire, CO2 and NO2, test tubes and copper tubing and all sorts of mysterious gadgets. Most of all, there was great food and drink in support of an even greater cause.
The city’s top bartenders gathered in February at Telus World of Science for the fourth annual Science of Cocktails event, where they demonstrated the myriad ways science contributes to cocktail culture.
Heading to the Diageo Reserve World Class Canada 2019 regional final competitions at the end of March are the following bartenders:
While Sheringham Distillery’s new Red Fife Whisky is winning prizes in Canada, its original Seaside Gin is picking them up across the pond. The seaweed-infused spirit just took home the prize for Best Contemporary Gin at the World Gin Awards in London, UK.
In 2012, a handful of local bartenders slipped on some boxing gloves and started fighting for a cause. Aprons for Gloves, they called it, a non-profit organization with the aim of providing community outreach in the Downtown Eastside through the sweet science of boxing and the annual Restaurant Rumble charity boxing match.
Now there’s a gorgeous hardcover book celebrating the event: Blood, Sweat & Beers is written by wine writer and boxer Laura Starr and features some 450 photos by Guy Roland, who has been documenting the event since the beginning.
It’s not even available for sale yet, but already Christos Kalaitzis’ new bitters line is reaping the kind of recognition a crafty bartender could only dream of.
Bitters by Christos, created by the spirits brand ambassador and mixologist for Central City Brewers & Distillers, just took home not one, not two, but three double gold awards at the prestigious San Diego Spirits Festival, the premiere West Coast celebration of spirits and cocktails. (Central City’s Lohin McKinnon Peated Whisky also won double gold.)
Glance up at the sloping green roof of the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, and you might just catch a flash of scarlet at one of the windows. Wave hello to the Lady in Red, a gracious spirit said to haunt the halls of this grand dame of a hotel.
• 1 oz Hendricks Gin
• 0.75 oz St. Germain elderflower liqueur
• 1.5 oz cranberry juice
• 0.25 oz lemon juice
• Sparkling wine
To chants of “Back to back!” on Thanksgiving weekend, Chris Enns of the Lobby Bar at the Fairmont Pacific Rim made it into the top-20 round at the Diageo Reserve World Class competition in Berlin. Australia’s Orlando Marzo took home the overall title this year, but Enns made it all the way to number eight in the world, with a trio of Vancouverites cheering him on—last year’s global winner, Kaitlyn Stewart of Royal Dinette, as well as previous World Class Canada winners Lauren Mote and Grant Sceney. “Until next time, friends,” Enns said on Facebook. “May your hearts be filled with love and your glasses filled with World Class cocktails.”
• 2 oz Bombay Sapphire gin
• 1 oz acidified parsnip juice
• 0.75 oz bee pollen syrup
• 3 dashes Hay and Burdock Root Bitters
• 1 egg white
When you’re surrounded by wild bounty the way Tofino is, it only makes sense to use it however you can. And so Wolf in the Fog’s bar manager Hailey Pasemko transforms huckleberries into bitters, infuses gin with salal or spruce tips, and fat-washes vodka with salmon.
Now she’s looking beyond Tofino, to the great spirits being produced across B.C., for her new “Local Legends” cocktail program.