Canada's only magazine dedicated to distillers, spirits and cocktail culture.
It’s not often the new kid on the block walks away with a major international award the very week of its launch, but that’s exactly what Surrey-based Central City Brewers and Distillers’ newest offering accomplished earlier this year; their Queensborough Gin garnered a gold medal at the Spirits International Prestige (SIP) Awards.
“Ready for the tour?” Patrick Evans asks with a chuckle. I climb into the 4×4 expecting a leisurely ride through Shelter Point Distillery’s expansive property.
I am mistaken: Evans hits the gas and we’re off-roading into the bush faster than I can say, “I’ll take a wee dram.”
Rob Scope knows his way around a bar. After being introduced to the trade in England, Scope has had a hand in creating some of Vancouver’s most sought-after cocktails at establishments such as Campagnolo, ReFuel, Calabash, Cassis Bistro and now, as bar manager, at The Cascade Room on Main.
“Our cocktail list is pretty aggressive,” he says of the 60-drink strong menu of classics he oversees. “Working with this back bar is a dream come true.”
It’s immediately obvious that Kaitlyn Stewart, bar manager at Vancouver’s Royal Dinette, likes to bartend to a strong beat: all of her cocktails have names inspired by music — from lyrics and songs to musicians and festivals (Upside Down; Smoke on the Walters).
Her proudest pop moniker? The Cream Sh-Boogie Bop. “It’s an ode to Prince,” she laughs, breaking into song. “Cream, don’t you stop. Cream, sh-boogie bop!”
When the Hôtel Ritz Paris’s legendary barman Colin Field introduced the $1,700 Ritz Sidecar in 2001, it was considered the most expensive cocktail in the world. Since then, a multitude of bartenders have created their own lavishly priced drinks made with everything from truffles, gold dust and precious gems, to vintage spirits recovered from famous shipwrecks.
But are these ultra-premium cocktails worth their ultra-premium prices? Well, it depends — and not just on how much credit you have left on your flexible friend.
Twenty-three years in kitchens taught Jason MacIsaac all about balance. Bitter versus sweet, savoury versus salty, weight versus intensity—key principles in creating harmonious foods. Now, as founder, owner, operator, distiller and, along with his wife Alayne, every other possible role at Vancouver Island’s Sheringham Distillery, MacIssac has transposed those culinary skills to the still.
“As a chef, studying flavour profiles was my career,” he reflects. “Balancing flavours has been a passion. Every chef can start with the same ingredients but have vastly different outcomes. The same goes for distilling.”
Sangria has been around for quite a while — a couple of thousand years, in fact. “Most people don’t realize that it’s been around that long,” laughs Paul Rivas, who, along with his sister Natalie, owns Vancouver’s Bodega on Main — the reincarnation of the much-loved former downtown tapas bar, La Bodega.
Kissed by a Bee, Sage Paloma, Raspberry Thyme Collins… The cocktail menu at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel’s ARC Bar, pays proper tribute to the 2,100-square foot garden perched on its roof.
ARC’s general manager Roman Vondal describes the garden, which also includes four bee hives, as a treasure coveted by both the hotel’s chefs and bartenders.
• 1 fresh raspberry
• 1.5oz Odd Society Wallflower Gin
• 0.5oz Odd Society Crème de Cassis
• 0.5oz Odd Society Bittersweet Vermouth
• 1oz lemon juice
• 0.25oz simple syrup
• 2 dashes Szechuan pepper bitters
• 4 drops Ms. Better’s Bitters Miraculous Foamer
The Tasting Lounge at Odd Society Spirits in East Vancouver is a veritable beehive, buzzing with collaboration. Behind the bar, Kylie Bartlett shakes a frothy Tree Sum cocktail and strains it into a coupe glass. The neon-green libation was created by Vanessa Bourget, owner of Exile Bistro, and is made with a foraged-pine-needle, parsley syrup that Ms. Bourget trades to the craft distiller in exchange for the drink’s other key ingredient, Odd Society’s Wallflower Gin.
Part of the distillery’s Visiting Cocktail program, the forest-fresh Tree Sum is just one of many collaborations that allows Odd Society to live up to its name as an unusual innovator within British Columbia’s still somewhat oddly disconnected worlds of craft spirits and bartending.