Vancouver, Montreal and Toronto represent Canada’s hot bar scene at North America’s 50 Best Bars 2024 in Mexico.
Vancouver’s Botanist Bar was number 24 at north America’s 50 Best bars 2024. Supplied photo
On a balmy night in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, a new North America’s Best Bar 2024 was crowned: Handshake Speakeasy in Mexico City. At the same time, 2024 represented a strong showing for Canadian bars, with seven places landing on the list from the Great White North. Dozens of Canadians representing several bars made the trip to San Miguel de Allende for the ceremony, busily making plans for collabs, guest shifts and pop-ups with their North American and global colleagues in attendance.
BC Distilled returns (this time at the Italian Cultural Centre) on Saturday, April 13. Photo courtesy of BC Distilled
BC Distilled, Canada’s leading artisan distillery showcase, is set to return from April 10th to 14th, offering a dynamic lineup of events for local enthusiasts of craft spirits. This year, the Main Tasting will be hosted at the Italian Cultural Centre, following the closure of its previous venue, the Croatian Cultural Centre.
Highlights for the week include the highly anticipated Distillers Dinner at Forage, guided whisky tastings with recent Whisky Magazine Hall of Fame inductee Davin De Kergommeaux, and the showcase of 30 distilleries’ products. Additionally, Legacy Liquor will host an on-site pop-up retail shop on April 13th, ensuring attendees can take their favourite spirits home.
A 20-year vet of the New Orleans bar scene, co-owner Chris Hannah presides most nights over this restaurant bar, shaking up his perfected Brandy Crusta and other iconic drinks. Though you can hit it on a Wednesday for Casual Caviar happy hour, or dine lavishly on the likes of tripe, pig head and beef tongue made into savoury dinner plates, the bar itself hits hard enough to have landed at No. 5 on North America’s 50 Best Bars and be named the Best Bar in the South in 2023.
Raise an International Women’s Day toast to the Drink Masters bar star who inspired a generation of women in the drinks industry
Julie Reiner is a key player in the rebirth of American cocktail culture and an industry mentor. Daniel Krieger photo
Some of us encountered Reiner two decades ago, as the smiling face behind the curved bar at Flatiron Lounge, the first of her pioneering New York craft cocktail bars. Others know the transplanted Hawaiian from her now-shuttered tropical bar Lani Kai or perhaps Pegu Club, which she owned with fellow trailblazer Audrey Saunders. Many others have tippled at Brooklyn’s long-running Clover Club, or at her joyful revamp of vintage Soho bar Milady’s (both which placed on the North America’s Best Bars 2023 list) in Brooklyn.
Yet more fans met her as the voice-of-reason judge on Netflix’s debut 2022 season of Drink Masters (a second season is in the works). Along the way, she became a key player in the rebirth of American cocktail culture and a mentor to its next generation of stars.
I caught up with Reiner recently when her bars popped up for guest shifts at Kimpton Seafire’s Library by the Sea bar on Grand Cayman earlier this year. Reiner and her team gave an inspiring industry talk about mentorship, collaboration and creativity. She unpacked her impactful career while dishing out snacktail-sized Clover Clubs, a drink she helped popularize in the modern age.
An exciting project from a Michelin-starred team is about to debut
Meo is a new cocktail bar with snacks opening in February 2024 in Vancouver’s Chinatown. The project comes from the team behind Michelin-starred Kissa Tanto, which happens to be located right above the new nighttime venue.Left: Ian Lanterman/Right: Mark Yammine. Images courtesy Meo
The crew behind some of Vancouver’s most acclaimed – and sexy – restaurant concepts is at it again, this time revealing plans to launch an intimate cocktail and snack bar just steps away from their one Michelin-starred spot.
The win marks an exciting shift in small-scale distilling across the country
The Fort Distillery’s Mountain Pass Whisky is the 2024 Canadian Artisan Spirit of the Year. Photo courtesy Artisan Distillers Canada
After seven years of domination by B.C. and Ontario, an Alberta distillery has taken home the top prize at the 2024 Canadian Artisan Spirit Competition.
In a series of blind tastings, a cross-Canada panel of judges selected The Fort Distillery‘s Mountain Pass Whisky as the Canadian Artisan Spirit of the Year. The Fort Saskatchewan distillery prevailed over more than 80 small-scale spirits producers from 10 provinces and territories, who entered nearly 300 products in the competition; its whisky was only the second ever to win CASC’s top award.
Ontario’s Paradigm Spirits Co. wins Whisky of the Year at the 2024 Canadian Whisky Awards
Paradigm Spirits 2022 Heritage Collection: 19 Year Single Grain Oloroso Blend Whisky is 2024 Canadian Whisky of the Year. Photo courtesy of Canadian Whisky Awards
For nearly a century, residents of London, Ontario, smelled toasty corn aromas coming from what was formerly a grain facility and then a Kellogg’s Cornflakes factory. These days, it’s the scent of whisky mashes — and victory — that’s wafting from Paradigm Spirits Co., a distilling and blending enterprise located in that space since 2020. It won Whisky of the Year on January 18 at the 2024 Canadian Whisky Awards for its 2022 Heritage Collection: 19 Year Single Grain Oloroso Blend Whisky bottling.
With the Dry-uary season upon us, here are some favourites for those taking a break from cocktails, or looking for some fresh 2024 drink-spiration.
Seedlip is a pioneering non-alc brand. Supplied photo
When renowned a popular U.S. drinks writer began curating a list of non-alcoholic spirits on his Alcademics blog (pioneering brand Seedlip was the first entry), it felt like a novelty niche on the cocktail scene. Today the list is approaching 200 brands, and with so many non-alcoholic alternatives on the market, including many Canadian brands, it can be hard to know what to try.
But first, to tackle the elephant in the room: why can non-alcoholic products cost the same as traditional, boozy ones? High-quality products often use the same distillation process as traditional spirits, which are then de-alcoholized (those with allergies, note: de-alcoholized spirits can legally still contain less than 0.5 per cent alcohol: about the same as a ripe banana, and less than soy sauce). That means a more involved, often more expensive, production process. Others are developed in a complex process of combining flavours, textures and botanicals to re-create the taste and mouthfeel of alcohol.
Amongst these favourites, we’ve leaned into low-sugar, low-additive Canadian brands, because although there are fewer international barriers to shipping these products than with alcohol, why not support local?
Photo courtesy of Four Seasons Resort and Residences Whistler
A great bottle of whisky has always been the ultimate holiday gift, but this year Scotch brands are leveling up with immersive whisky experiences that include exclusive tastings, food pairings and even hotel stays. If your whisky tastes run more local, snap up a presale bottle of Sheringham’s rye-forward whisky, coming in 2024: it’s bound to be as stellar as their award-winning gin.
