Gung hay fat choy! This Saturday (Jan. 28) ushers in the Year of the Rooster with bright red packages, shiny gold coins and festively fizzy cocktails.
Cheers to Chinese New Year
Oso Good
With a commitment to quality ingredients and local products, Jason Redmond gives Bar Oso’s cocktails an edge
Bar Oso celebrates its one-year anniversary this ski season. In those scant twelve months, the Spanish-inspired tapas bar has become a must-visit destination in Whistler Village. Located around the corner from its sister restaurant Araxi, Bar Oso set out to give the mountain resort something completely different.
Duke of Kidalton
This cocktail, created by Lauren Mote, celebrates the region of Kildalton, on the Scottish isle of Islay, home to the elegant but powerfully smoky Lagavulin 16-year single-malt whisky.
Cocktails add finishing touch to Dine Out
As everyone knows, cocktails make a good party even better – and this also applies to Dine Out Vancouver.
Lovely Bubbly
The history of the Champagne cocktail
It’s kind of a funny thing, the way Champagne cocktails are considered all girly and twee these days. Back when they were originally invented — arguably a harder-drinking era than our own — they were enjoyed by tough guys and sophisticates alike, and so lauded for their powerful kick, they were named for military weapons.
Today, though, you have celebrated bartenders such as Portland’s Jeffrey Morgenthaler tweeting: “Only old ladies and hookers drink Champagne cocktails.”
Classic Champagne Cocktail
• 1 sugar cube
• Dash Angostura bitters
• 1 tsp Cognac or Grand Marnier (optional)
• Champagne or sparkling wine
French 75
• 1.5 oz gin or Cognac
• 0.5 oz freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 tsp simple syrup
• Champagne or sparkling wine
Pomegranate Green Tea Punch
This zero-proof cocktail is a long, cool drink that’s fruity and spicy, with a beautiful balance of sweetness and acidity, and a surprisingly deep complexity for a drink without a spirit base.
INGREDIENTS:
• 3 oz (90 mL) brewed white-pomegranate tea (available from Lucas Teas in Squamish)
• 1 oz (30 mL) pineapple shrub (recipe follows)
• ½ oz (15 mL) lime juice
• ½ oz (15 mL) grenadine
• Dash pineapple juice
• Dash rosewater
The upside of committing to Dry January
Call this the month of reckoning. After a festive season of giddy indulgence, many of us are rediscovering the gym, swapping shortbread for lentils, and giving up booze throughout the 31 long, dark days of January.
Main Moves
It’s all about the craft for Cascade Room’s new bar manager, Yonah Sweetapple
Family brought Yonah Sweetapple from his native Australia to Canada in 2012. He followed his brother Jacob (also a noted mixologist) to Vancouver, looking forward to being a proper uncle to Jacob’s kids. His own bartending career was well underway, from working his way through university everywhere from nightclubs to cocktail bars and restaurants. But it was in the two years before his move to Canada that, he says, his real passion for cocktails developed. “I really enjoy creating craft drinks, and I take a lot of pride in my work,” he smiles.