Canada's only magazine dedicated to distillers, spirits and cocktail culture.
OLO restaurant has a reputation for championing local, sustainable and seasonal fare, and new bar manager Matt Cooke wanted a cocktail menu to match, focused on highlighting the region’s craft distillers. “We have a ton of local spirits here,” he enthuses. “They’re all made with local ingredients, so we want to pay homage to them and the people making them. We want clients to be able to say, ‘Oh, this is an Ampersand cocktail.’”
• 2oz Absolut vodka
• 2oz cold brew concentrate
• 2 dash bitters
• 0.25oz mole syrup
• 1 lemon zest
Your morning cup of coffee may perk you up nicely, but that same java is more than ready to do the same for your cocktail hour. Forget the drip-filled wine glass containing a shot of Bushmills or Tia Maria, loaded with sugar, and covered with a slick of whipped cream from a can. And step back from the classic, yet oh-so-1980s, Espresso Martini. Coffee cocktails have upped their game.
And what’s behind this fashionable return? It’s all about that barista favourite, cold brew.
• 1 oz. Queensborough Gin
• 1 teaspoon Elderflower Cordial
• 1 teaspoon Dry Vermouth
• Hopping Mad Apple Cider
• Thin green apple slices
• 1 oz. Queensborough Gin
• 1 teaspoon Sweet Red Vermouth
• 3 fresh blackberries
• Tonic water
• Orange zest
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.
Names are my downfall. I’m just a sucker for them. For fanciful origin stories and tales of whimsy. The music of language spellbinds me, which is why I fall so often and so hard for the poetry of the label.
Take Bénédictine, that herbal liqueur purportedly invented by Norman monks. A cabal of French brothers whose order was founded by a Merovingian count in 658 AD created a secret recipe 500 years ago, then mislaid it when they fled the French Revolution. Come 1863, the industrialist Alexandre Le Grand — whose granddaughter Simone Beck would go on to co-author Mastering the Art of French Cooking — rediscovered (or made up) this proprietary mix of 27 botanicals and bottled it, sealing it with the gilded letters DOM: Deo Optimo Maximo, or “To God Most Good, Most Great.” Who could hear such an improbable yarn and stand unmoved?
“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.”
• 0.25oz Sheringham Seaside Gin
• 0.5oz Odd Society Bittersweet Vermouth
• 0.5oz deVine Moderna Vermouth
• 0.75oz The Woods Amaro