B.C.'s only magazine dedicated to local distilleries and cocktail culture.
• 1 oz Johnnie Walker Black
• 0.5 oz fino sherry
• 1.5 oz birch water
• 0.75 oz Alderwood smoked tea (Tealeaves Forestea)
• 0.25 oz oak moss and cedar (wild-foraged)
• Garnish: Rosemary sprig
Over the last few decades, brandy has developed a branding problem. Not the Brandy who rose to fame with hits like The Boy is Mine in the late 1990s; rather, the once-venerable tipple that today is often seen as old fashioned, dull and enjoyed exclusively by the elderly.
Perhaps you’ve had it before in your grandma’s flamed Christmas pudding, drunk an occasional Sidecar at a hip cocktail spot or heard a reference to it in a Drake or Megan Thee Stallion song.
But outside of Cognac—a sub-category of brandy that has been embraced and promoted by the rap community—brandy has not been an intuitive or even conscious choice for most Gen Xers, millennials or Gen Zers.
Despite its waning popularity, there seems to be a trend emerging in British Columbia that just might clutch brandy out of the doldrums and back en vogue. Whether coincidental or created through circumstance, a number of B.C. wineries, cideries and distilleries have recently released their own small-batch, terroir-driven brandies—and they’re good, really good.
0.75 oz Wayward Distillery Cask Strength Apple Brandy
0.75 oz Wayward Distillery Drunken Hive Rum
0.75 oz Sons of Vancouver Quadruple Sec
0.5 oz lemon juice
Garnish: orange or lemon zest
• 20ml Whitley Neill Rhubarb and Ginger Gin
• 10ml Lemon juice
• 50ml Apple juice
• Prosecco
• Slices of apple
2 oz Maple Leaf Spirits Lady of the Cask brandy
0.75 oz Sons of Vancouver Amaretto
Garnish: lemon zest
1 sugar cube
2 straws Ms. Better’s Bitters Aromatic Bitters
2 oz Forbidden Spirits Adam’s Apple Brandy
Rinse: Okanagan Spirits Taboo Absinthe
Garnish: lemon zest
During the Victoria Whisky Festival on January 20, the Canadian chapter of Scotland’s Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS) unveiled a new bottling, 152.1, also known by the name Vibrant and Vigorous. The “.1” identifies the first-ever bottling from a new-to-SMWS distillery, and the Society identifies whiskies only by number and their often-fanciful house names, because each whisky is a single cask bottled at house strength, and may be a unicorn that doesn’t align with the distillery’s house style.
1 oz Alchemist Distiller Duke Apple Brandy
1 oz Merridale XXO Brandy
1 oz Esquimalt Wine Rosso Vermouth
1 barspoon simple syrup (optional; see note)
Garnish: orange zest, cherry
Getting inside Vancouver’s newest bar involves placing a wager on “King Louie.”
The team behind the hidden Chinatown bar Laowai is opening another underground watering hole, this time inside the (faux) Happy Valley Turf Club off-track betting shop (518 Main St).
Bagheera is an homage to India and the cultural crossroads of Three Kingdoms Hospitality co-founders Lewis Hart and Brij Rathi. While Laowai is modelled after Prohibition-era Shanghai, Bagheera is named for the black panther in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book and was inspired by India at the turn of the 20th century.
At the Canadian Whisky Awards on January 19, Palm Trees & A Tropical Breeze from the North Vancouver-based Sons of Vancouver won top Canadian Whisky of the Year honours. It was also named Canadian Whisky of the Year, Artisan Producers; Barrel Finished Whisky of the Year; and All-Rye Whisky of the Year.