
Mountain Mezcal Sour




Cocktails have their own vocabulary, a richly evocative lingo that has evolved over the years from the barkeeps who sling the drinks, the customers who swill ’em and the scribes who take note of it all.
Here are some of the most useful expressions to know.

INGREDIENTS:
0.75 oz (22 mL) gin
0.75 oz (22 mL) green Chartreuse
0.75 oz (22 mL) maraschino liqueur
0.75 oz (22 mL) fresh lime juice
METHOD:
Place all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake vigorously. Strain into a chilled martini glass or a coupe. If you like, garnish with lime twist. Serves 1.

INGREDIENTS:
1-inch cylinder of cucumber, or ½ oz (15 mL) cucumber juice
2 oz (60 mL) Hendrick’s gin
2 tsp (10 mL) runny honey (see note)
2 dashes Scrappy’s lavender bitters
Cucumber slice to garnish (optional)
METHOD:
Muddle the cucumber in a mixing glass. (Alternatively, stir in the cucumber juice with the rest of the ingredients.) Add ice, gin, runny honey and bitters and stir until the drink is well chilled and has reached your ideal level of dilution. Fine strain into an Old Fashioned glass over fresh ice. If you like, garnish with a slice of cucumber. Serves 1.

The Old Fashioned is, arguably, the original cocktail, or at least, the whisky version of it.

Davin de Kergommeaux and I are lounging in the oak-paneled sitting room of Willistead Manor in Windsor, Ont., ancestral home of the Hiram Walker family, sipping rye and, fittingly, talking about Canadian whisky.
“I’ve got a lot of single malt at home, but preferentially, I drink Canadian whisky,” says de Kergommeaux. “I like the rye spices in Canadian whisky. It’s flavourful, well-balanced and enjoyable.”

Only in Canada, you say? Pity. Everyone else will have to travel to the True North to get their hands on the oldest Canadian whisky that has ever been poured.
“In Canadian whisky, you’re never going to find a 40-year-old whisky – not until today,” Tish Harcus tells us as we stand outside the Windsor, Ont., warehouse where row upon row of barrels stand stacked upon each other.
