Canada's only magazine dedicated to distillers, spirits and cocktail culture.
It might be called EAT! Vancouver, but we’re here for the drinks.
Which is why we were thrilled to discover that the annual foodie festival is returning to Vancouver Nov. 5-10 with more than 37 acclaimed chefs and 18 events, including a luxurious all-new cognac event.
The Fairmont Pacific Rim’s Christopher Enns has become the fourth Vancouver bartender to win the prestigious Diageo World Class Canada competition since this country joined the global fray in 2013.
He now heads to Berlin, Germany, to represent Canada at the World Class Global Final Oct. 4 to 8, 2018.
Expectations will be even higher than usual. Not only is this the 10th anniversary of the biggest and most important cocktail competition on the planet, but another Vancouverite, Kaitlyn Stewart of Royal Dinette, won the global title last year, vanquishing 10,000 bartenders from 57 countries to do so.
So, you know, no pressure.
De Vine Spirits. Byron Smith/Tank Five photo.
Spirits were high at the fifth annual BC Distilled festival at the Croatian Cultural Centre in Vancouver on April 14, which brought together 40 artisan distilleries from around the province, including a dozen new distilleries that have opened in the last year.
You’re thirsty. There’s a bar full of things to drink. You’d think nothing would be simpler than quenching your thirst, right? Not so fast.
We’ve all had those disappointing cocktails that left us wondering what went wrong. That’s because there’s an art to ordering a drink, a good drink at least, and it’s both simple and complex.
I didn’t pull up a stool to a proper bar—by which I mean one whose stock-in-trade is cocktails, and whose staff is formally schooled in the art of same—until my early 30s. A variety of reasons contributed to this delayed milestone, including having been raised in a near-teetotal household, in a small city whose population overwhelmingly prefers beer, coupled with early teenage drinking experiences (usually at a suburban house party or in some miserable pitch-black field) of the sort that seem contrived to ensure one never wants to drink again.
Are you passionate about craft cocktails and craft beer? Are you a super cool person with a positive attitude? Is “fun” generally something you spend every waking moment pursuing?
Perfect, because we want to hire you!
From left to right, Sabrine Dhaliwal, Uva Wine & Cocktail Bar; Reece Sims, Brix+Mortar/The Diamond; Liana Madera, The Diamond; Jasmine Radu, Tocador; Amber Bruce, The Keefer Bar. Cathy Browne photo 
Bonnie Stewart of The Granville Room was the fastest qualifier and is going to nationals. Cathy Browne photo |
With a puff of dry ice, the 2018 edition of Science of Cocktails has proven once again that physics, chemistry and thermodynamics are as important in your glass as the spirits and bitters.
Bartenders from all over Vancouver, as well as Calgary, Toronto, Halifax and Las Vegas, headed over to Science World last week to put their skills to the acid test.
The Sidecar is one of the great Prohibition-era classics, a boozy-but-vibrant three-ingredient cocktail that fulfills our desire for both the depth of brown spirits and the bright acidity of citrus. It should be a rock star among cocktails, yet where Old Fashioneds, tiki drinks and even the horrible Gimlet have made their comebacks, the Sidecar has somehow eluded its just recognition amid the modern cocktail revival.
It’s time for that to change.
It’s not about the fancy glassware, or the high-tech centrifuge, or the exotic, impossible-to-source-spirit, not any more. It’s all about the people.
“Now that it’s no longer an arms race to assemble the cocktail, the other things matter more,” says Jim Meehan.