Canada's only magazine dedicated to distillers, spirits and cocktail culture.
Salt Spring Shine is a small, family owned artisanal distillery that makes products from the fermentation of local honey.
194 Kitchen Road, Salt Spring Island
250-221-0728
SaltSpringShine.com
• Sting Gin
• Hive Vodka
• Honeycomb Moonshine
• Apple Pie Moonshine
—Nick Charles (William Powell) covers the essentials in the 1934 classic movie The Thin Man.
Barstools are for boasting. And when you’re alone, they’re for wool-gathering, your privacy on public display. Random thoughts assail you — unless you’re just there to watch the game, which is fine but for the purposes of this column let’s assume no high-def.
I’m at a bar now, in fact, just me and no TV, making notes on napkins the way you do. This is not unusual. Over the last 18 months I’ve warmed my share of seats, and I’ve written about some of the highlights in these pages, usually from notes on the backs of napkins very like this one. Those 18 months happen to have included a fair amount of travel, and so the cocktails I’ve described have often gone down in other cities, in bars very like this one.
INGREDIENTS:
Juice of one whole Ginger Crisp apple (around 2oz)*
1 oz unsweetened cranberry juice
1.5 oz gin
0.5 oz ginger liqueur
0.5 oz freshly squeezed lemon juice
3 dashes of orange bitters
Apple slices and cranberries (for garnish)
METHOD:
Using a press or juicer, extract juice from apple. Add all ingredients (except garnish) to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake hard for 20 seconds. Double strain into a chilled cocktail coupe and garnish with apple and cranberry skewers.
November is no one’s favourite month. It’s dark, cold, wet and gloomy, and it isn’t quitethe month that comes with presents. Maybe that’s why it’s such a great month for drinking. I mean, maybe that’s why it’s such a great month for new product releases and exciting social events, starting with these.
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.
INGREDIENTS:
1.75 oz (52 mL) Plymouth gin
0.75 oz (22 mL) fresh lemon juice
0.5 oz (15 mL) orgeat (almond syrup)
6 drops orange blossom water
1 egg white
METHOD:
Place all ingredients in a cocktail shaker and “dry shake” (without ice) vigorously until quite frothy. Add ice and shake again until well chilled, then double-strain into a chilled cocktail glass. If you like, garnish with freshly grated nutmeg. Serves 1.