Canada's only magazine dedicated to distillers, spirits and cocktail culture.
We’ve been waiting impatiently to see what’s going into the grand space under the Rosewood Hotel Georgia where Prohibition used to be. We’ve been waiting just as impatiently to learn where Jeff Savage would land after leaving Botanist Bar last year.
We already knew it, but now so does the rest of the world. In a first for Vancouver and for Canada, Botanist Bar at the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel has won the Michter’s Art of Hospitality Award, given by North America’s 50 Best Bars.
This prestigious award recognizes the single-best hospitality experience across the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.
For years, we’ve been reading that tequila is about to become the “it” spirit. This year, it seems, it’s finally happened. Mind you, some of us have been enjoying this Mexican agave-based spirit, along with its smoky cousin mezcal, all along. Agave spirits have increasingly become luxury products savoured by connoisseurs, which may surprise those who’ve only had a disastrous brush with cheap mixto and are still feeling the hangover. A good tequila is made from 100 per cent farmed blue agave, while mezcal can be made from any number of wild agaves. Mezcal is also typically enjoyed unaged, while tequila can be unaged (also known as plata or silver), “rested” in oak for up to a year (reposado) or aged (añejo or extra añejo). Agave spirits are complex, fascinating and delicious, so we asked our tasting panel to share their favourite and what cocktail they’d make with it. This issue, our team comprises bartenders Sabrine Dhaliwal, Adam Domet, Robyn Gray, Jay Jones, Trevor Kallies, Jeff Savage and Kaitlyn Stewart. ¡Salud!
The Punch Brunch, held at Botanist at the Fairmont Pacific Rim on January 26, was the official launch for the inaugural Vancouver Cocktail Week presented by The Alchemist magazine, which will be held March 7 to 10, 2021. For more cocktail recipes from the brunch, see: The Rye of the Tiger, Featherweight Punch Royale, A Bit Curious and Flapjack Punch.
It’s about time Vancouver had a proper cocktail week. And now, at last, the city is going to get one.
The first Vancouver Cocktail Week, presented by The Alchemist magazine, will be held March 7 to 10, 2021.
Note: This is the third in an Alchemist series following Diageo World Class 2019 from planning the competition to the National Final in Whistler and through to the Global Final in Scotland.
He came so close. Vancouver’s Jeff Savage made it to the final eight at the Diageo World Class Final. And he won the Singleton State of Mind award. But in the end, the diminutive Bannie Kang from Singapore took home the ultimate prize.
• 1.5 oz raspberry-infused pisco (see note)
• 0.5 oz Aperol
• 1 oz lemon juice
• 0.5 oz Grapefruit and Rose Sherbet (see recipe below)
• 1.5 oz Star of Bombay gin
• 0.5 oz St-Germain elderflower liqueur
• 2 dashes Bittered Sling Haskap Bitters
• Fentiman’s tonic water
Another day, another global win for Botanist Bar. Bartenders Grant Sceney, Jeff Savage and Max Curzon-Price have just been crowned the “Bols Around the World” bar team of the year.
A sparkling goblet filled with golden elixir revolves lazily in mid-air, twirling a couple of inches above the vapours of dry ice billowing from a wooden platform. It looks like magic, and it is, sort of.