Gung hay fat choy! This Saturday (Jan. 28) ushers in the Year of the Rooster with bright red packages, shiny gold coins and festively fizzy cocktails.
Cheers to Chinese New Year
Cocktails add finishing touch to Dine Out
As everyone knows, cocktails make a good party even better – and this also applies to Dine Out Vancouver.
Five top cocktail trends for 2017
Well, thank goodness that’s over. This past year was enough to drive a person to drink. Luckily, the city’s best bartenders know just what we’re craving right now and in the year ahead. Here are the top-five cocktail trends they say we’ll be enjoying in 2017. Cheers!
Winter Warmers
Brrrr – it’s chilly out there. Must be toddy time. With the mercury plunging below zero these past few weeks, Vancouver’s bartenders have been brewing up pots and pots of toddies, mulled ciders and other steamy beverages. Open the door to just about any drinking establishment – from the pop-up Winter Terrace at Reflections (in the Rosewood Hotel Georgia) to Juniper Kitchen & Bar in Gastown – and you’ll be greeted by the seasonal aroma of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. And this is especially true at the Cascade Room on Main Street.
Vancouver bartenders share their top cool-weather cocktails
We launch our new weekly cocktail column, The Alchemist, with the hottest drinks of the season
What’s the best way to get into the festive spirit? Why, with some festive spirits, of course.
All over Vancouver, the city’s best bartenders are shaking, stirring and mulling the best seasonal flavours into cocktails designed to warm body and soul. And truly, can you think of a better way to bring this cold, dreary year to a close?
Tales with a twist
Chambar’s Philippe Grandbois weaves new tales for classic cocktails
For more than a decade, Chambar has been known as not only a destination restaurant famous for its Belgian and North African-influenced cuisine, but also as a cocktail haven that has attracted and nurtured some of the city’s top talent. Now, the restaurant has taken its cocktail program one step further, hiring Philippe Grandbois as Creative Director of Mixology — a new position in the company.
Sweet Sangria
Spain’s iconic cocktail is a staple at Bodega On Main
Sangria has been around for quite a while — a couple of thousand years, in fact. “Most people don’t realize that it’s been around that long,” laughs Paul Rivas, who, along with his sister Natalie, owns Vancouver’s Bodega on Main — the reincarnation of the much-loved former downtown tapas bar, La Bodega.
Up on the roof
A rooftop garden brings fresh flavours and new ideas to ARC bar in the Fairmont Waterfront
Kissed by a Bee, Sage Paloma, Raspberry Thyme Collins… The cocktail menu at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel’s ARC Bar, pays proper tribute to the 2,100-square foot garden perched on its roof.
ARC’s general manager Roman Vondal describes the garden, which also includes four bee hives, as a treasure coveted by both the hotel’s chefs and bartenders.
Come together
At Odd Society Spirits, innovation is all about collaboration
The Tasting Lounge at Odd Society Spirits in East Vancouver is a veritable beehive, buzzing with collaboration. Behind the bar, Kylie Bartlett shakes a frothy Tree Sum cocktail and strains it into a coupe glass. The neon-green libation was created by Vanessa Bourget, owner of Exile Bistro, and is made with a foraged-pine-needle, parsley syrup that Ms. Bourget trades to the craft distiller in exchange for the drink’s other key ingredient, Odd Society’s Wallflower Gin.
Part of the distillery’s Visiting Cocktail program, the forest-fresh Tree Sum is just one of many collaborations that allows Odd Society to live up to its name as an unusual innovator within British Columbia’s still somewhat oddly disconnected worlds of craft spirits and bartending.
On the Town: BC Distilled 2016
The second annual BC Distilled event showcased 27 craft and micro distillers from around the province, with almost 500 ticket holders in attendance.
Mixologist Kylie Bartlett and founder and distiller Gordon Glanz show off East Vancouver’s Odd Society Spirits. Alexa Mazzarello photo.
BC Distilled founder Alex Hamer snuggles up with a representative from charity recipients, Pacific Assistance Dogs Society (PADS). Alexa Mazzarello photo.
Richard Klaus and James Lester of North Van’s Sons of Vancouver took home audience awards for their Chili Vodka and No. 82 Amaretto. Alexa Mazzarello photo.
Sheringham Distillery’s Alayne and Jason MacIsaac presented their signature Seaside Gin, William’s White whisky, and vodka. Alexa Mazzarello photo.