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In a Canadian winter, it’s sometimes fun to mix up a tropical concoction to briefly ease the pain of these dark, snowy months. Few things transport you from white snowdrifts to white sandy beaches as quickly as a glass filled with fruit juice and rum. And sometimes the name even fits the condition, as is [...]

Although I’m a firm believer in drinking champagne and other sparkling wines at any time, there’s no denying that they’re great for celebrating, too. And there are few better reasons to celebrate than ringing out the old year and ringing in the new. If you find yourself with some extra bubbly (or some leftover that’s [...]

No matter how many times I try, I can’t quite seem to get a handle on sherry. I know the fundamentals: that it’s a fortified wine made in certain regions of Spain, that it’s fermented by a film-forming yeast called flor, and that it’s aged in a fractional blending system called a solera. But once [...]

Despite my abiding love for apples, especially at this time of year, I rarely seem to use apple brandy in cocktails. Applejack is a beloved ingredient among American mixologists, but it’s unavailable here in Ontario. What apple brandy there is – predominantly Calvados – is pretty pricy for a base spirit, so I think hard [...]

When working on a homemade cocktail ingredient, I always find it helpful to try someone else’s version first, to establish a basis of comparison, so I know what I’m aiming for. Take Swedish punch. Despite having read about it many times, I never had the chance to try it until this summer, when I found [...]

Two days from now, after a month of marrying Plymouth gin and local damsons, my latest batch of damson gin will be ready. I’ll taste it for sugar (the damsons seemed unusually sweet this year, so I was restrained with how much I added at the start), then I’ll get to mixing. After I made [...]

I’m recently back from vacation in the Pacific Northwest, where I had the chance to try these Bittermens “Hopped Grapefruit” bitters at Liberty in Seattle. (Joel, our bartender that evening, was kind enough to both use them in a drink and let me sample them on their own.) I was already familiar with the Bittermens [...]

So far, all the cocktail syrups I’ve discussed in my Summer Syrup Series have come from the classic bartending tradition. Today’s, however, is drawn from an altogether different branch of the mixological family tree: Tiki drinks. The Tiki tradition calls on a wide array of different syrups, from plain old simple syrup to orgeat to [...]

Before there was grenadine, there was raspberry syrup. Okay, maybe that’s not literally true, but if you read early cocktail books, like Jerry Thomas’ Bartender’s Guide, you’ll see plenty of references to raspberry syrup… and none to grenadine. It’s an indispensable ingredient in the East India Cocktail and Clover Club, and makes a pretty fine [...]

Is it possible for a blue drink to be good? People in some quarters spend a lot of time debating what, exactly, constitutes a craft cocktail. There’s lots of debate, but I’m sure most would agree that any drink that’s blue probably doesn’t qualify. But, as Jeff “Beachbum” Berry points out in his book, Beachbum [...]