Cross Canada Cocktails

What better way to start things off than with a cocktail that is named after my home town, Toronto.

The Toronto Cocktail – According to Wikipedia, the Toronto Cocktail was first recorded as the Fernet Cocktail in Robert Vermeire’s 1922 edition of Cocktails: How to Mix Them, in which he stated that the “cocktail is much appreciated by the Canadians of Toronto”. It is unclear whether the Torontonians referenced by Vermeire obtained the drink in Toronto before prohibition, or at his bar in London, England. By 1930, the drink had become know as the Toronto Cocktail. The ingredients don’t really speak of Toronto (other than the rye), but history works in mysterious ways.

The Toronto Cocktail

What you need:

• 2 oz rye whisky
• 1/4 oz Fernet Branca
• 1/4 oz simple syrup
• 2 dashes Angostura bitters

What you do:

• Pour all ingredients in a glass over a large ice cube
• Stir to chill
• Enjoy

From the other side of the country, we find The Vancouver Cocktail which was said to be created in 1950 at the Sylvain House in Vancouver. There are two variations, one drier and one sweeter.

The Vancouver Cocktail

What you need:

• 2 oz gin (you can use 1 1/2 oz gin if you prefer it sweeter)
• 1/2 oz red vermouth (you can use 3/4 oz if you prefer it sweeter)
• 1/2 oz Benedictine D.O.M. liqueur
• 1 dash Angostura Orange Bitters
• lemon zest twist (garnish)

What you do:

• Stir all ingredients over ice
• Strain into a chilled martini glass
• Garnish with a lemon zest twist
• Enjoy

While it may not be named “The Calgary”, Canada’s most beloved cocktail was invented in Calgary. Many Canadians could not imagine their weekend brunch without Calgary’s famous creation, The Caesar.

The Calgary Caesar

What you need:

• 2 oz vodka
• 2 big dashes Worchestershire sauce
• 1 big dash hot sauce (your choice) or more if you like it spicy
• 2 dashes Black Cloud Garden Party Bitters
• 1/2 tsp horseradish
• 4 – 6 oz Clamato juice (I used Motts)
• Lime wedge (squeeze in at the end and/or use as garnish)
• Pickled beans (for garnish)
• Salty Paloma Maria Rimmer (a Canadian company)

What you do:

• Wet the rim of your Collins (tall) glass with water or lime juice and roll it in the Salty Paloma Maria rimmer
• Fill rimmed glass with ice
• Add all ingredients (except garnish) to a cocktail shaker filled with ice
• Shake shake shake
• Strain into the Collins glass filled with ice
• Squeeze in the lime wedge
• Add the pickled beans
• Ponder for a few seconds how is it that land-locked Calgary invented a cocktail with clam juice in it, then ignore
• Enjoy your Calgary Caesar!

Montreal sees not one but two cocktails named after the bilingual city. Surprisingly, both of them are modern creations, so I’m not sure why they share the same name – who knows?

Version 1: Montréal – a French creole twist on a Manhattan, from 2009

Montréal

What you need:

• 1 1/2 oz rye
• 1/2 oz red vermouth (you can use 3/4 oz if you prefer it sweeter)
• 1/4 oz Pernod Anise liqueur
• 3 dash Angostura Bitters
• orange twist (garnish)

What you do:

• Stir all ingredients over ice
• Strain into a chilled coupe glass
• Garnish with an orange twist
• Enjoy

Version 2: The Montreal (Official City Cocktail) was created in 2017 as a collaboration between 15 city bartenders with a “hope not only to inspire the people of our great city and those of other communities across the globe to give life and to embrace the Montreal cocktail as a modern-day classic”.

Note: Suze is only available in Quebec at the SAQ. I am begging the LCBO to start carrying it in Ontario. A big thank you to my Instagram friend Mike (@mmydrinks) for creating this cocktail for me, as he had access to Suze.

The Montreal (Official City Cocktail)

What you need:

• 3/4 oz gin
• 3/4 oz red vermouth (you can use 3/4 oz if you prefer sweeter)
• 3/4 oz Aperol
• 3/4 Suze gentian liqueur
• grapefruit zest twist (garnish)

What you do:

• Stir all ingredients over ice
• Strain into a chilled Nick and Nora glass
• Garnish with a grapefruit twist
• Enjoy

While Newfoundland might not get as much attention as some of the rest of our provinces, it does have a product all its own, SCREECH! It’s origins are Jamaican, as Jamaican rum was shipped to Newfoundland in exchange for salt cod (somehow I think we got the better end of that deal)!

If you have ever been to Newfoundland, a tradition is to “kiss the cod” after a shot of screech. This more sophisticated cocktail is from Canoe Restaurant in Toronto, and gives screech a cosmopolitan turn.

Newfoundland Screech Manhattan (recipe created by Canoe Restaurant)

What you need:

• 2 oz Newfoundland screech rum
• 1 oz Dolin red vermouth
• 3 drops Angostura bitters

What you do:

• Add all ingredients to a shake with ice
• Shake until combined and strain into a rocks glass with fresh ice
• Garnish with Luxardo maraschino cherries on a skewer

Wherever you are in the country this weekend, enjoy your Canada Day long weekend! Salute!