There are more all-Canadian (all ridiculous) dress-up shots on Bill’s facebook album.

As well as playing dress-up, we toured our pals around the Distillery and served up three cocktails, each highlighting a different spirit.

We challenged our tasters to name a cocktail featuring our Left Coast Hemp Vodka.  Here’s presenting “Barbed Wire”, christened by Kim Harrison.  Kim won herself a bottle of Vodka!  (Rick won a bottle of bitters for his runner-up “Hey Rhube”.)  And you all get the cocktail recipe!

Barbed Wire

2 oz Left Coast Hemp Vodka
3.5 oz pressed rhubarb (freeze chunks of fresh rhubarb, thaw & blend)
0.75 oz simple syrup (dissolve sugar in equal parts water and cool)
A few healthy dashes of twisted & bitter cocktail bitters
A splash (or squeeze) of fresh orange juice

Shake with ice and strain.  Garnish with an orange twist and a mint sprig.

We also served up The Butchart Garden — with our Victoria Gin — and The Hunting Party — with our Oaken Gin.  Both are on our recipe page.

Missed the event?  Check out our Virtual Distillery Tour and pop out to the Distillery in “RL” on weekends and holidays.

Ode to the Road will be up for the rest of the season, and we’re always on weekends and holidays.  See you soon.

We have been invited to pour and will be there with bells on.  Join us!   February 12th-15th at the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel.  Tickets are still available here!   Come meet (makers) Peter and Phil at the “Meet the Makers” pouring on February 13th.

Distillers Phil & Peter: Brothers-in-law, partners in crime (& housemates!)

Our barkeep in shining armour, Solomon Siegel, will be there with us as well, making his West Coast Cocktail, which debuted at our first Tales of the Cocktail in New Orleans.  Here it is again to whet your palate:

West Coast Cocktail

2 oz Victoria Gin
3/4 oz Martini Bianco vermouth
4 dashes liquor Strega

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with smoked salmon lox and smoked applewood cheddar. Dip the garnish in the drink before you eat it.

Mr. West Coast, Solomon Siegel, stirs the pot

We know Jacob Briars’ bitters seminar will be fascinating and if that’s not bitter enough, Tales Vancouver 2012 will climax with a Valentine’s Day Bitter Bash, which reads like a film noir femme fatale:

Are you in love with Bitters? Or are you Bitter that you’re not in love? [...] You don’t need romance on Valentine’s Day– you need bitters! Let go of sugary traditions in favour of bitter ones and lose yourself in Campari, Aperol, Cynar and more. Allow the bitterness to wash over you in contagious cocktails created by your all-star bartenders, inspired by these classic spirits that are anything but sweet.

Hear, hear.  And on this bitter topic, all Tales Vancouver attendees will be going home with a bottle of our bitters in their prize pack — bottles which will soon be collectibles cause we’re revamping the whole look for the next batch.

Love her and leave her, we need a new muse

Vancouver, you are pretty special, we gotta love ya… ’til the bitter end.

CTV was there to capture his first taste of our Craigdarroch Spirit.  Check it out!

To recap, Jim says:

Juicy… I’m salivating, beautiful. … It’s a part of the colour of the Island.

We say: Phew!  And, as the Brits say, we’re dead chuffed you came to visit us, Jim.  Cheers!

First off, we’re at the Victoria Whisky Festival pouring our baby girl: Craigdarroch Spirit.  She’s growing up beautifully.  Come for an formal introduction or to meet her again — January 19-22 at the Hotel Grand Pacific.

Then, from 12-15 February, find us at the second Tales of the Cocktail in Vancouver at the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel.  As Tales’ founder Ann Tuennerman affirms:

Vancouver is such a rich, vibrant cocktail city. We couldn’t help but come back for a second year.

We’re participating at Tales’ Meet the Maker event on Monday the 13th, 12-2pm and pouring everything we’ve got!

The first five rows will get whet (ahem).  Hope you can join us!

In the true Spirit of Victoria, they’re throwing a cocktail party to get hitched.  Solomon Siegel will be mixing magic through our party.  Here’s his nuptial cocktail list (many on our recipe pages and more coming soon):

The Hartland Cocktail
Vic Gin, Poire William, Amaro Montenegro, grapefruit bitters, lemon juice & bubbly

Champagne Cocktail
Bubbly, sugar & bitters

The Aviation
Vic Gin, Luxardo Maraschino, lemon juice & crème de violette

Gin, Tea & Tonic
Vic Gin, green tea, tonic water & orange bitters

Martini
Vic Gin, vermouth & orange bitters

Affinity
Scotch, sweet vermouth, dry vermouth& bitters

Penicillin
Blended Scotch, smoky Scotch, lemon juice, honey syrup & Giffard ginger

Scotch Old Fashioned
Scotch, sugar & bitters

Ask me how do I feel
Ask me now that we’re cosy and clinging
Well sir, all I can say, is if I were a bell I’d be ringing!

Wishing you all the precious gift of time this holiday season.  May you spend it with the ones you love.

Phil and Valerie bust a gut at our table, as Bryan pours on

We learned a lot, made new friends, and hosted a number of sessions and tours — including our Dr. Strangelove-themed Gin seminar with Solomon Siegel, enjoyed by Canadian House & Home’s Amy Rosen, among others.

To relive the magic, here are two featured cocktails from the event.  The first by Solomon of Hotel Rialto’s Veneto and the second by Moses McIntee, winner of our 2010 cocktail competition and so delicious, it’s worth reposting.

The Rialto Cocktail

60 ml  Victoria Gin
15 ml  Giffard Lichi-Li liqueur
10 ml fresh lemon juice
15 ml Silk Road Lapsang Souchong syrup*
2-3 dashes Bitterman’s Xocolatl Mole bitters

*To make the Lapsang Souchong syrup brew very strong Lapsang Souchong tea (steep over an hour) and then make a 1:1 simple syrup using the tea instead of water.

Stir with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.  Garish with a piece of very dark chocolate

Solomon shares The Rialto with the thirsty and adventurous

The Olde Vic

1.5 oz Victoria Gin
0.5 oz Campari
0.5 oz burnt Earl Grey syrup*
3 dashes twisted & bitter

*for syrup, heat 200ml water & 200ml sugar until dissolved. Add 2 tea bags (or loose equivalent) & boil for 5 mins. Let cool & remove bags.

Combine ingredients in mixing glass with ice.  Stir until chilled. Strain over new ice in an old fashioned glass & garnish with lemon peel.

See you all next year!

Here’s the recipe, courtesy of Lauren and the team at Kale & Nori Culinary Arts — the fab boutique catering and events co.

Willy’s Fizz
1.5 oz Victoria Gin
1 oz black cardamom & smoked black pepper syrup
0.75 oz lemon juice
2 dashes Bittered Sling “Peach & Pepper” Bitters
1 oz Parson’s Farm William’s Pear purée (roasted)
Soda

Shake all ingredients (except the soda) together, strain into a Collins glass with ice, and top with soda.  Swizzle, stick a straw in it, and let your taste buds melt with joy.

Booze on the brain, Shane Rhodes as pictured in the TC

As Adrian Chamberlain recently wrote in the Times Colonist, the idea arose from a chat in Shane’s favourite pub about the poet’s vicious cycle:

They drink beer and discuss poetry, which inspires them to write poetry.  Meagre earnings from this enables them to buy more beer, talk more poetry and… well, you get the picture. [...] he realized he could “eliminate the middleman” by approaching purveyors of booze directly, in exchange for the dedications.  This takes the pressure off selling poems (via books and magazines) in order to purchase alcohol.

It’s brilliant and, as quoted in the article, for Valerie:

this is what people have to do to survive in the arts.

Last Friday, Shane shared his intoxicating poetry with a crowd at Moka House in Victoria.  Catch him reading his “Final Call” on youtube.  “Cocktails: In the Beginning”, dedicated to Victoria Spirits, is in his book, Err.