Canada is abuzz with Will and Kate’s impending visit.  Love ‘em or hate ‘em, it’s a stimulating exercise to consider how you might encapsulate “the Canadian experience” in 9 days of travel and activities.

In last Saturday’s Globe & Mail, Beppi Crosariol presents his alternate (and more spirituous) Canadian tour for the royal couple.

I’d start them off on Vancouver Island for a visit to the splendid little Victoria Gin distillery on a pastoral country road just outside British Columbia’s capital. Royals like their gin, lord knows, and Victoria Gin is superb, with a prominent note of star anise and delectably viscous texture. You can find it in most provinces for about $50. At the very least, Will and Kate might be moved by the label’s photographic tribute to Will’s ancestor, Queen Victoria.

Thanks for having us on your tour, Beppi!

Read the rest of the article here.  And to stage your own Canadian royal tour, get Tom Tierney William & Kate paper dolls here!

We are inching our way across this vast country and happy to report that Victoria Gin has now flooded the SAQ!  Find yourself a bottle here.

Anna and Phil were in Montréal for an intimate launch last week at Restaurant Jane on Notre Dame.  We were delighted to launch at Jane – a place that shares our commitment to quality and “keeping it real”.  We were also delighted by the local response.

Merci Québec et longue vie à l’esprit moderne de Victoria!

The International Indian Film Academy Awards are coming to Toronto this month and the Fairmont Royal York will be welcoming international delegates, fans, and cinema royalty in style.

Among other treats, and as featured in the Hindustan Times(!), their Library Bar will be shaking up a Raj Kapoor in celebration.

Raj Kapoor

2 oz Victoria Gin
1 oz dry vermouth
1 oz lemon juice
1 oz simple syrup
1/2 teaspoons fresh grated ginger

Shaken on ice and strained into a chilled martini glass. Garnished with crystallized ginger and slivered red jalapeno.

Catch Raj at the Bar, and other Royal York IIFA events, June 22-26.

We had an outstanding time at the Island Chefs’ Collaborative Food Fest last Sunday.  Three Cheers for local food, farms, and firewater!

… and Family:  Valerie, Bryan & Anna at The ICC Food Fest

We spent the afternoon muddling ourselves delirious with a mountain of beautiful cucumbers from Sun Wing.  As requested, here is the recipe so you can muddle your own:

The Butchart Garden** (aka, Sun Wing Delight!)

2 oz Victoria Gin
2 oz fresh pressed apple juice
2-3 pieces of cucumber
1/2 oz elderflower cordial
+ a dash of bitters, if you like

Muddle cucumber, add remaining ingredients, and shake with ice.  Strain & garnish with a slice of cucumber or a flower.

A sea of ICC oysters & a Butchart Garden **first created and named by Vancouver’s Shangri-la Hotel for Vic Gin

[We have other swank, but totally doable, cocktails here.]

Meanwhile, in Toronto, Tipicular Fixin’s was spoiling guests at Toronto Taste.

For their Rhubarb Caramel Lemonade, the Team used rhubarb from a farm in Innerkip, Ontario, and edible flowers from the Under Ground Organics farm in Millgrove, Ontario.  They looked and tasted beautiful.

Thank you for joining us…thinking global & celebrating local!

[& Kudos to Carmen from Charelli's for the first couple of pics.]

In case you haven’t made it out to our Distillery, here’s a small taste our small-scale bottling/labelling operation.

Here we fill the bottles, cap them, and use a heat shrink to seal them up, one by one.

We have our labels printed on a roll that fits into our little labelling machine.  We turn that hand crank et Voila!

Finally, each bottle is batch numbered by hand.  If the numbers look a little different each time, it’s because we’re proud to be a family of diverse penmanship and all like to share in the task.

That’s it!  Hand-sealed, hand-labelled, hand-batched, with a complex handmade spirit inside.  Come see for yourself!

… and pickles leeks(!) for the Oakville’s Girls Night Out event.  Tipicular Fixin’s Whitney and Trevor have graciously agreed to share their dynamo cocktail recipes here.

Rhubarb Lemonade

1 oz Victoria Gin
1 oz lemon juice
1 oz rhubarb syrup
10 dashes twister & bitter

Place ingredients in a shaker filled with cracked ice. Shake vigorously and strain into your favourite martini glass.

If you’re feeling energetic, Whitney suggests hitting your local farmers’ market for an edible organic flower garnish – and for the rhubarb for your homemade syrup, of course.

Moonstone #3

2 oz Victoria Gin
1/4 oz pickling liquid
1 Tipicular Fixin’s pickled Wild Leek

Place Gin and pickling liquid in a shaker filled with cracked ice.  Shake and strain into a martini glass or coupette. Garnish with a pickled wild leek.

Every cocktail has a story. Trevor shares:

The wild leeks we picked ourselves from a forest on my Aunt’s 100 acre farm in Midland and we then pickled them earlier in the week.  It was a ton of work, but loads of fun.  We garnished our Victoria Gin Classic Martinis with them and the crowd loved it.  Some asked that we add some of the pickle juice to make Dirty/Gibson Martinis and we decided to name it Moonstone #3, Moonstone Road and Line 3 is where the farm is located in Midland, Ontario.

Thanks for sharing your creativity and for making us shine, you two!

Hey Ontario, have you seen the early summer edition of the LCBO’s glossy Food & Drink?

Our Uncle Bob got in there to wax lyrical about deluxe Gins and reveal why he became a member of the family.

After one sip I was infatuated, after the second I was in love. And after the third, I bought part of the company. Such is the story of my shotgun relationship with Victoria Spirits, the little engine that could from Vancouver Island.

… an elegant and nuanced gin that is only gently evocative of juniper berries, with easily identifiable notes of almond, star anise and rose petal on the remarkably smooth, long finish. The delicate spirit is the perfect drink for gin-o-philes as well as those who never imagined they would join the cult.

If Gin drinking is a cult, indeed, Bob Blumer may be the leader.  Cheers!

Victoria Gin will be at Oakville Girl’s Night Out on May 25th, in the capable hands of Trevor Burnett.

Trevor mixes love at our 2010 Toronto Cocktail Competition

Join Trevor at the Oakville Conference Centre for Vic Gin samples and an evening of fashion, food, drink, and entertainment… all while raising money for the Mississauga Food Bank.  Details here.

There’s nothing like political turbulence to make us want a drink.  Knowing you’ll agree, we hope you’ll join us for a post-election nip of Victoria Gin, and copious other bites and sips, at Ottawa’s premiere gourmet event, Bon Appetit.

Touted as Ottawa’s “best cocktail party of the year”, Gin will be flowing on May 3rd at Aberdeen Pavilion as over 2,000 guests indulge to raise money for hunger and poverty relief.  Sounds ‘win-win’ to us.

Now get out there and earn your drink –  Vote!

Whatever you think of the Royals, we love a happy marriage — G&T, PB&J, R&R…  Some things are meant to be together.  Seizing any opportunity to overdress, we also enjoy pomp and circumstance.  And with Will’s fresh-faced great-great-great-great granny on our bottle, we’ve gotta raise a glass.

Is that a family resemblance?  It’s the nose, right?

So what to drink to celebrate the hats, the love, the pomp, and the matrimony this weekend?  We’ve got just the thing for you to put on.

Royal Blue Moon / aka: something old, new, bubbly, and blue

(makes two, of course)

4 oz Vic Gin
2 dashes of crème de violette
2 oz dry vermouth
2 dashes of twisted & bitter, orange bitters
bubbly

Shake your new Vic Gin with your blue crème de violette, that old vermouth in the fridge, and bitters with ice.  Pour into champagne glasses (ours are oldies) & top with bubbly, which you may have to borrow from a friend — tell them we sent you.  (We also borrowed a silver tray from our Auntie Marnie and believe the Queen would approve.)

Will, Kate, we wish you all the best, including some Vic Gin during your upcoming Canadian honeymoon.  Who knows, Charles & Camilla got lucky and anything can happen in a blue moon.