HiredBelly.com – 3.21.11
Tales of the Cocktail Vancouver: Looking Forward to Next Year
We’ve been taking stock of last week’s cocktail infused days, sifting through images and notes from Tales of the Cocktail—the New Orleans success story brought to Vancouver by TOTC founder Ann Tuenneman. Kudos to the contingent of savvy folks behind the Canadian Professional Bartenders Association—such as Jay Jones—who brought to this event an energy that wowed everyone—and certainly made more than a few people elsewhere sit up and take note of Lotusland’s blossoming cocktail culture.
NOLA meets LOLA
I approached the Vancouver edition of Tales of the Cocktail with some trepidation. After all, it’s one thing to go to a wine tasting and adroitly expel into a bucket. But are we really going to start spitting Mai Tais and Whisky Sours? Probably not, we thought.
Tales of the Cocktail has become something of a New Orleans institution in its brief ten year history—so we weren’t surprised to find TOTC’s first on the road edition (a big nod to Vancouver’s blossoming cocktail scene) came with a healthy dose of pizzazz and polish—not to mention a line-up of serious sponsors.
Right off the bat, registration yielded an embarrassment of swag, including Victoria Gin’s Twisted and Bitter Orange—arguably the best thing to come out of the provincial capital since Rogers Creams—and maybe, dare we suggest, even more healthy…
We picked up a couple of summer contenders here (that we’ll revisit once things warm up) and managed to get away unscathed, probably because we had only one Appalachian Flip, a creamy concoction of soon-to-arrive Root (made from sassafras, sarsaparilla, birch bark and other roots and herbs) with pale ale and egg white. Kind of like root beer for grown ups. Be warned.
Even if BCLS doesn’t quite have the bottle yet, here’s the recipe, courtesy of Root’s makers: Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction…
Appalachian Flip
Ingredients:
2 Parts ROOT
1/2 Part Rich Demerara Syrup
1 Whole Egg
Pale Ale
Directions:
Dry shake (without ice)
Then shake again with ice, and double strain.
Pour into fizz glass and top with pale ale
—
HiredBelly.com, 3.21.11