Cocktails, like many things, are seasonal, so, in the elbow’s up spirit of our current Canadian patriotic moment, we set out to ask independent, Canadian distilleries for recipes built around their craft spirits. Below are recipes from across Canada, one each for gin, vodka, rum, whisky and moonshine — all Canadian-made — and one alcohol-free option. You may be stirred or you may be shaken on your way to a summer sip. (And, of course, if you do make them, we urge you to drink responsibly.)
Gin
Juniper’s fondness for rocky, northern lands makes gin a likely product of Canada’s North. Yellowknife’s NWT Brewing (yes, its main business is beer) makes Forager Gin with “local cranberries, mint, tamarack, dandelion root and juniper berries.” It also shares its recipe for “the Forager Smash.”
Ingredients: one ounce Forager Gin, one ounce blueberry jam, ½ ounce lemon juice, ½ ounce simple syrup, two basil leaves, soda water and fresh lemon
Instructions: Put jam in bottom of round rocks glass. To a shaker add basil, syrup and lemon juice, then muddle. Add gin and ice and shake, then pour into glass over jam. Top with soda water and garnish with one basil leaf, half of a lemon wheel and fresh blueberries.
Moonshine
It’s difficult to imagine a more Maritime name for a spirit than Three Sheets to the Wind White Molasses Moonshine, from Still Fired Distilleries in historic Annapolis Royal, N.S. Its recipe for a “Mary Pickford” celebrates the Canadian legend of Hollywood and uses the Three Sheets ’shine and the distillery’s “Honey Shine,” made with local honey. (Check the website for a video on Pickford, and how to make the cocktail.)
Ingredients: One ounce Three Sheets to the Wind moonshine, ½ ounce Honey Shine, lemon slices, 1 ½ ounce pineapple juice, ½ ounce grenadine or cherry syrup.
Add ingredients to shaker with ice, shake, double strain into a coupe glass, garnish with a fresh cherry.
Vodka
Top Shelf Brewing, in Perth, Ont., uses local corn to make its Canadian Vodka for “a smooth, light taste with a touch of sweetness.” It’s the base of its “Red Rover” cocktail, so mix a few and call your friends over.
Ingredients: 1 ½ ounces Top Shelf Vodka, ½ ounce simple syrup, ½ ounce lemon juice, six raspberries, three dashes of orange bitters (Top Shelf makes one), four ounces apple-cranberry juice and dehydrated lemons.
Instructions: In a shaker, add simple syrup and raspberries, muddle until juices are extracted. Add remaining ingredients and fill shaker with ice. Seal and shake vigorously for 20 seconds. Strain into ice-filled Collins glass and garnish with a lemon wheel.
Whiskey
Snuggled into the temperate rainforest of Vancouver Island is Tofino Distillery, which recently released “Barrel 26” of its West Coast Whisky line. It’s “a high rye blend that includes corn and barley” that was aged five years in new-charred American Oak and promises “more heat and spice from the extra rye.” For its "Strawberry Rhubarb Whiskey Sour," first make the syrup, then make the drink.
Syrup ingredients: one cup sugar, one cup water, ½ cup frozen strawberries, ½ cup chopped rhubarb. Put all in pot over medium heat until sugar is dissolved and rhubarb is soft. Strain out fruit (save for baking or a smoothie, perhaps). Syrup keeps in fridge for up to a month.
Cocktail ingredients: 1 ½ ounces West Coast Whiskey, one ounce lemon juice, ¾ ounce strawberry rhubarb syrup, one egg white (whisked until frothy).
Instructions: Put all ingredients in a shaker, shake for 30 seconds. Add ice and shake for 30 seconds, double strain into rocks glass.
Rum
Cherry River Spiced Rum is also northern in spirit, with “dune pepper, bayberry, Labrador tea and sweet clover” blended with more familiar rum ingredients to evoke both “boreal flora and the sensual perfume of island paradises.”
Cherry River Distillery, with locations in Quebec City and in Magog, near Sherbrooke, Que., says its “Rum and Apple Punch” cocktail is a summer’s end celebration of fresh apples.
Ingredients: three ounces of ginger ale, one ounce apple cider, one ounce lemon juice and two ounces of Cherry River Spiced Rum. Mix all in a glass and add ice, decorate with a few slices of apple and lemon.
Mocktail
Once upon a time an “alcohol-free cocktail” meant a Shirley Temple. Those days are gone. At Stolen Goods Cocktail Bar in downtown Ottawa, owner/bartender Michael Campbell’s recipe for his “Bittered Red Thing” includes non-alcoholic gin and vermouth, and other ingredients that demonstrate the focus mixologists are putting into sober drinks. “This drink is our take on a non-alc negroni, emphasizing the bittered orange notes you would get from the Campari.”
Ingredients: 1 ounce Martini Vibrante Vermouth (N/A), 1 ounce H/P Juniper Blood Orange Gin (N/A), 1 ounce bittered Oolong tea (see below), ¼ ounce Pear White Balsamic Vinegar, 2 dashes orange bitters
Instructions: Stir all of the above ingredients with ice, pour over a large ice cube and garnish with orange peel. For bittered tea, vigorously boil water with cinchona bark, gentian root and coastal glehnia root before bringing the temperature down and steeping with a smoky oolong tea. (Ingredients can be found at health food specialty stores, such as Nature's pantry, but if unavailable simply substitute a “strongly brewed Oolong tea.”)