There are two types of drinkers in the world, those who drink gin, and those who used to drink gin. It’s the most divisive of the spirits simply because everyone seems to have had at least a brief affair with gin’s juniper-y goodness. Often times, these affairs are volatile and intense with a finite and messy conclusion, usually involving an insincere oath to ‘never. drink. again.’
My main reason for heading to New Orleans was to reload for another year; I am struggling to keep up in the mixology arms race that Vancouver has become. Attending Tales of the Cocktail is like downloading a decade’s worth of dedicated and discerning ‘study’ of cocktails and spirits onto you brain in just a few days. For me it was also a chance to discover what was so special about the Sazerac once and for all.
Ask ten of Vancouver’s better bartenders to name their favourite cocktail and you’ll likely get ten different answers, but ask them each to list their top five and I’d bet that only one will appear in all ten; the Sazerac.
Ryan has been slinging drinks across the nation for nigh on 10 years now, beginning his journey in Halifax where he was born and raised. After a brief stopover in Toronto he ended up in Vancity four years ago, plying his trade at the venerable Hamilton Street Grill ever since.
A cocktail geek through and through, Ryan mantains a blog on the subject at Mixed and Malted and is the founder of a series of cocktail and spirit related event seminars known as “Spirits of the West” which her runs from behind the wood at the HSG.
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