Cocktail Advent

Bittermen's Buckspice Ginger Bitters

The Bittermen's line-up of bitters are some of the best in the game, and what better flavour to add a kick to your holiday bitters than ginger!

Try adding these bitters to a classic Moscow Mule to help bump up the ginger kick, or to a hot apple cider. Here's another recipe idea for you using your Catoctin Creek Rye:

Red Eye Manhattan

-2 oz Rye Whiskey

- 1 oz Sweet Vermouth

- 0.5 oz Coffee Liqueur

- 10 Drops Bittermens Buckspice Ginger Bitters

* Stir all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Strain into a coupe glass or rocks glass. Garnish with a lemon twist and enjoy!

Watch for additional recipes featuring these bitters in the upcoming days!

St. George Spiced Pear Liqueur

I have a special affinity for St. George Distilling, which is located in Alameda, California (just across the bridge from San Francisco in the Bay Area). This is one of the first distilleries I ever visited, and it left a lasting impression on me as one of the coolest producers of spirits and liqueurs I've ever visited!

The St. George Spice Pear Liqueur is a great staple for the holiday season and is extremely versatile. It is made from a base of pear brandy with the addition of fresh pear juice, whole cloves, Saigon cinnamon and a touch of organic cane sugar for a luscious liqueur packed with flavour. I enjoy this over ice as a great after dinner drink, pressed with a splash of soda if you like. This is also a great cocktail ingredient as well though, and stay tuned for some great additional recipes paired with other ingredients in the calendar!

In the mean time here's a great recipe you can try out:

Spiced Pear Margarita

-1.5 oz Reposado Tequila

-1 oz St. George Spiced Pear Liqueur

-1/2 oz Fresh Lime Juice

-1/4 oz Simple Syrup

* Combine all ingredients in a shaker or mason jar. Add ice and shake vigorously until chilled. Strain over fresh ice into a glass rimmed with a combination of salt, sugar and cinnamon. Garnish with lime or a pear slice. Enjoy!

Stay tuned for more recipe ideas to pair with ingredients later in the calendar!

Mojo Jojo Brandied Peach Slices

We wanted to include some great local Alberta producers in the calendar as well, and we love the great ingredients from Mojo Jojo! This is an awesome shop located on Edmonton's famed Whyte Avenue, and it was founded in 2011 by entrepreneur Johwanna "Jojo" Alleyne. Mojo Jojo makes an amazing assortment of pickled goods, shrubs and syrups which includes ingredients that are perfect for cocktails!

When I saw that jarred Brandied Peach Slices were on the menu, I knew we needed these for our cocktail calendar! The flavour of ripe peaches pairs perfectly with both whisky and ginger, which gave me an idea for a cocktail to make use of multiple ingredients in the calendar! Here's the recipe:

Life's a Peach

- 3 Mojo Jojo Peach Slices

- 1.5 oz Catoctin Creek Rye Whiskey

- 1/2 oz Maple Syrup

- 3 full droppers of Bittermen's Buckspice Ginger Bitters

- 1/4 oz fresh lemon juice

- 1 teaspoon St. George Spiced Pear Liqueur

* Combine all ingredients in a shaker or mason jar. Muddle the ingredients together to combine the peach flavour with all of the other goodness. Add ice and shake vigorously until chilled. Strain into a rocks glass filled with fresh ice. Add a peach slice and lemon peel for garnish. Enjoy!

These peach slices would also make for a great Mimosa addition with chilled Prosecco and peach juice in a large wine glass!

Bridgeland Distilling Spolumbo's Amaro

Bridgeland Distilling is definitely one of Alberta's most unique distilleries. Rather than starting with the classic offerings of vodka and gin that most distilleries focus on, Bridgeland Distillers decided to focus on classic spirits and liqueurs from Italy including grape brandy, limoncello and amaro!

The owners of Bridgeland Distilling agreed to bottle their Spolumbo's Amaro in a smaller format just for this advent box, which is awesome. The Spolumbo's Amaro is made from a base of grape brandy distilled in a copper pot still, which is triple distilled in small batches. This amaro was made in conjunction with Calgary legends Tony Spoletini, Tom Spoletini and Mike Palumbo, former members of the Calgary Stampeders Football Club who joined forces to create Spolumbo's Deli in Inglewood. Together with the owners of Bridgeland Distillery they combined their love for great food and drink to craft an amaro inspired by the traditions of Italy.

Amaro is a category of bitter liqueur traditionally enjoyed after a meal to help settle the stomach, which makes it perfect for indulgence of the holiday season. Enjoy this Amaro served chilled as a great way to end a meal, or try it in the following two recipes as a great holiday cocktail:

The Lambrusco Spritz

- 2 oz Lambrusco Sparkling Wine (we suggest Paltrinieri Solco Lambrusco)

- 1 oz Bridgeland Amaro

- 1/4 oz Fresh Lemon Juice

- Soda Water

* Add the Lambrusco, Bridgeland Amaro and Lemon Juice to a large wine glass. Stir to combine. Fill with ice, and top with soda water. Stir again, garnish with a lemon peel and enjoy.

Bitter Manhattan

- 2 oz Rye or Bourbon Whiskey

- 1/2 oz Bridgeland Amaro

- 1/2 oz Sweet Vermouth

- 2 dashes Angostura Bitters

* Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass. Add ice and stir until chilled. Strain into a couple glass, garnish with an orange peel (squeezing the peel over the glass first to expel the oils), add a cocktail cherry and enjoy!

I hope you enjoy this uniquely Calgary amaro!

Adami Prosecco & Oddfellow Gin

We have not one but TWO gems for you today (make sure you get both out of the box, haha).

We're going to use these to create a riff on the classic French 75 cocktail, which is always one of my favourites over the holidays. I'll include a recipe below using the St. George Spiced Pear Liqueur from earlier in the box, and you can also create a classic French 75 if you'd like! Here are the details for the Spiced Pear version:

Spiced Pear French 75

- 1 oz Gin

- 1/2 oz St. George Spiced Pear Liqueur

- 1/2 oz Fresh Lemon Juice

- Prosecco

* Add the gin, spiced pear liqueur and lemon juice to a cocktail shaker or mason jar. Add ice and shake until chilled. Strain into a Champagne flute. Top with chilled Prosecco, garnish with a lemon twist and enjoy!

The Wild Alps Vodka

Vodka is an ingredient that may be a bit overlooked these days, but it is a very versatile cocktail ingredient especially when it is a high-quality example.

The Wild Alps Vodka is certainly a worthy ingredient in your favourite vodka cocktails. Made from a combination of French wheat and pure Swiss spring water, the Wild Alps vodka is distilled multiple times to create a pure and delicious example.

We have two great recipes coming up in the calendar for you to try, so be sure to save some Wild Alps Vodka, but if you're thirsty in the mean time try this delicious vodka in a classic Martini, a Caesar if you're in a brunch mood, a Moscow Mule or a classic Cosmo! And again stay tuned in the coming days as we have some additional recipe ideas for you.

Jaya Chai Liqueur

We are very excited to include this outstanding Alberta made Chai Liqueur in the calendar for this year! Jaya is the brainchild of Faaiza Ramji, an Edmonton-based entrepreneur who was the brainchild behind the totally unique Sweet Pea Amaro that we included in last year's calendar. Jaya is bursting with chai flavour, with a perfectly balanced sweetness that makes it a great cocktail ingredient that is perfect for the holidays.

The Jaya Chai Liqueur is made from a base of Canadian oats, infused with black Assam tea leaves, and enriched with a special blend of aromatic spices including cardamom and clove, sweetened with beet sugar for a luscious texture.

Here are a few recipe ideas (including making use of your Wild Alps Vodka!):

Dirty Chai Espresso Martini

-2 oz Wild Alps Vodka

- 1 oz Jaya Chai Liqueur

- 1 oz Espresso

* Combine vodka, espresso and Jaya Chai Liqueur in a shaker with ice. Shake until chilled. Strain into a couple or martini glass. Garnish with a few espresso beans, and enjoy! Note that if you'd prefer this a little sweeter, you can add a touch of simple syrup to the cocktail, or if you want a "latte" version you can also add 1 oz of milk or milk alternative to the mix before shaking.

Chai Old Fashioned

- 2 oz Bourbon or Rye Whiskey

- 3 / 4 oz Jaya Chai Liqueur

- 2 dashes orange bitters

* Pour the whiskey, Chai liqueur and bitters into a large rocks glass. Stir to combine. Fill with ice and stir again. Garnish with an orange peel, and enjoy!

Chai Hot Toddy

-1.5 oz Jaya Chai Liqueur

- 1/2 tsp honey

- 1 tbsp loose assam tea or one teabag (this can be a different black tea if you can't find assam)

- 1 orange wedge

* Place the Jaya Chai Liqueur and honey into a heat safe mug. Sqeeze the juice from the fresh orange wedge into the mug, and then drop the wedge into the mug. Set aside. In a tea pot, steep the assam or black tea with one cup of boiling water for 3 minutes. Remove the tea bag or loose tea, and pour it into the mug with the liqueur, orange juice and honey. Stir again to combine, and enjoy your Chai Hot Toddy!

I hope you enjoy this truly unique Alberta liqueur!

Boulard Calvados Pays d'Auge "Grand Solage"

Calvados is one of my favourite categories of spirits to introduce cocktail lovers too, as it is unique and totally delicious!

Calvados Pays d'Auge is a regionally-specific and protected type of apple brandy hailing from the region of Normandy in northern France (just west of Paris). Calvados is essentially a distilled form of apple cider (although it can also be made from pears), which is made into a lovely spirit that is then aged in barrels. There are various levels of quality and aging in Calvados, and like with most barrel aged spirits the longer a Calvados aged, the darker the colour tends to get and the more complexity and "smoothness" it will often have. Calvados is a great cocktail ingredient as it retains the bright flavour and character of apples with added notes of caramel, burnt sugar, cedar and much more that come with barrel aging.

Although I love sipping Calvados neat or on the rocks on a cold winter's evening, it is also a great ingredient for cocktails. Calvados can often be substituted for either whisky or Cognac / brandy, and there are also many cocktail recipes that call for Calvados specifically. I'll include a couple of recipe ideas below for your consideration:

Calvados Mule

- 1.5 oz Calvados

- 4 oz Ginger Beer (we like Fever Tree or Fentiman's)

- 2 dashes Bittermen's Buckspice Ginger Bitters

* Add the Calvados, ginger beer and bitters to a mule mug or large glass filled with ice. Stir to combine. Add a squeeze of lime from a fresh lime wedge, and drop the wedge in the glass. Enjoy!

Calvados Side Car

- 1.5 oz Calvados

- 3/4 oz Lemon Juice

- 3 / 4 oz Cointreau

* Start by taking a chilled coupe glass (or a rocks glass can work just fine too), and moisten the edge of half of the glass with a lemon wedge, and then dip the glass into a dish of sugar to create a sugar rim (the same way you would rim a glass with salt for a margarita). Next add the Calvados, Lemon Juice and Cointreau into a shaker with ice. Shake vigorously until chilled, and then strain into the glass with the sugar rim. Garnish with an orange peel and enjoy! If you find this cocktail too dry, you can add a splash of simple syrup or a small spoon of sugar to the mix before you shake the cocktail to add sweetness.

Calvados Negroni

Callum, who is the bar manager at Proof Cocktail Bar and a talented mixologist, suggests substituting Calvados for gin in a classic Negroni cocktail! Try this riff out and see what you think:

- 1 oz Calvados

- 1 oz Campari

- 1 oz Sweet Vermouth

Add all ingredients into a mixing glass with ice. Stir to combine until chilled. Strain into a rocks glass with ice or a large ice cube. Garnish with an orange peel and enjoy! You can also add a splash of dry Oloroso Sherry to give this an extra layer of depth as well.

Watch for another recipe idea in the coming days!

Jolene's Butterfly Pea Flower Syrup

We've teamed up with the awesome Jolene Brewster, owner of Jolene's Tea House in Banff for this great cocktail featuring her Butterfly Pea Flower Syrup! Jolene has created an outstanding line-up of cocktail tea-based syrups that have excellent cocktail potential and that have been included in the "Banff Cocktail Trail" initiative.

This versatile syrup adds a beautiful colour to any cocktail (it is amazing with gin and soda for an easy highball), but we took Jolene's suggestion and used this in a Butterfly Pea Martini. See the recipe below (that also makes use of two ingredients earlier in the box) and we hope you enjoy!

Butterfly Pea Martini

- 2 oz Vodka

- 2 full droppers Bittermen's Buckspice Ginger Liqueur

- 1/2 oz Jolene's Butterly Pea Syrup

- 3 / 4 oz fresh lemon juice

- 3 leafs of fresh sage (plus one extra for garnish)

* Add all ingredients (including the 3 leaves of sage) into a cocktail shaker or mason jar. Add ice and shake vigorously to combine. Strain into a coupe glass, garnish with a fresh sage leaf on top, and enjoy!

**Note - you don't have to add the sage, but we found it added a lovely dimension of complexity and a savoury edge that was worth the effort!

Middleton's Apple & Cinnamon Bitters

We recently discovered the delicious Middleton's line of bitters, produced locally in Spruce Grove, Alberta. We especially loved the Apple & Cinnamon bitters, which have outstanding flavour and really punch through in a cocktail.

These Apple & Cinnamon bitters would be the perfect addition to a number of great cocktails and drinks including a hot apple cider, mulled wine, an Old Fashioned, the Calvados Negroni mentioned yesterday and many more. Here's another option to combine these bitters with your bottle of Calvados:

Calvados Old Fashioned

- 2 oz Calvados

- 1/4 oz Rich Simple Syrup (see instructions below)

- 2 dashes Middleton's Apple & Cinnamon Bitters

* Add all ingredients into a large rocks glass and stir to combine. Fill with ice cubes or one large cube, and stir again until chilled. Garnish with an orange peel, and enjoy!

** To make rich simple syrup, just add two cups sugar and one cup water in a sauce pan over medium-low heat. Stir until the sugar has completely dissolved, watching it so that the mixture doesn't burn. Turn off the heat and let cool, then pour into a mason jar and seal tightly. You can keep the syrup in the fridge for a month or more!

For the final day of our 12 Nights of Advent box we are making your life easy with this limited-edition bottled Old Fashioned cocktail from our friends at Confluence Distilling in Calgary! This is a true collaborative effort, made in conjunction with one of Calgary's top breweries Annex Ales. To start, Confluence took a batch of a Belgian Triple style beer from Annex ales, and distilled that into a whisky. They then aged that whisky for 3 years in oak barrels to allow it to develop depth and complexity. Next, Ross and the team at Confluence Distilling took that whisky and infused it with coffee, dark chocolate and gentian root to create a one of a kind bottled cocktail that combines the classic notes of an old fashioned cocktail with a uniquely rich and bitter edge. This Belgian Chocolate Coffee Old Fashioned will be coming out for public release with a very limited run of 500 bottles total, but we were able to get early access for those of you enjoying our 12 Nights of Cocktails Advent Box, so you are getting access before anyone else! To enjoy, just pour this cocktail over ice, add an orange peel or orange wedge if you'd like, and sip slowly by the fire.

Thank you for taking part in our 12 Nights of Cocktails pack, and we hope you've enjoyed our selections. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you and yours. All the best from our Vine Arts family to yours.

Cheers!