Happy Hour: The Beehini

Cocktail Correspondent: Weldon Gardner Hunter

Today's Happy Hour feature cocktail at Barra 41 (2407 West 41st Avenue) is the Beehini (officially named at 4:15 pm on Saturday, August 17). Gin, Housemade Spiced Honey Syrup, Lemon Juice, with Tahini rim:

Also known as The Wasp's Elbows, it's a variation of the Bee's Knees. It's obviously spicy, and even a little nutty. I'm really impressed with this drink, and I should mention I had a hand in inventing it. Tell me when you're in the neighbourhood sometime and I'll tell you the tale. 

In the meantime, if you get down here before 5pm, it's $10 bucks. Feliz Apicultura!

Lounge Act

 Cocktail Correspondent: Weldon Gardner Hunter

Thursday, August 15: It's summer break! No more laptops, no more books, no more student's dirty looks (when they get their essays back). It's been a week of sleeping in and then deciding what to do at 315pm. The life of Riley, in other words.

I haven't written about The Sylvia Hotel Lounge (1154 Gilford Street, Vancouver) and it's time to correct this. This is the pre-eminent cocktail bar in the city, appearing in 1954 in one of the most appealing corners of the city - West of Denman, at the entrance to Stanley Park. Brick and English Ivy, if that's your thing:

The Sylvia is where I once drank 4 or 5 Brandy Alexanders on a long-ago New Year's Day (not eve). Even though the official drink of the Algonquin Round Table is not on the menu, it's the kind of venerable room where the bartender knows what a Brandy Alexander is if you request one. Try that just about anywhere else (I have and it never ends well).

This time, I've decided to try The Vancouver Cocktail: the signature drink of the Sylvia. 

Long Table Gin, Vermouth, Benedictine, Bitters

Strong & stiff at the first sip, the vermouth leads and the benedictine follows with a bit of honey/ginger/citrus aftercare. Medicinal, in the way that Dr. Pepper is. It’s a serious 1950s cocktail that you should take your time with. Beautiful golden brown colour and notes of brown sugar - but not sweet.

It’s a complex cocktail, I’ve sipped my way into enjoying it and I’ve enjoyed sipping it. Honestly, there's something magical about this drink. 

There's a duo  playing “Overjoyed” by Stevie Wonder. The rest of their repertoire has been predictable but pleasant. "Girl from Ipanema" was nice, but what about "Corcovado"? I have a momentary fantasy that they might play "The Lure of the Rockpools" by the Marine Girls. Overdue to be added to lounge act setlists. 

The Sylvia is a great cocktail room. It’s actually quite spacious, but still intimate because it's comprised of smaller sections. I’m at the bar, at the far east end because there is a priceless view out the windows of English Bay. Otherwise, your back is to the beauty.

The Sylvia is a perfect spot for solitaires: people drinking wine, reading, scribbling things in notebooks.  I wasn’t alone, though – I was joined by a little fruit fly who stayed out of harm’s way. And later, by a guy who set up right next to me with his own laptop despite all the empty seats spreading to the horizon. Is this hotdesking?

As the sun sets and the tourists and sophisticated locals set off, I decide to order a Brandy Alexander for old time's sake. To be honest, I always order one when I'm at the Sylvia. I figure it's a bold choice for the middle of August, but I've never been one to worry about seasonal sumptuary laws:

I get the feeling that ordering a Brandy Alexander at the Sylvia in 1954 might have caused some looks askance. Would I have been perceived as a softie, one of the smart set, an egghead? Perhaps I would have caused a menagerie of Mad Men to join me in sipping this snowstorm in a glass. Perhaps we would have started singing the Devil's Music, "Sh-Boom" by the Crew Cuts. 

Ghostly cocktail glasses clink. It's summer at the Sylvia.

Where Seagulls Dare

 Cocktail Correspondent: Weldon Gardner Hunter

It's August Long Weekend and I'm in Nanaimo, staying at the Dorchester. I'm here for the pleasure of getting out of town and finding a salubrious spot to work on my end-of-summer-semester dossier: marking final projects, creating final exams, etc.

I'm also here for cocktails. I settled on Melange (223 Commercial St, Nanaimo), mainly because it's the closest place to the hotel. Also, there's not a lot of cocktail spots in the small, long city, and the internet told me this was the place to go. The patio was hopping all day as I passed by doing my tourist rounds*, but I waited until 8pm to saunter in. 

The interior space is vast and feels industrial. A long dining room and a large backroom. High ceilings. The acoustics in the room are echoey and the bar meant I had my back to all the action, which was slightly disorienting.

I began with the intriguing "Melange #7," advertised as a "uniquely curated premium cocktail." The bartender asks what you like, and works with that. However, "no requests"! As you'd expect, I set my flavour preference as "fruity" and received this concoction:

Arbutus Distillery Amaro #4, Housemade Blueberry Syrup, Honey Syrup, a "smidge" of Absinthe, Pineapple Juice, Lemon Juice. A true mélange. A fruit punch that is balanced by the boozy bitterness of the Amaro. I'll call this a "Fast Ferry" because I didn't worry about sipping it slowly.

Nanaimo needs to name a cocktail after the local Olympic hero, Ethan Katzberg. The day of my visit, the  burly hammer-thrower won gold in Paris. The waiter grew up with him and was texting with him after the win. I felt a slight brush with fame. The great Peter Culley dubbed Nanaimo "Hammertown," and Ethan K has fulfilled the prophecy...

It was time for a second drink. I ordered one of their house cocktails, "While You Were Away":

Wayward Raspberry Gin, Lychee Liqueur,  Negori Sake, Lemon, Honey
 

Subtle, not too sweet. Tart. A little Brambly even, what with the raspberry gin as the main event. Nice layered delivery of all the ingredients, like a series of notes your secretary gives you when you come back to work.

And so I left. Coming back from a brief stroll around the Old Quarter, I encountered a protective mama seagull raising her cute baby on a rooftop overlooking Chapel and Front Streets. She'd seen me earlier in the day and swooped, and she did it again in the evening:

Seag Seag Sputnik

I asked for it: when I walked by earlier she had chirped at me from the rooftop, and I chirped back cheekily. As a local, she didn't take to kindly to my out-of-town ways and made sure I knew whose manor it was. I retreated to the Dorchester and have taken a vow of silence to avoid future seagull skirmishes.

May her and her fledgling flourish high over the skies of Nanaimo Harbour. 

* Which included a stop at Well-Read Books, where I purchased Try Anything Twice by Jan Struther, a writer whose short, witty essays will please anyone who likes these posts.