Drink of the Week: High Stick Cosmo

Usually when bottles arrive at my doorstep they are shaped like bottles. Not so my new “bottle” of High Stick Vodka, a Canadian wheat vodka packaged in a cylinder of hand-blown glass shaped like a hockey stick. Arriving at Alberta liquor stores just in time for the Olympics, this newcomer in what some might argue is an over-saturated vodka market aims to be “perfect in an ice-cold shooter or mixed as a martini, Bloody Mary or a White Russian.”

High Stick Vodka gives new meaning to the phrase, “He shoots, he scores!”

Let’s be honest though. Vodka is vodka, right? It may be made from all-natural ingredients and filtered 18 times (!) in an artisan distillery, but the reason we’re going to buy High Stick Vodka is because we’re Canadian and it comes in an almost life-size glass hockey stick. It’s freakin’ cool. In fact, it’s “mount as the centrepiece on the top shelf of my home bar” cool. Or, “throw an Olympics bash and do shooters from the end of the hockey stick” cool. Forget about that other vodka in the skull — this one comes in a hockey stick!!

Since shooters won’t appeal to everyone at your Glad I’m Not In Sochi Party, why not shake up some Cosmos? They’re boozy, yummy and festive and happen to be just the right colour to cheer on Canada. Now, if only someone would make a sombrero-shaped tequila bottle…

A Cosmo is tasty, and red. Important considerations when cheering on Team Canada at the Olympics.

High Stick Cosmo

• 1-1/2 oz High Stick Vodka
• 1/2 oz Cointreau
• 3/4 oz cranberry juice (since there are now, like, 45 different kinds of cranberry juice, I accidentally purchased one with lime)
• 1/4 to 1/2 oz lime, to taste (I only used 1/4 oz, see above bullet)
• Orange twist garnish

In a cocktail shaker filled with ice combine all ingredients and shake. Fine strain into a chilled martini glass and garnish with the orange twist.