Drink of the Week: Departure Cocktail

Posted on March 2, 2012 | Leave a comment

This time of year, we in Calgary look longingly across the snowy Rocky Mountains toward B.C. and, specifically Victoria, where trees are leafing out and flowers are blooming. To tempt us land-locked, green-starved, prairie-dwellers into hopping the first flight west, Tourism Victoria hosted a seafood and cocktail affair at Catch Restaurant & Oyster Bar last week. On the menu: lots of news about all the great goings-on in B.C.’s capital city, plus a whack of delicious seafood appys and one amazing signature cocktail featuring Victoria Gin.

One sip and you'll want to depart for Victoria. Image courtesy Tourism Victoria.

The Departure Cocktail was created by Katie McDonald from Veneto Tapa Lounge in the Hotel Rialto. I love how the lychee liqueur stands out, just enough for my palate to take notice. It pairs gloriously with the gin and lemon juice, too. Let’s call it the taste of Victoria’s spring, in a glass.

The Departure Cocktail

  • 2 oz Victoria Gin
  • 3/4 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice
  • 1/2 oz lychee liqueur
  • 1/2 oz honey syrup*
  • 1 dash lemon bitters (optional)

Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a ribbon of cucumber.
(*To make the honey syrup: 1 part honey to 1 part boiling water. Stir and cool.)

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And the Oscar goes to … I couldn’t care less

Posted on February 26, 2012 | Leave a comment

I can’t recall the precise moment I stopped caring about the Oscars. It was sometime after I had kids and long after I last tuned in for the entire ceremony, back in 1999 when Gwyneth Paltrow won best actress for her role in Shakespeare in Love. The truth is, I’m so busy reading The Cat in the Hat and watching Toy Story 3 every Saturday afternoon, I just can’t keep up with all the moving adult dramas and the up-and-coming starlets and the obscure nomination categories (sound editing? I mean, really?). The only Oscar-nominated movie I’ve even seen this year is The Help and I went only because I’d read the book.

Part of me wishes I’d spent January and February rushing out to watch The Descendants and Tree of Life and Midnight in Paris. Instead, I made it to one matinee, the digitally remastered Beauty and the Beast. In 3-D! It’s the kind of movie you take a six-year-old to see, and though Belle does a wonderful turn as an ingenue who brushes off the village brute’s advances and instead falls for a Beast (who happens to be a prince!), you kind of know going in she’s not going to be nominated for best actress.

It's a gooder, but definitely not Oscar-worthy.

So tonight, instead of tuning in to the Oscars, I’m planning a date with Phil Keoghan, of The Amazing Race. I may not have time for the best of Hollywood’s big screen offerings, but I always find time for an Emmy-winning reality TV show.

Forget the Oscars, I'm tuning in to The Amazing Race!

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Drink of the week: Prickly Pear Margarita

Posted on February 24, 2012 | Leave a comment

Prickly pears are a big deal in Arizona. They are not, as you might guess, pears with a spiky skin, but rather a kind of cactus that flowers every spring before growing a red fruit that can be harvested and turned into a syrup. It’s this bright purple-red syrup that then gets drizzled over pancakes, added to salsas and used as a key ingredient in the state’s go-to cocktail, the prickly pear margarita.

Don't let the garish colour disuade you. This really is a great drink!

I sampled my first prickly pear margarita at Serrano’s Mexican restaurant in Chandler, a community in the greater Phoenix area. I liked it so much I immediately bought a 12 oz bottle of Cheri’s Desert Harvest Prickly Pear Cactus Syrup (you can buy it online). On its own the syrup is sweet but with a tart taste and an unusual flavour that can only be described as rather cactusy.

You can't make a prickly pear margarita without a bottle of this syrup, available online or everywhere in Arizona.

Upon my return to Calgary I shook up a couple of prickly pear margaritas in honour of National Margarita Day (Feb. 22, yes it’s for real). If you can get past the shocking neon colour this is a really great drink, as you’re basically subbing in the prickly pear syrup for agave nectar or simple syrup. It adds a nice flavour and gives me yet another way to enjoy my favourite cocktail. I hope you like it!

Prickly Pear Margarita

  • 1.5 oz tequila
  • 1/2 oz Cointreau
  • 1 oz fresh-squeezed lime juice
  • 1 oz prickly pear syrup

Shake all ingredients with ice and then strain into a margarita glass filled with crushed ice. Rim the glass with salt, if desired, and garnish with a lime wedge.

— Recipe by me!

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