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As the first competitor quickly approaches the wood for their chance to win the first ever Cocktail Kitchen at The Refinery and a trip to California, we can’t help but look back at the highlights from the 4 finalists’ performances over the past 6 months. During July’s launch month, David Bain of South Granville’s West [...]

by Lauren Mote The Publican Magazine, Winter 2010 Issue These days, it seems that my perception on the sparkling wine industry is a bit of a child’s teeter-totter; do I go up on the left, and embrace the single vineyard, single variety champagne, or do I go down on the right, and follow my instincts? [...]

by Lauren Mote This is a two-part recipe that incorporates some interesting ingredients, adapted from an old-school Jerry Thomas “California Milk Punch” recipe, accompanied by a little food-science-y side dish using the leftovers from punch production. Phew. So… we begin. Don’t be frightened by Lauren Mote’s use of vodka, this is for a cocktail competition [...]

by Lauren Mote & Jonathan Chovancek This was one of the coolest things I’ve created. With the help of a brilliant coconut marshmallow recipe from Jonathan, I manipulated the ingredients to satisfy the flavour profile I wanted. These marshmallows are super fragrant, soft in texture, an essence of tea and violets, and a long absinthe [...]

Although the posting to reflect on the entire experience of the competition itself, here is the recipe for my cocktail, the Nolet Pratt, which won second place on Tuesday night in the National Barchef Competition. The Nolet Pratt cocktail was inspired by the deconstructed tasting note for the entire Dutch region. As the cocktail itself [...]

My previous post on Almonds & Orgeat suggested that boozy cocktails and protein replacements were the ideal ways to consume almonds in this world. Not the case. I just made the most delicious Horchata, that we will be consuming tomorrow at The Cocktail Kitchen Series (if you haven’t already bought your ticket, do so by [...]

Did you ever have a Mai-Tai and think, “holy shit, this is the best drink I’ve ever had….” well, you’d only think that if you’re into well-made “tiki” cocktails most likely, but there’s that distinguishable flavour in the glass that will always make the cocktail impossible to duplicate on the same thirst-quenching level if you [...]

I had to fight to get on CityTV’s Breakfast Television, not because I suck, but they aren’t really interested in “cocktails” and booze – one of those things I suppose they’d like to avoid promoting at 7:00am, which makes tons of sense. So, when I pitched the idea of non-alcoholic “awesomeness” to celebrate summer, like [...]

by Lauren Mote (all photos by the gifted Melissa Gidney of Melissa Gidney Photography) Although completely inspired by Lewis Carrol’s book, the adventures shared on June 06 were hardly of a predictable fashion. In fact, take the concept of Alice in Wonderland, put an adult spin (well a brunch appropriate adult spin) and you’ve got [...]

by Lauren Mote The hallmark of contemporary spirit distillation in the United States is arguably the most delicious – American Whiskey. Its history has not been extremely well documented, but nonetheless a significant timeline, coinciding with a rich American history, tells a long tale of whiskey’s evolution from a “xxx” marked moonshine bottle in “Spaghetti [...]