11/30/2011 - Alchemists of the Cocktail - Vancouver Cocktail Bars On World Stage - Part I
You might think of Vancouver is a city of outdoor adventure
and postcard scenery, but you can add the world's finest cocktail bars to our
list of local attractions. For our smaller urban population relative to famed
cosmopolitan centres like New York, Los Angeles, Sydney, Paris and London,
we've managed to cultivate and attract mixologists who can compete with the
world's best.Here's a two-part series on local mixologists and bartenders
(in no particular order and certainly not the only ones in this city) whose
prowess at creating unusual and exotic drinks puts Vancouver establishments in
a league with the world's best cocktail bars:
Part I...
Brad Stanton & Jonathan Smolensky - Hawksworth Restaurant - Downtown
Brad Stanton is co-founder and vice-president of the Canadian Professional Bartenders Association (CPBA), which is devoted to strengthening the standards of professional bartending across Canada. He is responsible for developing cocktail programs at fine establishments locally and at the internationally acclaimed Opus hotels in Vancouver and Montreal. Stanton is a native of Ottawa, Ontario. Now at Hawksworth Restaurant in the Rosewood Hotel Georgia, Stanton is part of a team that has earned this destination rave reviews, including being named Best New Restaurant in Canada in 2011 by MacLean's Magazine.
In 2011, Jonathan Smolensky's concoction 'Dalhousie' earned top spot out of more than 40 submissions by Canadian mixologists in the annual Tales of the Cocktail Vancouver Tour, a program of the New Orleans based Tales of the Cocktail - the world's premier cocktail festival - which returns to Vancouver in February 2012.
Danielle Tatarin - Keefer Bar - Gastown
Danielle Tatarin started out hosting old school cocktail parties for friends and turned her passion for the craft into an illustrious career. Tatarin has spent more than a decade honing her craft and also shares her knowledge with others as head of Designer Cocktail Company in Vancouver. As Bar Manager, Tatarin sources local ingredients from surrounding Chinatown herbalists and markets to create the pre-prohibition style drinks at the sultry and sumptuous Keefer Bar. She is a founding member and currently president of the CPBA.
Jay Jones - Market by Jean-Georges - Downtown
Jay Jones could be called a 'founding father' of the
Vancouver bartending scene, but by no means would you know it by meeting him.
This youthful, award-winning co-founding
director of the CPBA delighted patrons
of other renowned local bar and dining
establishments before signing on as lead bartender for Market by Jean-Georges
in the Shangri-La Hotel - the first restaurant in Canada by three-star Michelin
chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Jones is
a writer and Event Partner for Tales of the Cocktail on Tour. You can follow him on Twitter @Barjonesing
Lauren Mote - Kale & Nori Culinary Arts - Vancouver
A Director of the CPBA, Lauren Mote has spent more than a decade building attention for the mixology and bartending craft at numerous fine establishments in the city. She is arguably best known for her work at The Refinery on Granville Street in downtown Vancouver, where Mote helped transform customers' perceptions of mixed drinks by turning ingredients considered anathema to the cocktail into delicious wonders of chemistry. In the spring of 2011, Mote branched out to start her own restaurant-style catering company Kale & Nori Culinary Arts along with partner and acclaimed chef Jonathan Chovancek. Follow Lauren Mote on Twitter at @LaurenMote
Arthur Wynne - Cascade Room - South Main
This up-and-coming cocktail specialist who has earned his
award-winning reputation mixing for the Cascade Room will soon be sharing his
craft with patrons of the new Union Bar in Gastown.
Wynne recently placed in the top three among contenders at the 2011 CPBA
Cocktail Challenge.
Shaun Layton - L'Abattoir - Gastown
Named 2010 Bartender of the Year by Vancouver Magazine, Shaun Layton is a local mixology expert and has competed and toured in Europe. Also a Director of the CPBA, Layton is among local bartenders who can share responsibility for turning global cocktail industry heads toward Vancouver. You can find Layton's innovative cocktails at L'Abattoir in the aptly named Blood Alley in Gastown - a restaurant and lounge that has earned praise in the New York Times, GQ, Chatelaine and enRoute magazines.
View six more featured bartenders in Part II of Cocktail Alchemists...
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