Eatdrink #65 May/June 2017

46 | May/June 2017
Spirits
eatdrink.ca |@eatdrinkmag
Craft Distillery Cocktails
A Spring Visit to Wolfhead Distillery
By JANE ANTONIAK | Photographs by BRUCE FYFE
Time to bring out
the patio glasses
and refresh your
cocktail list for
the new season! It’s fun to
set aside the single malts of colder days past
and to reach for the lighter splashes of spirits
such as grapefruit vodka, banana caramel
vodka and apple caramel whisky, all of which
we recently found at Wolfhead Distillery in
Amherstburg, near Windsor. Nick Connoy,
front of house manager and bartender, shared
some tips on making refreshing seasonal
cocktails at home.
Celebrities such as Madonna
and Sarah Jessica Parker, portraying
Carrie Bradshaw in Sex in
the City, helped to bring the pink Cosmopolitan
to every bar menu in North America in the
1990s. Served in a martini glass, this vodka,
cranberry and citrus mix was a stylish and
often sweet concoction that carried a sparkle
and Hollywood-to-New-York panache. The
Cosmo is still a mainstay today. Connoy has
made it “less of a sugar bomb” by using not
The Howler
Add:
1 oz Wolfhead Banana Caramel Vodka
1 oz Wolfhead Coffee Whisky Liqueur
2½ oz milk
Shake with ice until metal part of mixer starts to frost.
Strain into low ball martini glass.
Garnish with grated Belgian chocolate.
Wolfhead Old Fashioned
Stir:
1 orange slice muddled with angostura bitters
Splash of cherry simple syrup
1½ oz ginger ale
2 oz Wolfhead Premium Whisky
Pour into rocks glass. Top with ice and orange slice.
only grapefruit vodka but
also muddled grapefruit for
an added texture and zing.
The sweetness in this drink
is citrus driven.
Connoy warns new mixologists not to mask
the flavours when making cocktails with small
batch infused spirits. “Adding fresh citrus
makes the flavour of the vodka pop,” he says.
For example, he likes to use banana caramel
vodka in a daiquiri, and fresh orange in his version
of the very popular Old Fashioned. Wolfhead’s
Banana Caramel Vodka carries a lot of
sweetness, making it a good mix
in a cocktail, needing a minimal
touch. The Coffee Whisky
Liquor has less sweetness, as it
is steeped in Costa Rican espresso. These two
make for a natural pairing for those who like
banana flavours countered with strong coffee,
without the sickly sweetness of some coffeebased
cocktails. The Apple Caramel Whisky
is more on the sweet side, but with a burn. It
could go well with ginger ale and ice.
JANE ANTONIAK and BRUCE FYFE are regular
Eatdrink contributors. Jane is also Manager, Communications
& Media Relations at King’s University College. Bruce
is also Librarian, Weldon Library, Western University.
The Howler
Wolfhead Old Fashioned