Tales of the Cocktail Hawksworth dinner puts bourbon on show in Vancouver

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      Cocktail enthusiasts have been in their element since Sunday, sipping drinks at events that make up the Tales of the Cocktail on Tour Vancouver festival. Last night (February 13), eight local restaurants put on “spirited dinners” in which chefs and bartenders paired food and drink along different themes.

      At Hawksworth Restaurant, chef David Hawksworth and bar and lounge manager Brad Stanton teamed up on a southern‐themed dinner matched with the Sazerac portfolio of rye and bourbon whiskeys.

      As a guest at the media table, I sampled their creations and talked to Stanton about what he sees as bourbon’s growing popularity over the past four or five years. He attributes this to the resurgence of craft bartending.

      “If you ask most serious bartenders what they drink, a lot of them drink bourbon and beer,” Stanton said. He explained that bourbon is a very versatile spirit; unlike, gin, for example, it’s good for sipping straight as well as mixing. It is also an ingredient in many classic cocktails.

      A selection of Brad Stanton’s Sazerac creations.


      The bar at Hawksworth stocks about 40 American whiskeys, and Stanton said that bourbon has been very popular with customers. “Bourbon can be love at first taste because it’s a mellow style of whiskey,” he explained. “It can get people into whiskey a lot easier than single malt.”

      At Monday’s dinner, Stanton created six cocktails. To pair with Hawksworth’s Cajun fluke sashimi, he made a drink of Eagle Rare 10-year-old bourbon mixed with passion fruit, Peychaud’s bitters, and bubbles. To infuse the drink with hibiscus, he steeped the whole flowers in syrup using a sous vide technique “at blood temperature”. Doing so “extends great flavour without any bitterness,” he explained.

      Hawksworth’s short ribs, braised for 48 hours in cola and bourbon, were paired with a bacon-infused Ridgemont 1792 bourbon mixed with a big, tannic wine, and kola nut aromatic bitters.

      David Hawksworth’s 48-hour cola-and-bourbon braised short ribs with grits, liquorice, and puffed sorghum.


      The dinner finished with a deconstructed apple pie dessert paired with a dram of Sazerac’s Antique Series 2011 18-year-old rye, alongside smoked coconut water. Stanton recalled how last November, he and several colleagues rose early to each snag one of the 18 bottles released that day in B.C. The coveted rye, which according to Stanton is “in a league of its own”, is still available at Hawksworth’s bar.

      Tales of the Cocktail continues tomorrow (February 15). Tonight (February 14), about two dozen bars around town are featuring original cocktails as part of the event’s B.C. Bar Crawl. For more info, see talesofthecocktail.com/.

      Follow Carolyn Ali on Twitter at twitter.com/carolynali

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