Drinks After Dark

Honey-inspired cocktails

by Colleen Coplick on October 4th, 2008

Life got a little sweeter for the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel in Vancouver recently. More than 300 lbs of honey was harvested from the hotel’s beehives near the end of August. The Fairmont has it’s own herb garden on the 3rd floor where many of the herbs and vegetables are grown for the restaurant.

In early June, the hotel welcomed two noteable Italian queens - one raised in Kona, Hawaii and the other raised in Santiago Chile. With morethan 60,000 subjects per queen, the honey bees are the newest members of the Waterfront’s culinary team.

Frank Palter, the Fairmont Waterfront’s head bartender, has created special honey infused cocktails which, after trying both, I have to tell you are simply amazing. They’re so fresh and you really can taste it.

The honey used in the cocktails was harvested that morning, and the herbs picked fresh moments before.

First Frank offered a Honey Basil Collins. To make:

1.5 oz Beefeater Gin
.5 oz Drambuie
Fresh lime juice
1 oz Honey syrup
1 Basil stem

Add all ingredients to shaker. Add ice and stir for 20 seconds. Top with soda and straign into a highball glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish with a basil stem.

Next up, we were treated with an Ode to Joe.

1.5 oz Wisers Deluxe
.25 oz Amaretto
1 plum - preferably dark skinned with light flesh
.5 oz lemon juice
1 oz honey syrup
Half an egg white
1 dash Fee’s peach bitters

Muddle plum and amaretto together. Add all other ingredients and shake vigourously. Double strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with a thin slice of honey comb, which will float if the egg was shaken nicely.

The ‘Honey Bee Suites’ at the Fairmont Waterfront live adjacent to the 2,100 square foot herb garden, on the 3rd floor terrace. This initative, part of the Fairmont’s commitment to reducing their environmental footprint is shared with the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto and the Fairmont Algonquin in New Brunswick.

(image source, me on Flickr)

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POSTED IN: Amaretto, Canadian Whiskey, Cocktails, Drambuie, Events, Gin, Recipes, Rye