Dear Canada, you are so cool.

~ Meg

Week three in The Year of Drinking Adventurously. Canadian Whiskey. (Find all 52 entries here.)

This week I had an easy and enjoyable choice of potent potable: Canadian Whiskey.  Living in the Northeastern United States, I am in Canada’s back yard (front yard?).  My state, Pennsylvania, shares a border with Ontario, Canada across Lake Erie.

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Image via lighthouse friends.com

It’s a 6 hour trip to Niagra Falls; Montreal and Quebec City are within a day’s drive.

Canada is a big place with a lot of stuff to love.  For one thing, Canadians are friendly and polite.  Just ask Whitney, she’s married to a Canadian.  It is also home to one of my favorite bands of all time: RUSH.

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Courtesy Rolling Stone, obviously

Showing my true nerd-self.  –>

There’s also hockey, poutine (French fries covered with cheese curds and gravy, trust me it’s amazing), Tim Horton’s coffee, thousands of acres of unspoiled native forest where (I’m sure) the Sasquatches live, the second tallest peak in North America (Mount Logan) and their new Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, is a babe. Voila:

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How the hell do they get anything done?           Image via Huffington Post

 

 

 

 

 

What was I saying?  Oh yeah, whiskey.  I’ll be honest with you all.  I tend not to be a big cocktail person.  Whiskey goes over ice in my house.  However, I’m trying to be adventurous, right?  So I experimented with a couple recipes and found this one from Ina Garten (The Barefoot Contessa) for fresh whiskey sours:

This theoretically (ha!) makes 4:

1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon

1/2 cup fresh squeezed lime

1/2 cup sugar syrup

3/4 cup Canadian whiskey (actually you can use any whiskey)

Toss it around in a shaker with ice, then serve with a maraschino cherry in a tumbler.  That’s what Ina Garten did, anyway.  I’ve seen whiskey sours in tall glasses, too.  I drank mine straight out of the shaker.  Why dirty another glass?  Just kidding…

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Not my photo, I drank mine from the shaker, remember?

Anyway, this turned out amazingly great.  I will definitely make these again.  The lemon-lime flavor was not overpowering and the amount of sugar syrup was just enough to prevent the citric acid from taking the enamel off your teeth.

Do you ever feel bad using “good” spirits to make mixed drinks?  Like it’s a waste since you’re not really going to taste the full flavor of the alcohol?  I kind of do but it would also be ridiculous to keep a separate stash for just cocktails. Wouldn’t it?  Hmmm….

The Crown Royal is a really nice mild whiskey.  If you are trying a whiskey for the first time, this would be my recommendation.  Canadian whiskeys are as pleasant and polite as their makers.  There’s no funky peat-smoke taste like the Scotches or corn and sour mash flavors of the bourbons, just a nice smooth warmth.  I can see why, in the Great White North, whiskey would hit the spot.  Why not try cuddling up to a Canadian this weekend?  Sample Canadians, below.

Oh hell, why wait for the weekend?  And don’t forget to go see what Lula concocted this week!

Published by Meg

Easily amused, never bored and constantly distracted. My creative pursuits include writing, drawing, painting and photography.

55 thoughts on “Dear Canada, you are so cool.”

  4. Canada is cool. Lucky enough to have been there twice. Montreal on both occasions. Once for Expo 67 (younger people can Google that…) and once for the 76 Summer Olympics (gosh, I guess that requires research too…). Well, even though it has been quite some time since I’ve been there I would love to go back one day…perhaps Vancouver or Toronto? We shall see. (Nice selection of “sample Canadians”…)

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    1. Thanks Bruce! Wow! The Olympics! That’s awesome! You will love Vancouver. I was lucky enough to travel by train across Canada from Vancouver to Toronto when I graduated from high school in the dark ages. And Quebec City is like visiting a small French city. They have an ice festival every winter and I want to go one of these years. I guess I should’ve included some Canadian ladies!

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  6. True Story: When my sister turned 21, I took her out drinking. Taught her what to order, what not to order, ans especially what NOT to mix. We started the night off by me teaching her how to do shots and look totally badass by not making a face (yeah, I’m that kind of sister). We started with gin then went to whiskey. Needless to say, she pretty much hated me the next morning, but I got the whole thing on video just in case she ever gets married.

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  8. I loved the article even though I don’t drink! And the sample Canadians – LOL! This seriously took me back to my childhood. I loved to see a Saturday night roll around because if I was lucky I’d get that little purple bag with the gold trim… Nobody had a fancier marble bag than me 😃

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  9. I have a better recipe for you. You might not taste it as being so strong but it will be. 1.5 oz of Knob Creek Bourbon or any Whiskey, 1-1.5 oz of lemon juice and topped with pomegranate. It will be smooth and sneak up on you.:)

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      3. Yes I was lead Bartender at The Belmont for the Second year in a row and we exclusively made them only this year which killed us in tips. Last year I had a full bar and was the only party that served the signature drink. They said the Knob Creek people wanted all the empties or I would’ve been selling them as I had ppl willing to pay 100 per empty. I did as told and found out they threw out 250 bottles of a signature bottle and I know the Jockey and could’ve made a killing.

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      5. Well last year there were 11 bars and we pooled and my bar did 1300 as I gave out tips all day that hit. This year we did not pool but I did not have a full bar and despite giving out tip we did only 350 but in 45 minutes at a goo goo dolls after concert I doubled that.:)

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      7. Well last year was the same. My party was a 5k a plate party, they barely tipped anyone. I was flooded with a full bar and in front of the betting windows. I am a track kid. I have been in every TC win photo from Secretariat. I was lucky that a Jockey that knows me since I was a kid, Jean Cruguet, won on Seattle Slew was there. i was serving his wife, bet him eve thoug I bet AP in the derby after getting 750-1 after he lost his maiden start. I went and got in my 4th TC photo and have an Autographed all three races pic from Victor with an Autograph on the Preakness. I have to get it framed. Smaller pics were on Ebay around a 1000. I had several 2 dollar win tickets I sold for 100 each online.

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      9. Yes I wrote about it it is in my Triple Crown, Horse Racing, Belmont Stakes and bartender categories. Plus as much as I loved AP I knew he could not win The Travers and bet only Keen Ice. I blogged about it all week, got ppl blasting me on FB all trainers except friends and I said I told you. He was trying to do something unprecedented. Plus the track is not a speed favoring track at a route and he still lost with a neck and ran the 3rd fastest Travers in 125 years. I made out well and felt bad about it.

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      11. I went on to, not here, posted 35 years of Travers and the fact that Saratoga and Keeneland have the 2 shortest meets yet Saratoga has 4 Grade 1s a year at 1 and 1/4 miles, making it the mecha and it is the slowest track record. I had know it all ex jockeys that went to England that I shredded after them saying I was a Monday Quarterback. I said and sent links what I was worried about for over a week and made my picks. Blasted one of them and he actually upset the owner he worked in England and lost his horses. I felt bad about it. I multi task and when I see something coming I am like Danger Will Robinson!

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  10. Okay. So many thoughts! First off that Ryan Gosling is just the perfect amount of man with a little splash of the boyish charm. Oh Canada! Second of all, my main man, Parchy, was (for undisclosed reasons that I am not at liberty to reveal) was on stage with Rush a few years ago and I literally thought he was going to PEE HIMSELF. Like, I seriously thought he was going to DIE because: 1. He is an introvert and 2. He was SO excited. Shhhhhhh. Don’t say anything on my blog about it. His family reads it. He does too. 😉 xo Whitney

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      1. Well, part of the reason he was on stage was because he knows on of the crew. He came home at 2 in the morning making all sorts of noise (he is always waking me up at 2 am). I said, “How was the concert?” He says, “Oh Whitney! It was the best night of my LIFE!!!” I was like, “Go to sleep.” The next morning I walk into the bathroom to see his VIP pass (which was a sticker) stuck to our vanity mirror. I said, “I don’t care if you were on stage with Rush last night. You can’t stick things on our mirror!” He is just not as design conscious as I am. The following Sunday at church I bump into a friend of mine and he tells me he saw Rush the other night. I said, “Oh, you probably saw my husband.” He says, “I thought that guy looked familiar!” xo

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  11. Ooh, I’m a Canadian whiskey drinker. Mom and dad used to drink whiskey sours but with pre- made sour mix, I think 😦 Ina’s recipe sounds good. She and Jeffrey are so cosmopolitan! In college I loved Crown Royal or V.O. and 7-up. I think you add a cherry — boy, I better check supplies for this weekend! I don’t know when I switched to vodka, but a whiskey sounds good…

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    1. Are you getting the big snow storm, too? I’ll believe it when I see it! This really did turn out great! I’d never had a whiskey sour before. Oh and don’t let Kevin talk you into an intervention! I won’t even listen till he gives up those cigars.

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