LCBO Food & Drink Holiday 2023

TWISTS Wood Working Mix and mature your own wood-aged cocktails for bottling, gifting and serving. It’s an easy DIY technique that adds an extra lift of flavour.

BY CHARLENE ROOKE | PHOTOGRAPHY BY MAYA VISNYEI

Just like a whisky, rum or tequila that’s aged in an oak barrel, cocktails matured in or with wood become mel low, softer in texture and gain toasty flavours. You’ll know it’s ideally aged when you taste not oak or woodiness, but flavours that are by-products of oak-aging—vanilla or coconut, cara mel or toffee, plus soft baking spices like clove, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. Classic, spirit-forward cocktails that are low in sugar work best. Small glass bottles and custom labels create special and unique gifts.

IF YOU HAVE AN HOUR Older Fashioned

Low and slow heat works quick magic on bourbon, infusing soft, woody flavours of spice and vanilla, for the base of a gently wood-aged cocktail. Chocolate- or mole-flavoured cocktail bitters are excellent in this drink.

Recipe p. 240

WOOD TO THE WISE

Whisky brands like Crown Royal and Jack Daniel’s sell oak chunks and chips that already have char and flavour, as they’re made from actual whisky-aging barrels. Normally used for smok ing meats, these oak products (at canadiantire.ca, amazon.ca or barbecue shops) are perfect for maturing cocktails.

FOOD STYLING BY CHRISTOPHER ST. ONGE; PROP STYLING BY ANDREA McCRINDLE

FOOD & DRINK HOLIDAY 2023 191