Tuesday 29 April 2014

Cocktails, Home Decor and Travel


Hello friends! My latest cocktail for She Does the City is up (You can view the post by clicking HERE)  It's inspired by a carrot caesar that I had from Me and Mine and the juicer my friend Sofia so kindly lent me. I know I say this about every cocktail but this one is ACTUALLY my favourite. Tequila and freshly squeezed carrot juice are a match made in heaven. My brother Michael Morris took the photos. The novelty print wood the cocktail is resting on is pretty awesome eh? I found it on the street. My guess is it came from a shed someone was tearing down.




I'm posting this bedroom here because I don't want to forget where I saw it. It's an IKEA hack using on of the basic headboards and stickwood (link here). I've never used a headboard in my adult life but for my next place, I think this is the first project I'll take on. 



In other news, I've started the countdown for my trip to Moraine Lake Lodge to serve in the dining room. Today I'll be taking my third trip down to MEC to buy stuff for my trip. I'm also gearing up to move all of my stuff out of my apartment, shoot some cocktails and say goodbye to friends. It's going to be a crazy (but fun) few weeks! 



Thursday 10 April 2014

Cocktail Competitions

Ahhh, cocktail competitions. They are a beast! 

My first was the Made With Love event this March where I got to write a review for She Does the City (ARTICLE HERE). It was massive, and I'll admit, nothing like I imagined. I pictured that I'd be seated in a movie theatre with all the competitors lined up on the stage, fancy servers handing out their drinks. With pads of paper at our sides where we could rate the cocktail based on creativity, presentation, taste, texture. My visions of grandeur cocktail competitions were very wrong. They'd have to pay a small town of employees to make that happen. 

In reality, 17 great bartenders set up booths, and the audience went around to each one chatting with the bartender and tasting a 1 oz. sample of their concoction. It was actually way better than I imagined because we got to interact with them. My favourite person to talk to was Jeff Puddy from the Thomson Hotel. His cocktail was magical and savoury and I freaking LOOOOOVE savoury cocktails. The audience voted by handing out a "Made With Love" dog tag that we got upon entry to their favourite bartender. Person with the most tags at the end of the night wins! Jeff got mine. 



My pal from high school Ryan Stobnicky was working the event! Haven't seen that guy in years. Definitely one to watch on the cocktail scene, he's a bartender at the Drake and just the nicest! 




Michael Mooney's cocktail was so great, I can't stop thinking about it. You can read more about it on my review for She Does the City. 

So then I went to my second cocktail competition but a week later, but this time it was all ladies competing, all using spirits from Dillon's Distillery (I also wrote a review for She Does the City and you can READ IT HERE

Ana Wolkowski won the event for her cocktail pictured below. I thought it was pretty genius that she paired the local Dillon's rye with Bellwoods Brewery's Cat Lady IPA. 




These were definitely some highlights of my month :) Hope you guys like the articles. All of the photos were taken by Michael Morris (Click here for the link to his website

Saturday 5 April 2014

Spring Buds


My latest post for She Does the City is UP! (Check it out by CLICKING HERE

Spring is an awkward time for cocktails - I find myself wanting to make really fresh citrusy cocktails but a lot of the bright juicy fruits aren't in season yet. On Monday I went to the Drake and ordered the Vodka Lavender Lemonade cocktail and decided right then and there that this lavender based cocktail will forever be my official drink for the first week of spring.  

Thanks again to Michael Morris for shooting these beautiful photos :) I am practicing my digital photography and taking the A Beautiful Mess photography course and I am still so damn bad. I tried taking pictures of the same scene and they are awful. I really owe so much to Mike for his amazing eye, skill and institution.