A Question of Taste: Cristalino Tequila
This isn’t a court of law—it’s the spirits world, where judgment is constant and consensus is rare.
A Question of Taste is where we embrace the grey area, putting today’s most divisive drinks topics under the microscope. No definitive verdicts. No right answers. Just two well-informed sides, a splash of bias, and the freedom to disagree. This edition’s topic of conversation is Cristalino Tequila.
Is it a gateway to premium sipping or just tequila with all the good bits filtered out? For every fan of its polish, there’s a critic mourning what got stripped away and we’re here for both takes.
Has Sustainability Left the Bar?
The buzz around sustainable cocktails has died down in recent years, but does that mean it’s 86’d or has conscientious cocktails become the norm?
Flavour over Formula
Canada’s flavour-focused whisky laws challenge the way the world thinks about grain, rules, and tradition. Whisky is a reflection of place and a record of what that place chooses to protect. Behind each sip is a story shaped by borders, traditions, and invisible rules.
One country’s “rye” might be another’s rule-breaker. That’s thanks to standards of identity: the behind-the-scenes regulations that quietly dictate what a whisky can (or can’t) call itself. They’re part legal code, part cultural artifact. And nowhere do they stir up more confusion, or controversy, than in Canada. Because here, “rye” doesn’t always mean rye. It means a flavour-first focus, not percentages on paper.
Barrel Aging BeyondAmerican Oak
Exploring alternative woods, aging techniques, and experimental cask programs.
Websites, social media, magazines, books, podcasts, masterclasses; no matter where you get your information, you learn very quickly there are only three ingredients in whisky: water, grain, and yeast.
Yet, ask where the flavour comes from, and immediately, the topic turns to wood. Does better wood really make better whisky? What do you mean by better? And why are so many whisky makers experimenting with alternate woods?
Still a Margarita
The Margarita is, without question, one of life’s most perfect cocktails. Sweet and tangy with a nice pop of salt from the rim of the glass, it has an almost chameleonic ability to thrive in any beverage niche. Served up or on the rocks? Whichever. Out of a slushie machine? Sure. You can elevate it to an art form and nurse it contemplatively in a high-end cocktail bar, or you can quaff it unceremoniously from a red solo cup while inhaling a food truck burrito. If it wouldn’t take much to convince you that there is a taco for every season, then surely, there’s a Margarita for every occasion.
Seeing Flavour
Imagine standing in the chip aisle: no names, no ingredients, just coloured bags. You'd still probably know which one is cheddar, which is jalapeño, and which is salt & vinegar. Why? Because over time, colours have become flavour cues. Now picture yourself in the whisky aisle. Could those label colours be telling your taste buds what to expect too? Turns out, they might be.
One Bottle Three Ways: Amaro Montenegro
For our inaugural edition we’re highlighting Amaro Montenegro. Made with 40 botanicals and a secret three-stage extraction method, this Italian icon is floral, citrusy, and gently bitter—an amaro even amaro skeptics can get behind. And who better to show it off than Jessica Colacci, Canada’s 2024 Vero Bartender Champion and Judge for the 2025 national finals? With three easy builds, she shows us just how many personalities one bottle can have and why Montenegro deserves a permanent place in your rotation.
Flavour Files: Floral Edition
Flavour Files spotlights one flavour camp and how it unfolds across spirits, liqueurs, and modifiers offering a lens into its versatility, personality, and creative potential. This edition features spirits that bloom with botanicals, blossoms, and aromatic elegance.
The Flavour Index: Amari Edition
Bitter, herbal, sweet—amaro (plural amari) is one of the most diverse and misunderstood spirits categories behind the bar. Born in Italy and now made worldwide, these botanical liqueurs range from bright and citrusy to bold and bracing. This guide maps out their flavour profiles, ABV, and cocktail potential, using well-known benchmarks like Campari, Aperol, and Fernet Branca to help decode the rest. Whether you’re a cocktail enthusiast or curious newcomer, the Amari Index offers a starting point to explore, compare, and use these complex bottles with more confidence one flavour profile at a time.
The Anarchists of Rye
Sons of Vancouver is a Canadian micro-distillery producing big, flavourful, genre-busting rye whiskies.
Pot distillation is superior to column distillation. Old whisky is better than young. Yeast is just yeast, oak is just oak, and rye is always peppery and spicy.
Imagine this mythical whisky wisdom scribbled on an imaginary scrap of cardboard box… then chucked in the bin by a small craft distillery located in the foggy, forested environs of North Vancouver on Canada’s west coast. “We're thinking outside the box, of a box we built for ourselves,” laughs James Lester, founder of Sons of Vancouver, one of the early micro-distilleries that opened in British Columbia a decade ago.
The Instagram Effect
Ask the Experts: Is Social Media Changing the Way We Taste? In today’s cocktail culture, aesthetics aren’t just an afterthought, they’re often the starting point. As social media continues to shape what we see, share, and shake up, we wanted to know: is Instagram actually changing the way we taste? Are we following flavour trends, or just filters?
Merroir: Where Sea Shapes Spirit
From tide to table, distilleries are bottling sips from the sea and reawakening our connection to water.
There’s a growing movement in the spirits world around ‘merroir’. This term, borrowed from oyster farming, is quietly transforming how we understand and enjoy flavour on a new level. Call it the ocean’s answer to terroir — this portmanteau of mer (meaning sea) and terroir (sense of place) speaks to the way coastal environments shape taste, aroma, and character in everything from gin to whisky to salt-kissed cocktail bitters.
Where Smoke Meets Sense of Place
A new chapter is emerging for smoky whiskies beyond peat.