HISTORY

The Toronto as a cocktail is shrouded in a bit of mystery. It dates back to the pre-
prohibition era. In the 1922 edition of Cocktails: How to Mix Them, Robert Vermeire refers to it as the Fernet Cocktail and writes that it is “much appreciated by the Canadians of Toronto”. Whether or not this means that people were enjoying the cocktail in Canadian bars or merely his own bar is left up for interpretation. Complicating matters, Ontario enacted a prohibition on alcohol from 1916-1927. So even if the cocktail was being enjoyed by bar patrons in Canada before the prohibition, there was at least a decade when sourcing foreign amari would have been very difficult because of its illegality. Thus, it may be impossible to source the origin of our city’s eponymous cocktail.


PROFILE AND TASTING NOTES

The Toronto is a spirit forward cocktail, a variation of the Old Fashioned. The spiciness of Canadian rye whisky is paired with the herbaceous and bitter flavours from our crafted fernet-style amaro and balanced by a delicate touch of simple syrup. The selection of herbs and spices was specifically chosen to both honour the authenticity of the original cocktail recipe and reflect the multiculturalism of our city.