Because we specialize in local spirits and seasonal ingredients at OLO, the cocktails can give you equal amounts of constraints and freedoms. When your ingredients come in from the farm or the forager, it's your duty to process, prep and create as much as you can in the short seasonal cycle. When an ingredient hits the restaurant, chef, myself and Keegan (my right hand at OLO) sit down and write down a list of what we can do to the ingredient; freeze, dehydrate, candy, powder, liqueur, amaro, the list is endless depending on the ingredient.

The Defender Island Fizz was the amalgamation of an off season ingredient that we had processed and turned into a liqueur in the spring, a new local spirit, a tea shrub and a technique that we had been working on for another cocktail.

Picture credit - Just Cocktails.org

The new spirit was a fantastic smoked rosemary gin from the Okanagan, Defender Island. Rich, iconoclastic gin but with the undertones of smoked rosemary, a perfect base to add our off season liqueur, Creme de Ribes (a flowering currant liqueur), a dash of local bitters topped with lavender lemonade foam from upper Vancouver Island & a splash of local tonic.

I know this seems to be a lot of locally sourced products that may be hard to find outside of British Columbia but you can sub in ingredients with the same or similar profile. The real star of this drink is the foam, this is cheater foam that can be applied to a multitude of drinks and styles and with the egg white powder gives you shelf stable foam with great longevity.

The piece de résistance of the drink is the salted lavender, a simple mix of 2/3 lavender and 1/3 sea salt. The lavender gives an amazing nose while the salt adds to the drink as you mix the foam into the liquid similar to what you would do with a Ramos Gin Fizz.

Defender Island Fizz

1 oz Defender Island Gin

½ oz Crème de Ribes

½ oz Silk Road Philosopher’s Brew Shrub

Lavender Lemonade Foam

Phillips Fermentorium Botanical Tonic

Glass – highball

Method – Stir & strain first 3 ingredients, add 2 ½” foam, add tonic and stir. Add more tonic until foam rises just above the rim.

Garnish – Salted lavender and rosemary sprigs

Lavender Lemonade Foam

180mL water

70mL Organic Fair Lavender Lemonade Syrup

10g powdered egg white

0.5g xanthum gum

• Vitamix on hi for 30 secs
• Double charge in iSi

Silk Road Philosopher’s Tea Shrub

500g water

750g Turbinado Sugar

250g apple cider vinegar

12 g Silk Road Philosopher’s Tea

• Dissolve water, vinegar & sugar over a low heat till sugar is dissolved
• Bring temp up to 85C, turn off and add tea
• Let steep for 5 mins
• Strain & bottle, keep refrigerated