Vancouver
The Vancouver is gin and sweet vermouth with a barspoon of Bénédictine and two dashes of orange bitters. It is the house drink of the Sylvia Hotel on English Bay, poured there since the middle of the twentieth century, and the city has claimed it with the quiet confidence of a place that knows it has a good one. Structurally it is the Hanky Panky with a different bottle in the seasoning slot. Ada Coleman's drink uses fernet, which is menthol and bitterness and arrives like a slap. Bénédictine is honeyed and herbal and arrives like a handshake. Same skeleton, entirely different manners. That makes it the most approachable of the gin and sweet vermouth family, which is not always a compliment and is here. It is gentler than the Hanky Panky and richer than a dry martini, and it is built for a second glass and a view rather than for making a point.
Glassware: Nick & Nora Glass
Garnish: Lemon Twist
Ingredients
45ml
A London Dry leading rather than sharing. The vermouth is plush and the Bénédictine is honeyed, and juniper is the only thing in the glass keeping the whole from going soft.
22.5ml
A third of the glass, so a tired bottle ruins a third of the drink. Keep it in the fridge: oxidised vermouth tastes of stewed fruit, and Bénédictine flatters that in the wrong direction.
7.5ml
A barspoon, and the drink’s signature. Honeyed herbs threading through the seam between the gin and the vermouth; at double the measure it stops seasoning and starts sweetening.
2 dashes
Orange rather than aromatic, because Angostura's clove would sit on top of the warm spice Bénédictine already carries. Two dashes keeping a sweet drink upright.
Instructions
Add the gin, sweet vermouth, Bénédictine and orange bitters to a mixing glass.
Fill with cubed ice and stir for 25 seconds.
Strain into a chilled Nick and Nora glass.
Express a lemon twist over the surface and drop it in.
Expert Tip
Seven and a half millilitres and no more. Bénédictine is honeyed and thick, and at fifteen it stops seasoning the vermouth and starts sweetening the drink, at which point you have a dessert martini rather than an aperitif. A barspoon is the signature, and it is a small one. Keep the sweet vermouth fresh and cold. At twenty-two and a half millilitres it is a third of the glass, and oxidised vermouth tastes of stewed fruit, which Bénédictine's honey flatters in exactly the wrong direction. Orange bitters rather than Angostura. Angostura's clove would land on top of the warm spice the Bénédictine already carries, where orange lifts the finish and keeps a sweet drink upright.
Flavour Profile
Where It Comes From
The drink attaches to the Sylvia Hotel, an ivy-covered building on English Bay that has stood since 1912 and has run a bar since the 1950s. The Vancouver has been poured there through most of that time, and the city adopted it as its own.
The provenance is argued locally in the friendly Canadian manner and the paperwork is thinner than the tradition. What is not in doubt is that the hotel pours it, that it has done for decades, and that the drink is good enough for the association to be deserved whichever way the argument goes.
The Hanky Panky Comparison
Both drinks are gin, sweet vermouth and a small measure of something herbal, and comparing them is the most efficient way to understand what a seasoning does.
Ada Coleman's Hanky Panky uses Fernet-Branca: menthol, bitter roots, saffron, and an assertiveness that announces itself in the first mouthful. Two dashes is plenty, and most people can name it blind.
The Vancouver uses Bénédictine: honey, warm baking spice, twenty-seven herbs that read as depth rather than as flavour. A barspoon disappears into the drink and shows up only as roundness.
Same architecture, one bottle apart, and the two could hardly be less alike. Poured side by side they make the best argument there is for taking modifiers seriously.
Bénédictine as a Modifier
Bénédictine is a French herbal liqueur first produced commercially in the 1860s, built on twenty-seven herbs and spices to a recipe that is not published.
Its useful property in a cocktail is that it is sweet without tasting sugary. The honey arrives first, then a warm spice, then a faint herbal bitterness at the back that stops it cloying. That last note is why a barspoon can sit in a sweet drink without pushing it over: it brings its own counterweight.
It is also why the measure has to stay small. The counterweight is proportionally smaller than the honey, so doubling the measure roughly doubles the sweetness and adds very little to balance it.
A Hotel Bar Drink
That is not a criticism. Hotel bars produce a particular kind of cocktail: something you can drink two of, that does not demand attention, and that works equally well at six in the evening and eleven at night.
The Vancouver is exactly that, and it is harder to build than it sounds. Most gin and sweet vermouth drinks are either bracing or sweet. This one is neither, which is probably why it survived in one bar for seventy years rather than becoming famous and then becoming tired.
How to Serve It
Stirred for twenty-five seconds over cubed ice, strained into a chilled Nick and Nora, lemon twist expressed over the surface and dropped in.
Lemon rather than orange, despite the bitters. The oil gives the nose something sharp before a drink that is otherwise all warmth, and orange would double up on what is already there.
The Spirit
GinA flavour requirement rather than a method. The law asks only that juniper be the predominant taste and that the spirit reach 37.5%, which leaves everything else on the botanical bill to the distiller and permits a gin that was never redistilled at all.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Vancouver cocktail?
Gin and sweet vermouth with a barspoon of Bénédictine and two dashes of orange bitters, stirred and served up. It is the house drink of the Sylvia Hotel on English Bay and has been poured there since the mid-twentieth century.
How does it differ from a Hanky Panky?
One bottle. The Hanky Panky seasons the same gin and sweet vermouth with Fernet-Branca, which is menthol and bitterness and announces itself. Bénédictine is honeyed and herbal and disappears into the drink as roundness. Same skeleton, opposite manners.
Why only a barspoon of Bénédictine?
Because it is sweet, and its own bitterness is proportionally smaller than its honey. Doubling the measure roughly doubles the sweetness without adding much to balance it, and the drink stops being an aperitif. A barspoon is the whole signature.
Is the Sylvia Hotel story true?
The hotel has poured it for decades and the city claims it. The documentation is thinner than the tradition, which is not unusual for a mid-century house drink. The association is deserved either way, and nobody local seems troubled by it.
Master the Techniques
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Hanky Panky
Ada Coleman ran the American Bar at the Savoy from 1903 to 1926, the first and for nearly a century the only woman to hold the post, and mixed for Mark Twain, the Prince of Wales and anyone else London considered worth knowing. The Hanky Panky was built for the actor Charles Hawtrey, who arrived exhausted and asked for something with a point to it. Coleman’s answer, by her own account after much experimenting, made Hawtrey declare it the real hanky-panky, and the name never left. The structure is a sweet martini with a twist of genius: equal parts gin and sweet vermouth, seasoned with a barspoon and a half of Fernet Branca. That small dose of Milan’s great bitter amaro runs through the drink like a dark thread, menthol and roots under the vermouth’s plush, and makes the Hanky Panky the first great amaro-accented cocktail, decades ahead of the fashion. It drinks like velvet with a conscience: rounded and warming at the front, bitter and cooling at the finish, with the orange twist bridging the two. One of the very few pre-war cocktails that needs no modernising at all.
Poet’s Dream
The Poet’s Dream is a martini with Bénédictine in it at full measure rather than as a barspoon, which is the whole point. Gin, dry vermouth and Bénédictine at forty-five, twenty-two and twenty-two, with orange bitters. That proportion makes the liqueur a principal rather than a seasoning. Most drinks that use Bénédictine give it five or ten millilitres and let it add depth in the background; here it stands at parity with the vermouth and supplies the drink's entire sweet register along with most of its conversation. It surfaces in the bar books of the 1930s, the Café Royal Cocktail Book of 1937 among them, with no author recorded, which was normal for the period. The name promises more romance than the recipe needs. What it delivers is a dry martini frame carrying twenty-seven herbs, which is a good deal more articulate than a martini has any obligation to be.
Bobby Burns
The Bobby Burns is the Rob Roy with a library card: Scotch and sweet vermouth as before, seasoned with a barspoon of Bénédictine, the honeyed herbal liqueur of the Norman abbeys, which rounds the drink into something warmer and more bookish than either parent. Harry Craddock, printing it in the Savoy Cocktail Book in 1930, called it one of the very best whisky cocktails ever made. Whether it honours Robert Burns the poet or a Robert Burns who sold cigars near the bar is one of those arguments the canon keeps for company. What is certain is the structure: a Manhattan template moved to Scotland, with the Bénédictine doing quietly what fernet does loudly in the Hanky Panky, its close cousin from the same hotel. It is also the rare classic with a date in its diary. Burns Night, the 25th of January, is its annual argument for existing, and a Bobby Burns after the haggis beats most speeches.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits
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