October 16, 17 & 18

Workshops, cocktail tastings, competitions, and networking opportunities are all part of the Art of the Cocktail, the signature fundraiser for the Victoria Film Festival.  This event opens the door to a world of elegant spirits: great classics, fresh trends, niche bitters, established players, and the artisan regional distillers. 

Features:
The World Traveller - Best Bars and Cocktail Lounges: That rambunctous bon vivant of Iron Chef America and The Thirsty Traveller, Kevin Brauch, is back.  Who can forget his antics at the Best Bartender of the Pacific Northwest Competition last year?  He rocks, he rolls, and he knows all about cocktails.  In this session, he'll take you around the world as you discover the best cocktail lounges you won't want to miss.

Swizzle and Shake: Trader Tiki Blair Reynolds (www.tradertiki.com) is renowned for information on tiki drinks and culture, and has been featured in magazines across the US.  Blair will be teaching all about the swizzle and what's in the shake, with a workshop featuring a glimpse at the history of tropical mixology and PolyPop culture.  The workshop features a sipping tour through tiki history, what makes a drink 'Tiki', and an interactive tropical cocktail development hands-on (with a reward for the best drink of the class!).

The Pre-History & Evolution of Gin: Come out for a fling with jet-set bartender, writer, and saloonkeeper Philip Duff, as he charts the ancient, missing, true history of gin: from the Moors settling France as far as Bordeaux until 732 AD, Holland 1269, England's "Gin Craze" in the 1700s, the birth of Mahon gin in the 1700s, the rise and fall of gin, and the mid-1980s rebirth of the gin category.  Includes exhaustive tastings of gin & genever, including a world exclusive: gin made to the world's oldest extant recipe, dating from 1495.