Local bartender wins cocktail competition
By Valerie Molino
Julian Bernard, the bartender at Centretown’s Fauna restaurant, will be going to the Made With Love National Final cocktail competition after winning the judges 1st choice and the people’s 2nd choice at a recent regional event.
Bernard’s winning cocktail at the Ottawa Regional Final was called the “Hot Cup Time Machine,” he said. “Hot because of the spice, time machine because I wanted to rewind to summer of 2003 when I was 12 years old, living on Holmwood (Avenue), right across from The Ex.”
He said the drink hit a nostalgic note with a lot of the people. “The event took place in a heritage building that I grew up right down the street from,” he said, recalling the days when Lansdowne Park was host to the annual late-summer agricultural exhibition.
Hay bales decorated Bernard’s bar area and a projector showing clips from The Ex back in the early 2000s ran behind it.
Bernard and his servers were also dressed like carnival workers.
The location of the Made With Love National Final has yet to be announced, but Bernard said no matter where it is held he’s going to bring his A-game.
“I don’t know the rules yet, so it’s hard to plan,” he said, adding that he planned to attend the Toronto regional competition to scout out his competition in the national championship.
Bernard disclosed the recipe for his Hot Cup Time Machine:
- Muddled cucumber and Birdseye chili,
- 3oz fresh grapefruit juice,
- 1 1/4oz fresh lemon juice,
- 1oz house made black pepper syrup and
- 2oz Ungava gin
- Shaken and poured in a glass rimmed with sugar, grapefruit zest and black pepper
- And garnished with cucumber and Birdseye chili