Celebrating Canada’s National Cocktail

By Aaron Harowitz & Zack Silverman

 

In the fall of 2013, we spent our life savings producing our first batch of Walter Caesar mix, with the idea of trying to reinvent Canada’s national cocktail. We knew Canadians love Caesars, and that Caesar culture in Canada runs deep. We also recognized that Canadians had only one option for Caesar mix on the market, and that we had an opportunity to do something different — offer Canadians a premium, all-natural mix made here in Canada. We named it in honour of Walter Chell, who invented the Caesar in Calgary in 1969.

Our company now sells enough Walter Craft Caesar mix in a year to make more than 6 million craft Caesars. We’ve travelled the country talking Caesars, learning about Caesars, meeting people who serve Caesars, seeing people push the boundaries of what a Caesar is and can be, and of course, making and consuming many thousands of Caesars (some better than others).

When we started Walter Caesar, we recognized that we were walking on hallowed ground. We were trying to reimagine a drink that is so much more than a drink: it’s part of our national heritage. But the Caesar’s more than just the most popular cocktail in Canada (roughly 400 million are consumed each year), it also ranks among the country’s most iconic and recognizable symbols. In a 2007 CBC series on great Canadian inventions, the Caesar placed 13th; not as high as insulin or the telephone, but higher than the Canadarm, basketball, and the snowmobile.

So, how did this come to be? It was 1969…a year for wild innovations, unexpected upheavals, and bold leaps forward. Led Zeppelin released their first album,  Easy Rider, roared into the theatres, and roughly 400,000 people travelled to a dairy farm near Woodstock, NY, for a music festival.

In Canada, Trudeaumania (father, not son), was in full swing, the Montreal Expos played their first game, and John Lennon and Yoko Ono recorded “Give Peace a Chance.”

In the middle of all this, Walter Chell stood behind the counter of the Owl’s Nest, the fine-dining lounge of the Calgary Inn. Unbeknownst to him, he was about to secure a spot in the history books.

The owners of the Inn had asked Walter, their food and beverage manager, to create a signature drink to celebrate the opening of the hotel’s new Italian restaurant.  The request got him thinking about spaghetti alle vongole, his favourite meal from years living in Italy, and wondering if he could recreate its flavours in a cocktail. He cooked clams and strained tomatoes, adding and subtracting ingredients until he found the perfect combination.

Behind the bar in the dimly lit Owl’s Nest, Walter gets ready to serve his new cocktail. He pours some celery salt on a plate, rubs the rim of a highball glass with some lime, and rolls the rim into the salt before placing a couple of ice cubes in the glass. In a cocktail shaker he combines his house-made mix of clam juice and tomato juice with a shot of vodka, four dashes of Worcestershire sauce, pepper, and what he later says was his “secret ingredient”: a dash of oregano. He fills the shaker with ice, stirs the mix gently with a bar spoon, and strains the drink into the glass. He garnishes the cocktail with a wedge of fresh lime and a celery stick, and serves it for the first time. Price: $1.80

In the 50 years since, the Caesar, relatively unchanged, has become our national cocktail and ranks among the country’s most iconic food-and-beverage items. But how did it happen? Admittedly, it’s an unusual combination. Tomato juice, clam juice, and vodka. It’s not an obvious hit. And yet, it is.

 

Our theory: As the Caesar started to gain recognition, people started to sense that the drink was something that bound us — and only us — together. We started to see the Caesar as one more peculiarly Canadian phenomenon, something that we cared about in the same way we might care about things like junior hockey or curling far more deeply than people anywhere else do. We started to enjoy our Caesars just a little more in the knowledge that drinking one in our hometown bar somehow connected us to all sorts of strangers across Canada.

Canada is huge. And varied. Always changing. So it’s all the more amazing that we should have this one drink that unites us all. And if the Caesar is our beloved national secret, we’re happy for it to stay that way.

 

 

Vancouver Island Iced Tea (serves 1)

New York’s Long Island on the East Coast is famous for its iconic tea, which contains exactly zero tea but almost all the spirits in the world. As an homage to that arguably ill-conceived but highly effective cocktail, we offer a Vancouver Island version, which also happens to contain zero tea. These should not be consumed unsupervised.

Glassware

1 Collins glass

Garnish

1 cherry tomato

1 lemon wedge

Cocktail

½ oz (15 ml) white rum

½ oz (15 ml) tequila blanco

½ oz (15 ml) triple sec

½ oz (15 ml) gin

½ oz (15 ml) vodka

6 oz (180 ml) Caesar mix, Classic

½ oz (15 ml) lemon juice

Method

1. Skewer the cherry tomato and lemon wedge on a sword
2. Pour the rum, tequila, triple sec, gin, vodka, Caesar mix, and lemon juice into a cocktail shaker (or other mixing vessel). Fill the shaker with ice to just above the top of the liquid and stir with a bar spoon until the outside of the shaker is very cold to the touch.
3. Fill the glass three-quarters full with fresh cubed Strain the contents of the shaker into the glass and top with additional ice if desired. Garnish with the sword pick

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Excerpted from Ceasar Country by Aaron Harowitz & Zack Silverman Copyright © 2022 Aaron Harowitz& Zack Silverman. Photography by Tanya Pilgrim. Published by Appetite by Random House®, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited. Reproduced by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved.