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Waste Not, Want Not: 3 Sustainable Cocktail Recipes

Bringing the same awareness that's applied to food, bartenders are taking on a zero-waste approach too! Besides being eco-conscious, using up brines, overripe fruit and herbs in shrubs and syrups can add lots of flavour to your cocktails. Here are some delicious examples of how thoughtful cocktail bars are shaking things up!

Le Classique

An eco-friendly twist on the French 75 Champagne cocktail, Le Classique owes its brilliant punchy tang to Lemon Oleo-Saccharum— a syrup used by bartenders to unlock all the hidden flavour in old citrus peels. This cocktail recipe comes to us from by international bar stars Kelsey Ramage and Iain Griffiths. When it comes to putting waste to good use, these pros were way ahead of the curve. They spent a couple of years on the road with their global zero-waste cocktail pop-up tour that inspired bartenders in 18 countries to stop tossing all that flavour in the bin.

Get this bubbly cocktail recipe

Pompelmo Spritz

This low-octane, cheeky aperitivo gets its dash of gentle sweetness from Champagne syrup—a trick for reusing flat fizz that we learned from Massimo Zitti, owner of Mother, a super-green cocktail bar on Toronto’s Queen West strip.

Get this spritz recipe

Mojaxaca

Named after the Mojito and Oaxaca, where mezcal comes from, this crossover drink gets a flavour boost from a herb syrup shared by Becky Ip and Ryan Ringer, owners of Grey Tiger, a Toronto cocktail bar that’s been upcycling its tired herb leaves and stems into teas and syrups since it opened four years ago.

Get this recipe for a riff on the mojito Opens a new window