La Pentola Takes a Spirited Approach to Seasonal Fall Cocktails

Freshest of flavours, seasonal ingredients and imaginative mixes – it’s not just Chef Lucais Syme’s kitchen team at La Pentola della Quercia that’s creating handcrafted cuisine. La Pentola’s bar – headed up by Martin Corriveau – is taking a spirited approach to cocktails this fall.

Echoing the restaurant’s ethos of combining fun with flavour to create an unforgettable experience, the focus is on handcrafted ingredients this season: from brandied organic Montmorency sour cherries from the Fraser Valley to a deconstructed housemade gin and tonic. Warming spirit-forward cocktails make the most of seasonal produce, including Okanagan apples and peaches, and Italian-influenced ingredients appear in drinks such as a shandy that showcases a locally-made cider.

Corriveau will be introducing guests to the bar’s collection of Italian amari. These aperitifs range from the more familiar Campari, Aperol and Fernet Branca to the more unusual artichoke-based Cynar – alongside their collection of grappas. Corriveau also shows off his sweet side by making his own syrups such as orgeat (almonds and orange blossoms), pimento (cloves), vanilla, elderflower and grenadine.

He’ll be getting creative with seasonal specialties such as cherry and peach bitters and housemade limoncello and crème de noyaux – a liqueur similar to amaretto. In collaboration with the kitchen, Corriveau keeps the bar menu spicy with a housemade ginger beer, and they have created a tonic from powdered cinchona bark, which is served as a deconstructed G&T featuring gin on ice, sparkling water and a shot of tonic infused with kaffir lime and white peppercorns.

Inside the cocktail menu is a take-home recipe for the cocktail of the week, which is usually a crazier concoction as Corriveau experiments with more twists on traditional recipes. Look out for a new Cinema Highball (a rum and cola infused with popcorn), Pisco Punch (pisco and pineapple), and the Otago Fizz (a creation with manuka honey and prosecco) coming this fall.