Calgary Just Launched a Subscription Box for the Lazy Cocktail Snob

Okay, so it doesn’t come with booze… but you’ll get all the accoutrements to take your after-work gin-and-tonic (and your home-mixologist cred) to the next level. 

It seems there’s a curated box for just about everything these days. From adventure gear and cooking to socks and pet care, these monthly or quarterly packages deliver select surprises to your door. And, now, (drumroll please…) Calgary’s “bartender-in-a-box” Crafty Cocktails can be added to the list.

Unfortunately, the homegrown start-up doesn’t, technically speaking, deliver any alcohol at this point (thanks to logistical hurdles like shipping weight and age restrictions), which some might argue is a pretty key ingredient in all cocktails, crafty or otherwise. But if you’ve got a bottle or 10 kicking around in your cupboard anyway and have grown bored of gin-and-sodas, getting a mystery box full of trimmings, recipes and mixes for experimental cocktails show up at your door monthly might just be worth the $70 price tag.

In each box, you’ll find enough fixings for three different recipes and enough supplies to whip up 12 drinks using one standard bottle of whatever the month’s featured spirit is. You provide the handle of rum, they’ll take care of all the accoutrements: think aromatic bitters and small-batch syrups, shrubs and flower waters, artisanal tonics and herbs. (Sometimes a bar tool is included as well.)

And if you need a drink while you mull over whether signing up for a cocktail pen-pal service is right for you, Crafty Cocktails have shared one of their latest recipes here.

Recipe: The Alex Flemming

Ingredients

2 oz rye whiskey
0.5 oz lemon juice
1 oz pineapple juice
0.75 oz Frostbite pineapple-habanero syrup
2 slices ginger root
2–3 dashes Black Cloud charred cedar bitters
dehydrated pineapple slice (optional, for garnish)

Method

Place slices of ginger in shaker and muddle. Add rye, lemon juice, pineapple juice and pineapple-habanero syrup. Shake. Fill rocks glass with ice. Strain shaker contents over ice into rocks glass. Float charred cedar bitters and garnish with dehydrated pineapple slice.