Food & Design

Street artist birdo’s sea horse mural cuts across a city block. It also fits inside a bottle

Good art and great drink collide locally with delicious results – here are four libations to try now

Even though it spans 2,400 square metres, you’d be forgiven for missing C-horse, a massive mural by Toronto-based, eagle-helmetwearing street artist birdo. Unlike his towering illustrations of wildlife in Deer Park, The Grange and elsewhere, this sea horse, one of his latest pieces, is painted atop a Yorkville parkade and visible only from neighbouring buildings. Alternatively, you can see it inside Edition 6 of Romeo’s Gin.

Following the launch of Romeo’s Gin in 2015, Quebec’s Duvernois Creative Spirits partnered with Montreal-based street artists for each of its first five editions. For its sixth, also the brand’s break into Ontario, it reached out to birdo.

After two years of planning, the artist got to work. Mural-making is a process, one he kicked off this time with a drone. Flown over the parkade, it took bird’s-eye shots that captured the ramps, level and pillars. Back in the studio, he conceptualized and sketched, finally settling on a sea horse whose twisting proportions suited the uneven surface and would be at home floating inside a bottle. After 10 days and nearly 400 litres of paint, the project ended with three courtyard celebrations.

Scaling C-horse down for the bottle started much the same way. Not content with a render, birdo sent the drone up again to capture the finished work – parking spaces, shadows, concrete grit and all. It was then reproportioned for the inner curvature of the bottle. Printed on synthetic paper, the image stays true to the original design both when the bottle is full and when – after you’ve sipped cocktails built on Romeo’s juniper-, citrus- and cucumber-driven profile – it’s empty and C-horse comes up for air. $40, available at the LCBO. ROMEOSGIN.COM