2 THE WORLD IN A GLASS

From slinging burgers to smuggling Peychaud’s bitters in her suitcase, award-winning bartender and now author Lauren Mote (above) has clocked some hospitality-industry mileage over the years. But it was as a youngster at the elbows of her grandmothers while they cooked – Rose’s Jewish deli delights and Florence’s British classics like Sunday roast – that her education in taste and the importance of food began. “These meals linked me to two very different sides of my family,” she writes in A Bartender’s Guide to the World: Cocktails and Stories from 75 Places. Mote worked up from a junior job at Toronto’s Le Select Bistro to main mixologist for Vancouver top chef Rob Feenie’s Lumiere in the mid-2000s, gaining a rep as one of Canada’s best bartenders. No small feat, as the industry is still dominated by men. In 2012, the now Amsterdam-based Mote also created Bittered Sling, her bitters and extracts company co-founded with her husband, chef Jonathan Chovancek. Then, in 2015, she eclipsed the gender gap, becoming the first woman to win Diageo’s Reserve World Class Canada competition. Through 75 travel-inspired cocktail recipes (including low- to no-alcohol) and anecdotes, Mote shares her expertise and secrets for the at-home mixologist and takes the reader “on a journey to flavour town.”