Stir Pairing: Prohibition inspires one-woman Fringe show, and a new Vancouver restaurant
A Toast to Prohibition is Melanie Gall’s new historic musical; Laowai is a hidden lounge and eatery in Chinatown
Melanie Gall in A Toast to Prohibition.
Every week, Stir Pairing suggests B.C. drink and food to go with a local arts event.
The event
A Toast to Prohibition at Performance Works on Granville Island as part of Vancouver Fringe Festival, September 11, 12, 16, 18, and 19 (times vary).
The food and cocktails
Laowai (251 East Georgia Street)
The lowdown
“From secret cellars and doctor-prescribed alcohol to a teetotaller attacking saloons with a hatchet... If it happened during Prohibition, there's a song about it.” So says Melanie Gall, the globe-trotting vocalist, songwriter, and opera performer who brings her new historic musical, A Toast to Prohibition, to this year’s Fringe.
The creator-performer of Piaf and Brel: The Impossible Concert, among many other productions, celebrates the 101st anniversary of speakeasies and gin cocktails with forgotten hits of the 1920s, including “Lips That Touch Liquor Shall Never Touch Mine”, “Where do They Go (When They Row Row Row)” and “Everybody Wants a Key to My Cellar”.
Gall, who has a completed several advanced music degrees from educational institutions in Canada, the U.S., and Europe, has released several albums is also a leading expert in historic songs about knitting and spinning from both World Wars.
You need to know the code to get into Laowai.
The pairing
Pssst: there’s a new Prohibition-era, Shanghai-themed, hidden lounge and eatery in Chinatown, perfect to hit after the Fringe.
To get in to Laowai , you need to go to BLND TGER and order the “Number 7”. You’ll be whisked past a faux freezer door into a dimly lit Art Deco space (designed by London, U.K.-based firm Bergman Interiors): think emerald-green velvet walls; semi-circular leather banquettes; phoenix-in-flight light fixtures; and peacock lamps.
“Shanghai in the inter-War era was one of the most progressive and multicultural cities in the world,” owner Lewis Hart said in a release. “In the 1920s and ’30s, the city’s nightlife hummed with a dynamic mix of the stylish and the seedy, with establishments welcoming to both locals and ‘laowai,’ or ‘old outsiders.’”
Bar manager Alex Black has created cocktails inspired by notable figures from the period, from the popular city administrator who was a not-so-secret opium smuggler (Jade Empire) to the woman who essentially invented a martial art to fend off so many unwanted advances (Snakes on a Crane).
Laowai is also home to 11 types of baijiu, which translates from Mandarin to “white liquor”. Pronounced “bye joe”, it’s a clear, odourless, potent drink that is in fact the most-consumed spirit in the world. It’s made by fermenting cooked sorghum (or other grains such as rice, wheat, and millet) with a starter called jiuqu—jiu meaning “alcohol” and qu for “koji”, a fungus used to make soy sauce, miso, and sake).
In the kitchen, chef Phong Vo cooks up dumplings as well as bigger dishes such as Hong Kong-style Pork Belly Bourbon Char Sui, Sweet and Sour Ling Cod (inspired by the cuisine of coastal Guangdong province, using fresh ling cod from fishmonger Gar-lok across the street); and Xinjiang-style Wok Fried Cumin Lamb (sourced from Two Rivers Speciality Meats).
Bonus: Prohibition at home
If you’re more comfortable toasting Prohibition in the comfort of your own home bar, check out Wayward Distillery’s line of spirits. Based in Courtenay, it’s the first distillery in Canada to ferment and distill honey (all local) into spirits—and it has announced a campaign to help save the bees.
Wayward is donating one percent of sales to Pollinator Partnership Canada, a registered charity dedicated to the protection and promotion of pollinators (which include bees, birds, butterflies, bats, and beetles) and their ecosystems.
Among the honeyed options: Krupnik Spiced Honey Liqueur; Cortes Island Apple Brandy; Juneberry Amara (made with herbs, botanicals, and Saskatoon berries); and Rose Petal Bee’s Knees Gin Liqueur (made with Golden Clover Apiary honey, hand-harvested rose petals, and crushed lemons).
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