A new gin, you say? We're all ears!

The Empress 1908 gin was created by award-winning Victoria Distillers, in collaboration with one of Canada's most iconic hotel properties, the Fairmont Empress. The royal purple spirit uses botanicals like rose, grapefruit peel, ginger and cinnamon, as well as the hotel's signature Empress blended black tea that has been offered here to guests for decades. With a profile comparable to a London Dry-style gin, it lends itself to many classic cocktail applications; but the real curveball here is that the gin has been distilled with butterfly pea flowers, which gives it a deep purple hue and also allows it to change colour once it interacts with anything acidic. It's pretty neat to watch firsthand.

Try out the interesting new gin in this simple, four ingredient cocktail that takes only a few minutes to shake up.