I had one more place to tell you about from our Montréal adventure last weekend. On our first night in town, we had dropped everything at the hotel. We were in the mood for an early evening cocktail, and I pulled up the map on my phone. I scanned the cocktail bars closest to us, and found one that the map said was a “stylish speakeasy”. Fab, I thought, and we headed over.

This is just to say: I have impeccable instincts for good places to eat and drink.

This ended up being one of the best cocktail experiences of my life, because we had accidentally stumbled upon the Cloakroom, voted the best bar in the entire nation of Canada in 2025. The building is charming and lovely, the bar itself is comfortable and cozy, and the drinks were outstanding. The Cloakroom has an excellent collection of vintage spirits to work with, and they make a ton of unique flavored liqueurs and tinctures in-house. One of my drinks was made with phở spiced bitters! We were only in Montréal for a few days, but we made sure to stop back in at the Cloakroom one more time before we flew home. We had a lot of marvelous drinks in that city, but the Cloakroom was the absolute best.

Shameless Self Promotion:

If you’d like to hear my interview on Wisconsin Public Radio about my book Let’s Make Cocktails!, it’s here!

🌟🌟Also, if you’d like to get any books or prints from my store anytime soon, order by July 15th!🌟🌟 I’m going to be teaching another workshop overseas for the last two weeks of July, and I will be turning off online orders on my shop until I get back.

What I’m Into Lately:

I finally got my hands on a copy of Paul Tremblay’s new one, Dead but Dreaming of Electric Sheep. I have loved everything Tremblay’s written since the marvelous A Head Full of Ghosts. I’m only a quarter of the way into Dead but Dreaming, but I love it; it’s quirky and creepy and it already has me on the edge of my seat. It’s a near-future sci-fi nightmare about tech and AI and ethics and bodily autonomy. It’s scary, but also funny and super entertaining too. And knowing Tremblay, it will likely have a satisfyingly maddening ambiguous ending that will have me pondering for weeks. :)

What Toki’s Into Lately:

This little dink sure loves inserting himself between a person and a screen of any kind.