Popination Formulation
a series of unhinged personal essays disguised as pub reviews. Today: The Canary.
Or, our staycation in Breckenridge, part 2.
Welcome to a world where every detail is crafted with intention, and you’re not just a guest—you’re part of the story.
Consider this book not as a menu, but a map that can take you anywhere you’d like to go.
Will your journey begin with the floral elegance of gin, or the robust embrace of bourbon?
What structure suits your spirit? A bold, stirred classic served neat? Or a lively blend of citrus and sweetness?
To finish: bitter botanicals, ripe fruits, fragrant spices, or delicate flowers?
Watch our bartenders bring this vision to life, presenting a cocktail intended for this singular moment.
This is your night, and we’re to ensure every moment is magical.
Welcome to Canary.
~The front page of the Canary’s menu, Breckenridge, pictured above
How we learned about the Canary
As I mentioned in my previous Popination post about Breck, we heard about the Canary literally through word of mouth. We were chilling out at the hotel bar and we overheard a couple inquiring after ‘the speakeasy.’ That made us perk our ears right up. Hm? Speakeasy, you say? So I looked it up and we made a reservation for the following evening, stat.
I mean, look—-an actual speakeasy with a secret knock and a hard-to-find vibe is a very good thing. It’s like my version of what I imagine is exciting about an escape room, but without the claustrophobia. And boy, was it a unique experience!
When we first arrived for our reservation, we were plied with a sample (a lovely pink gin thing that tasted of lemons and whetting of an appetite) and therewith led into a back hall, past kitchen utility stuff and stacked chairs, until our guide stopped. She leaned against the counter and regaled us with the history of the place and how it worked, like we were emissaries learning the correct etiquette on our way to visit royalty, only tonight we were the royalty.
She led us all the way through that back kitchen hall and through a door that wasn’t clearly a door. To get the door to open, she had to use a combination of a specific knock, and a special key. I couldn’t help but think of my days playing a rogue in D&D, casting a spell to find secret doors, and sense traps. And treasure. And then later in video games, you could usually tell which were the secret doors by their shape and their peculiar animation. This door actually did look like that.
And I mean, come on! she actually had a secret speakeasy knock!
So here’s how the Canary works: you tell the server the sorts of tastes you like and your favorite liquors and such, and he makes something for you based on what he hears when he converses with you. Amazing. I know it’s thought of as a bit pretentious to call bartending ‘mixology’ these days, but what this guy did for us was not mere bartending. It was art, intuition, mentalism (he knew how to read people), chemistry, culinary heights.
Spouse & I were the first ones in so we got to chat with the ‘tender quite a bit, but as more and more people were introduced (behind secret knock codes), we witnessed just how challenging a job he has. We also heard him reject a couple that asked for a walk-in, because omg so understandable. How he did this magic to every group that came trickling in after us, I will never know. Even though we did hear him talk to everyone, as it was a small space.
Anyway. His results? were AMAZING.
For my first drink, he made me a Boulevardier-adjacent cocktail that was simple and familiar, yet refined. Perfect reading of my bitter palate and love of whiskey. Spouse received a smoked old fashioned made from Mezcal, which. Holy what now? Delicious.
For my second drink, I wanted to do something to celebrate my pirate book. So I ordered a surprise custom drink (‘tender’s choice) based on dark rums and pirates and old school molasses-y stuff and bitters and…
He described to me a dark, sticky, molasses-y, tobacco-y rum that sounded like it was spirited (see what I did there) right out of the history of rum book I’d read and enjoyed. It was rich without being heavy, sweet without being cloying, complex yet very tasty, and it was an original made just for my vaguely-described palate (and book). Again, delicious.
What an amazing celebration of creativity! Spouse and I have been playing a lot of jazz and jazz fusion lately on our steadily growing vinyl collection, and this so reminded me of that. A riff and a strange yet wonderful work of art.
SIDE NOTE and TOTAL TANGENT (though not really): This whole in-the-know thing about The Canary reminded me so much of way way back in the day, when my first husband and I used to homebrew. As members of the American Homebrewers Association, we’d always go to the special pre-Fest day that opened up the Great American Beer Festival (GABF), which we called Beerfest in honor of the stupid comedy that we loved so much.1 One year, just before Beerfest, we heard tell of a mythological beer, that would get a VERY limited release each Fest for sampling. Normally, Utopias2 goes for about $300-$700 a bottle,3 depending on the year’s batch, and at that time I was broke as a dropped snifter and so it was impossible for me to enjoy Utopias outside of Beerfest. At Beerfest, you pay your ticket and get free samples for as long as you can. So.
Thing is, they weren’t just pouring out Utopias samples all day, as though it was their Boston Ale. Of course they weren’t. And when they ran out of their limited number of samples, they were out. The other thing? They don’t tell anybody when they start pouring the Utopias. If you know, you know. If you don’t, you miss out. And like Brigadoon, you must wait till the next time it emerges out of the magical mist.
So then-husband and I were having our usual sampling fun that day, and yet that year (I think it must’ve been 2009 or 2010), we kept a vibrating ninja psychic and body language attention to the crowd, and glided past the Sam Adams booth every so often, just to see. The attendants at the booth were very good at being cagey about ‘not knowing’ when they’d be tapping the Utopias, too. They were well trained.
Suddenly, we noticed a couple people running full tilt in the direction of the Sam Adams booth. Running. In the middle of the crowded convention floor. This was it. We ran after them, dodging pretzel-necklaced drinkers like speed skaters on our way.4
And, lo! There it was, being poured out in ½-ounce samples instead of the normal 1 ounce that all other beers offer. And only one per person. We each got one. And sipped. And it was, in fact, delicious. A syrupy (in a good way!) stout that has obviously been aged to Jesus in port wine and scotch barrels till it became an alchemic elixir that tasted of Christmas spices and dark delicious thoughts. Worth the hype? Actually, yeah. It was. And I think the search and fulfillment was a big part of that—who knows if they had just been mundanely pouring it out, if it would’ve tasted as good. It’s a work of deeply crafted art, so it would’ve been delicious regardless, but. Yanno?
And I’m thinking about The Canary and Utopias and concluding: yes, in this day of AI usurping the use of our brains, experiences like that are what’s up. It’s not about the delicious and well made cocktails I tasted at Canary, nor about the empirically high quality of Utopias beer, but the experience of finding it, the process of journeying to it, and the stories around it, that make the final product that much better.
We’re storytelling animals, after all, and a good story is a good spice for anything we consume. Am I right?
I still quote this movie frequently in my day to day life. Don’t you dare judge me.
Made by Sam Adams, if you can believe that.
To be fair: the beer is CRAZY aged, VERY high proof, and curated like a rare orchid. It’s more like a fine whiskey than a beer, so yeah I actually buy that its price is appropriate for what it is. And though I’m okay for money right now, I still don’t afford it.
It makes me feel some complex feelings when I watch it, but I do have the Utopias tasting moment caught on video. We were doing a series of beer reviews on video, and I brushed the dust and rust off my Vimeo channel and found it. It’s…weird for me to watch, but if you want to see the Utopias tasting moment, let me know and I’ll share the video in the comments.