First-time bartender Jan Ollner is bringing some youthful verve—and artistic licence—to one of the best tequila joints in town.
Jan Ollner
Cocktail: The Royal Family
$13 at Reposado (136 Ossington Ave., #OSS)
In 2010, Jan Ollner finally got to be at the centre of the party. After seven years cleaning up after other people’s fun as a table-busser in bars and restaurants across Canada—including 18 months at Ossington’s Reposado tequila bar—Ollner convinced Reposado’s powers-that-be to take a chance on his unproven abilities, and promote him to be the man behind the wood.
Not a bad place to start a bartending career, considering that, with around 75 tequilas on hand, Reposado is easily one of the top hard-liquor venues in the city, and has been gaining a rep as a solid cocktail joint to boot. It also didn’t take the twentysomething Ollner long to develop a serious interest in the old blue agave (the plant from which tequila is distilled), thanks to a little help from his bosses, who even took him to Mexico to learn about tequila production first-hand.
“One night,” recalls Ollner, “we were drinking in San Miguel de Allende with this ‘Mescal ambassador.’ I was sloshed, and suddenly I’m told that I’m going to be making drinks at this random Mexican saloon. I kept making them, but the guy hated almost everything I made—he didn’t want to taste the liquor.”
The Mescal brand ambassador probably wouldn’t like The Royal Family, Ollner’s newest—and very boozy—cocktail. It’s a combination of Crown Royal whisky, The King’s Ginger liqueur, baked-apple bitters, fresh ginger, agave syrup and two kinds of tequila: Herradura and a habanero-infused variety. The union makes for a plain-looking but not plain-tasting cocktail that’s hard to pin down. The initial flavour is sweet and syrupy, followed by a spicy pop.
“I like drinks that have a bit of mystery to them,” explains Ollner. “It’s nice when people try something and don’t know what they’re drinking—as long as they enjoy it.”
This interaction with his customers is an important part of his creative cocktail-making, which, incidentally, serves as a foil to his other creative endeavour—visual art and painting. Ollner will have his first solo show at KWT Contemporary on Richmond Street West in November.
“Painting is a very solitary thing,” says Ollner, “so it’s nice to have a job that I’m equally passionate about and forces me to be social. So that I can be a normal human being.”
