Maple Raspberry Butter Tart Shooter (AKA: The Leah)

 As we headed toward the cash during our regular Beer run at the LCBO in Port Loring, I paused to make sure that I wasn't forgetting any liquor we needed to keep our bar stocked.

"Have you tried our Butter Tart Liquor?" I heard Julia ask from the next aisle.

I cringed as I turned to My Shirley. "We were this close," I said holding my finger and thumb apart to indicate the approximate size of Donald Trumps, uh, "thumb" size. "We were this close to getting out of here without being tempted to try something new."

I like to kid Julia about her suggestions but I hope she never stops sharing them as Julia's suggestions are almost always winners. 

There was that one time that Julia suggested Cherry Vanilla Rum that I won't let her forget. But hey, you can't hit it out of the park every time. There's nothing inherently wrong with Cherry Vanilla Rum. I just find the typically Caribbean liquor mixed with Cherry as opposed to coconut or pineapple to be an unusual combination. It seems to me that cherries might be better suited with a whiskey. But that's just me.

Butter Tart Liquor on the other hand... that sounded too good to pass up.

From the time she was 12, my late sister, Leah made the best butter tarts in the world. Except that she liked to put raisins in her tarts. However Leah always remembered to make one batch of butter tarts without raisins that were off limits to all but Dad and me.

Being the manager of our local LCBO one would expect Julia to be an expert on the booze she sells, but she is also an expert on butter tarts as her sister Helene also makes the best butter tarts in the world. (Yours are very good too, Tracy.)

My Shirley and I looked at each other. What could we do? We weren't about to leave the LCBO without a bottle of Top Shelf's Butter Tart Liquor.

As I loaded the beer into the back of the SUV, My Shirley suggested she carry the Butter Tart Liquor shotgun with her. You know... just so we wouldn't waste any time opening it once we got home.

Neither Julia, nor Top Shelf disappointed us as we tried our first sip of Butter Tart Liquor straight from the bottle as soon as we got home and the SUV was safely parked.

As good as it is on its own, later that day I decided to see what I could combine with Butter Tart Liquor to make it even better. 

According to Top Shelf Distillers "With recipes dating back to the early 1900s, butter tarts were common in Canadian cooking. The earliest published recipe for a butter tart is from Barrie, Ontario" appearing in the "Women's Auxiliary of the Royal Victoria Hospital Cookbook."

From The Beer Guy, I discovered Butter Tart Liquor was "Inspired by Ontario's Best Butter Tart Festival in Midland, Ontario."

As I researched more, I learned that one school of thought suggests butter tarts were the creation of young French women who settled the part of Canada formerly known as New France between the 1660s and 1670s. The "filles du roi" who came to marry voyagers and farmers used their knowledge of pastry and combined it with the ingredients on hand to create the butter tart.

Now that I knew a bit of the history of the butter tart and in the spirit of the "filles du roi" I looked to my bar to see what ingredients I had on hand that might complement Butter Tart Liquor. It was an easy choice. I grabbed a bottle of Cabot Trail Maple Cream (one of Julia's previous suggestions) to pay homage to the Iroquois that discovered Maple Syrup and a bottle of Chambord Black Raspberry Liqueur (a gift from my daughter) in honour of the French ladies that gave us the butter tart. The combination of flavours from maple syrup, raspberries and butter tarts, mixed over ice in equal parts blended to create a shooter that is as rich in taste as it is in their collective history. 

Maple Raspberry Butter Tart Shooter (AKA: The Leah)

Stuff Required:

• 1/2 oz Top Shelf's Butter Tart Liquor
• 1/2 oz Chambord Black Raspberry Liqueur
• 1/2 oz The Original Cabot Trail Maple Cream
• Ice Cubes

Do This:

1. Pour first three ingredients over one or two ice cubes in a cocktail glass.
2. Gently stir and serve.