The Good Ocean Cocktail raises money for Ocean Conservation

by isaiah archer July 20, 20210 comments

You may recall seeing, or tasting, a seafoam coloured cocktail at Whistle Buoy this June.

The Good Ocean Cocktail was designed to reflect the beauty of our oceans and raise awareness about SeaLegacy's Good Ocean - a community of aligned businesses guided by a commitment to respond quickly to the urgent need to make systemic change in consumer habits. These businesses provide sustainable choices and encourage other businesses, including their suppliers and entire supply chain, to do the same. Collectively, the 10 Founding Members have committed $100,000 to support SeaLegacy and their mission to create healthy and abundant oceans.

Two of those founding members (a full list of founding members is at the bottom of this article) happen to be from Vancouver Island, Goldilocks, who create beautiful eco-friendly household products here in Victoria; and Sheringham, a world renowned craft distillery in Sooke. To celebrate the launch of this new project and bring awareness locally to the efforts of SeaLegacy, Goldilocks and Sheringham set out to create a cocktail that would represent the spirit of the project. The only questions left were, where to sell it? And, what should the cocktail be?

Luckily, they asked us if we were interested in collaborating on the cocktail, and selling it at the brewery. For us, this was an obvious and emphatic, yes! So Amy (Goldilocks) and Colin (Whistle Buoy) began to brainstorm.

We knew incorporating Sheringham's Seaside Gin was a perfect place to start, which is made with locally hand-harvest botanicals including winged kelp from Dakini Tidal Wilds. We then looked to replicate the aqua marine colour of the ocean, which was achieved by adding Mermaid Tears Jun, a fermented honey beverage made by Babe's Honey Farm that incorporates blue algae.

To round it out, we added fresh lemon juice, aquafaba for a nice frothy top, a few dashes of bitters, and garnished it with dehydrated candied lemon and bull kelp. Viola! Behold, the Good Ocean Cocktail.

Good Ocean Cocktail

We heard some great feedback from our guests about how the good ocean tasted. A fresh and light libation, slightly sweet, with a zip of tartness and gentle salinity. Over the month of June, we sold nearly 400 cocktails, with $1 from each one going to SeaLegacy, we were pleased to make a $400 donation.

We are grateful to the members of SeaLegacy's Good Ocean organization for prioritizing environmental stewardship in a meaningful way. We are inspired by their commitment to accountability in how their products are made. We are especially grateful to Goldilocks and Sheringham for their leadership here on Vancouver Island and for including us in this fun and purposeful project. The full list of founding members is below.