After spending over a year perfecting the recipe, Brutus Beverages is proud to officially announce the launch of Walter Caesar – Canada’s first all-natural craft Caesar mix. The men behind Walter are Aaron Harowitz and Zack Silverman, childhood friends, who, while attending The University of British Columbia together would often meet up for a Sunday morning Caesar. Over time the two realized that their favourite cocktail contained a spate of ingredients they would rather not be drinking. Necessity being the mother of invention, they set out to create their own all-natural mix, culminating in the impressively well-received Walter All-Natural Craft Caesar mix.
The name “Walter” is a tribute to all the great Walter’s in history like Walter Cronkite, Walter Gretzky, Walt Whitman, Walter Payton and, for Canadian cocktail lovers, a tip of the toque to the bar keep Walter Chell who invented the iconic Caesar. Walter is, appropriately and proudly, made in Canada in small batches. Choosing to use only real, whole ingredients like vine-ripened tomatoes, select spices, grated horseradish, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce and clam juice from the North Atlantic, it’s a recipe that allows the quality of the ingredients to speak for themselves. “We love Caesars, but when we looked at the Caesar market in Canada we realized almost everybody uses the same mix, which happens to contain a bunch of artificial ingredients that we don’t love” says Harowitz adding, “We figured that lots of people feel the same way we do about stuff like MSG, high-fructose corn syrup, and artificial colouring, so we decided to create Walter.” Silverman adds “Talking to our friends, we realized they were increasingly choosing to use premium spirits in their cocktails, and yet, for lack of an alternative, would have to use a mix full of stuff they didn’t really want.” As the art of the cocktail continues to gain momentum, leveraging any slight taste advantage has seen a rise in the popularity of bitters and other exotic components. In the case of Walter, it’s a return to simple, natural ingredients which boost the Caesar to another level, whether at home, in your favourite bar, or at your neighbourhood brunch spot. One of Canada’s most-celebrated cocktail aficionados and leading experts in all things mixology, Christine Sismondo, describes Walter as “…rich, thick, and decidedly clean-tasting…”, indicating that it was going to give the established mixes a serious run for their clams.
For the partners, it was also important that the flavour going into the bottle was as close as possible to the flavour being enjoyed by consumers once the bottle was opened. For this reason, Walter is sold in 725 ml glass bottles which does not leech or impart any unwanted flavours into the product, besides which “…we just think that drinks taste better out of glass bottles.” Maintaining that well-executed simplicity is key, Walter is available in 2 classic flavours – Well Spiced and Mildly Spiced – both of which are non-alcoholic and pre-seasoned with Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, grated horseradish, and select spices.
