Turning old cocktail garnishes into more cocktails? It may seem like a notion from some old mythological text — a cup that never runs dry — but it's also a real thing that's happening at George Brown's School of Hospitality and Culinary Arts.
Over the past 18 months, a team of over 250 students and faculty, alongside help from Reid's Distillery, have created a solution that allows wasted food scraps to be turned into a small-batch liqueur that they've called Citronino.
It all began when staff lead and professor Tammy Vaillancourt joined forces with colleagues Doris Miculan Bradley and Chris Bain to create a solution for the food waste coming out of one specific class.
"Chris Bain teaches a Mixology course, and there's a lot of waste that comes out of that class, specifically in the garnishes," Tammy tells blogTO.
"We decided that we would collect and freeze the waste, and then we would separate the pulp, the juice and the peel, and then we would find a partner to see if we could create a beverage by upcycling our waste."
Upon pitching the project and securing $15,000 in funding for research, the faculty team then set out towards making this idea a reality, which included reaching out to Reid's, who regularly invite George Brown students in for visits to see how their spirits are made. Equally inspired and intrigued by the mission, they quickly signed on.
Then, it was on to hiring students and alumni to make it happen, with over 250 eventually being involved from start to finish, including research, focus groups, waste collection and marketing.
One George Brown student was even hired to design the bottle's label, incorporating the school's branding and mascot with an Italian theme.
Food and Beverage Management alumni (and current George Brown employee) Santiago Escobar Nassar signed on to the project as a student researcher, intrigued by the ambitious idea of repurposing waste into a beverage.
Santiago's job, he told blogTO, was to assist with focus group testing, assessing reactions to the drink and the concept at large.
What initially was expected to be a potentially years-long project ultimately materialized within a matter of 18 months, Tammy tells blogTO, in no small part thanks to the enthusiastic efforts of everyone involved.
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