Beaver Tails and Park Shots
Derek and I thought we would hike Sulphur Mountain that day, but we decided otherwise. Later, we realized we were smart to turn back into town from Banff Springs Hotel as the head of the trail was a lot farther than our map indicated. Back on the main street, I begged Derek to go to Beaver Tails for our lunch/snack. Once you try Canadian Beaver Tails, you get a craving for them once and a while.
For anyone who doesn’t know, Beaver Tails are delicious pastries (sort of like churros but flat, like a beaver tail!) that are served hot and fresh, and covered in toppings of your choice. Whether the topping be chocolate, cinnamon, icing sugar, etc. - it’s always delicious. I chose the Chocolate Hazelnut. They have all the nutritional value information (not that there is any real value other than yum) available on their website for anyone who is interested. At least the pastry is whole wheat.
After sitting outside at the little tables they have set up and eating our scrumptious Beaver Tails, Derek and I continued on our way down Banff Ave, window shopping as we went along. One of the restaurants’ windows had a sign: Free Distillery Tours at 3:30. It was 3:25 so in we went. The tour had just started at the Park distillery and we were let in. It took about 10 minutes to go through; it was interesting and the guide was friendly. He talked a lot about the pure processing they used that matched the quality of Banff’s pure mountain water.
We decided to stay for drinks after, and like the brewery the night before, we settled on doing their sampler too. They had shots of different in-house made spirits for us to try, and having just polished off a Beaver Tail each, we didn’t order anything else. The waitress told us to hold each shot in our mouths for a few seconds too. This made things interesting for two people who prefer beer or wine. Their chili flavoured shot was a little too spicy for our taste, but it was unique to try nonetheless. If you’re looking for something random and fun to do on a Saturday afternoon, this is it
The rustic décor really spoke to me like always; the Canadian art and industrial touches really set the mood. Even though we didn’t eat here, other customers’ food looked delicious and authentically Banff. On our way out, we were told we could use our receipt to get a discount at their store, which was in the front of the restaurant. There were a lot of neat things to check out, but we didn’t pick anything up.
We finished off our adventurous afternoon by walking the 20 minutes back to our hotel, this time, uphill, and with Beaver Tails and liquor shots in our belly’s.
