A little trip to Banff

Hello again! As per usual, a little way behind on keeping things up to date, but here's the rundown of mine and Wendy's trip to Banff!

Considering which, I should probably do an introduction:

This is Wendy! She's a lovely young lady from the Czech Republic, and we have been dating for 6 months or so. Possibly weird that I haven't mentioned her until now, but I had an approximate publishing schedule and it felt weird to shoehorn her in. Here, however, definitely makes sense, as we finally had a few days off together, and decided to make the most of it.

Some of the scenery on the way there

Since we both work for a hotel chain with properties in both Jasper and Banff, we get discounts at their properties, so it was the most sensible choice, and one of the best local beauty spots (outside Jasper, anyway).

And rather pleasantly, it started snowing just as we were leaving Jasper, which made our entire trip almost aggressively Christmassy, which was absolutely delightful.

Banff is a lovely little town. Substantially larger than Jasper, and rather more touristy, but that does mean that it has an excellent range of restaurants, cafes, bistros, and touristy shops. It's still only a short walk out of town into the surrounding hills and forests, and there are a variety of hiking trails nearby.

Much like Jasper, there are mountains in every direction, although given the general location that's not really very surprising. On the topic of mountains, thanks to the Banff Gondola, I've finally made it up to the top of one (having spent the majority of summer waiting for it to stop raining, and it not doing so very often). Though it did start snowing again on the way up, which was very scenic and atmospheric, but did make good pictures a bit difficult.

It was also about 10 degrees colder up at the top, which took it from about 6 C in the town to -4 or so at the peak. On top of the peak in question is also a decommissioned cosmic ray observation station, situated for the high altitude and clear skies. There's only a small hut left on the peak now, but it's still nice to see how science can take you to all sorts of unusual places.

If you're looking for a way to warm up after visiting the mountain top, you can't do much better than the thermal springs at the base of the mountain, and just across the carpark from the gondola.

Hot spring at the entrance to the baths

The thermal springs have been a popular tourist spot since the first baths were set up in 1888, and now have a rather nice modern swimming pool enclosing the spring. If you're feeling more traditionally inclined, however, you can hire an 1880's style swimming costume, as I did. And I have to say I looked rather good in it. There are no pictures, you will probably be pleased to hear.

Another highlight of the trip was the tour of the Park distillery. It's a free tour, and if you go on it you get a discount in the restaurant. That alone makes it very worthwhile, as the cocktails are excellent.  

They produce a variety of different drinks with a rather excellent variable still, including whiskey, unaged rye, vodka and gin.

Depending on what has been produced, it is then either bottled or barreled for ageing. In the case of the vodka, it may be infused with either coffee beans or vanilla pods, if it's for a flavoured batch. They also produce a chilli vodka, but that one is flavoured by being bottled with three small birds eye chillis, and then left for a few months. Apparently, the first attempt at batch infusing chilli vodka produced a rather good alcoholic hot sauce, which, while tasty, wasn't really suitable for drinking.

Most of the barrels are stored off-site, but a few are kept in the distillery. Using smaller barrels means more contact between liquid and wood, allowing the desired flavour to be achieved quicker.

And on the topic of those cocktails:

This was called the Observation Peak, if I remember correctly, and was essentially an Old Fashioned served under smoked cedar. Absolutely delicious!

Right, that'll do for now I think. Next time, the hot spring caves and surrounding mountains. Cheerio till then!