Restaurant: Labothery (Brossard, Canada)

One of the new additions to Quartier Dix30 in the Square Dix30 area in Brossard is a new bubble tea joint called Labothery. The concept is to have a build your own bubble tea concept from base to taste combination to sugar level to the jellies/pearls/tapioca/etc.

Its been a while since the bubble tea concept has been around and to be fair, it hasn’t had a whole lot of gimmick surrounding since the whole foreign thing might already be one. The chewy tapioca and the different jellies and now we even have pearls and such.

Because I’m silly, I forgot to take a picture so here’s a picture from my friend’s Instagram:

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1st time there saturday. Did a weird combination of flavours it tasted funny at the start but halfway through it grew on me. #dix30 #weekends #newstuff

A post shared by Ron (@rlaw1978) on Jun 16, 2019 at 2:35pm PDT

Its very much a lab concept there which is pretty nice and a lot of fun to just discuss what to put together and see what works. My friend used the more oriental flavors of kumquat and winter melon which I don’t think would have been as bad if he didn’t mix with other flavor palettes for the pearls and such.

We both took the Ice Tea variety. They also have a milk tea variety which is the powder that you choose and for the other types, you get to choose sugar level but for the iced tea, they say that the sugar level should already be enough. I’m assuming that means that the tea is already sweetened. I’ll discuss that a little later.

Here’s what I ended up choosing to put in my drink.

My iced tea base was green tea with flavors of kumquat and mango. For the pearls, I added in mango pearls and honey pearls. Mine turned out to be pretty good since I kept it fairly basic and didn’t get too experimental. However, my honey pearls did end up adding quite a sweet punch to it, making me think about whether the tea was sweetened already. I’m not quite sure about that. Point is, it did work pretty well. Plus the other choices were decent with tapioca as an obvious choice as well as aloe and all kinds of other pearls and jellies to choose from.

Overall, Labothery is a pretty cool concept. As with anything with a concept and customizable, it tends to increase the price. It was around $6.50 for my drink, I think. I haven’t had bubble tea in a while, mind you, so I’m not sure what the current pricing for it is. The pros and cons of this concept is obviously, that you can be as creative as you’d like to be with the flavor combinations but the cons is that the result will never be certain. However, it is a surprise element and essentially you suffer your own consequences. In my case, it turned out pretty well as for my friend, it was more an acquired taste that he grew to like more halfway through.

Wine Recap – September 2018

With my husband spending most of September also in recover phase, we dialed down on the drinking thing so all of this was in between so we went for lighter drinks. One of these was one that we had tried out a month or two ago but forgot to take a picture of so forgot to share on the Wine Recap. These things happen but coincidentally my friend bought it this time for the Battle of Ingredients so here we are.

Let’s check out what we tried this one!

Mike’s Hard Lemonade

Producer: Mike’s Hard Lemonade
Alcohol Content: 5%
Location: Ontario, Canada

I’ve heard about how good Mike’s Hard Lemonade before but never had it before. On a spontaneous trip to the grocery store, we picked this up as a fun little taste. It did live up to all the good stuff we’ve heard and it tasted really good. I like lemonade in general and the alcohol was light so it actually balanced out smoothly.

Palm Bay Strawberry Kiwi Iced Tea

Producer: Mike’s Beverage Company
Alcohol Content: 5%
Location: Canada

I’ve tried Palm Bay before on a taste testing at the Grand Prix event before. I can’t remember what flavor it was since it was a few years ago but one evening, my husband’s coworker gave him one of these to try out. Palm Bay is very much a party drink. Its really sweet. I’m not a big Strawberry Kiwi flavor fan and this is good for a group but not one that I’d pick up as much, mostly because if it was for myself, I’d prefer MadJack.

Ambrée aux Herbes (Gluten-Free)

Producer: Brasseurs du Monde
Alcohol Content: 4%
Location: Quebec

I don’t drink beer often. Its a little too much than I can handle. I believe it has to do with the hops and the gluten aspect. I’m not a big fan in general but when we went to the supermarket, we saw a variety pack for this gluten-free beer. It had 4 flavors. I only have one here since the other ones, my husband had drank with my father in law one day so that I didn’t try it. This one is a herb flavored amber beer and its actually fairly good.

Cote des Roses
Listel -Gris

Gerard Bertrand Coté des Roses
Producer: Gerard Bertrand
Alcohol Content: 12.5%
Location: Languedoc-Rousillion, France

Other than a beautiful bottle, Cote des Roses is actually a really lovely tasting wine. It feels like a long time since I’ve actually drank wine so I’m not sure how to describe it. However, it was very balanced. I love the smoothness where its not too sour or too dry and it was fruity and light. I plan on giving the white wine a go and get three or these bottles or something to turn it around and make a glass bottle rose bouquet. It’ll be such a beautiful decoration.

Listel – Gris
Producer: Listel
Alcohol Content: 12.5%
Location: Languedoc-Rousillion, France
Taste Tag: Fruity and Light

Leaning a little more on the drier side, Listel- Gris is still fairly decent. Not quite as good as the balance the Cote des Roses achieves. However, there is a depth to it. The after tones of this one works well. There is a fruity and light taste however so its not hard to drink. A nice one to have with friends, making it a great choice for our barbecue.

That’s it for this Wine Recap!
We’re slowly getting back into the wines and alcohol however, we’re being careful of health.
If it slows down a little with this, it will be in the amount we decide to recap.

What have you been drinking? Any great ones to share?

Wine Recap: April 2018

Welcome to April’s Wine Recap! Last month was a pretty chill month. In general, we didn’t really drink too much wine. It is however nice to switch things up every once in a while. We did try mostly new stuff but some older things that I’ve never talked about (since this segment is really new).

Barefoot Bubbly Pink Moscato

Producer: E. & J. Gallo Winery
Alcohol Content: 8%
Location: California, USA
Taste Tag: Fruity and Sweet

The first wine is of course kicked off on April’s Battle of Ingredients night. My friend brought the lovely Pink Moscato by Barefoot. I’ve had Barefoot wines before and I believe I might have covered the Barefoot Moscato in the kick off post for this segment, but I can’t remember. Its a pretty decent one so not surprising that this sparkling wine also was very light and fruity. For those who like their wines light and very easy to swallow and more sweet, this one is a great choice.

Columbia Crest Chardonnay 2015

Producer: Columbia Crest Winery
Alcohol Content: 13.5%
Location: Washington, USA
Taste Tag: Aromatic and Mellow

My first recommendation for Wine Recap comes from John Rieber. You can find his awesome site HERE.

Columbia Crest Winery actually doesn’t have a lot of wines sold here in Quebec. There are four according to the SAQ site and three of them are red wines. I have developed an intolerance to red wine where I won’t die (because its not an allergy, I guess) but I will be incredibly uncomfortable. So white wines are my go-to. Here, we have the chardonnay, which I believe was what John had recommended to me. I can’t say that we’re particularly into this taste. There is a particular smoothness to how it goes down however, it still sits a little on the drier side of the spectrum that what we’d generally prefer. So for the taste tag description, I’d agree with the aromatic but not too sure about the mellow.

Domaine Le Grand Saint Charles Vidal 2016

Producer: Domaine Le Grand Saint-Charles
Alcohol Content: 13%
Location: Quebec, Canada
Taste Tag: Fruity and Vibrant

In my memory, I’ve only every drank the Vidal variety once or twice before. Its definitely usually not my first choice of white wine mostly because the taste usually is a little too sour for my liking. However, Domaine Le Grand Saint-Charles was a Quebec winery that we had tasted at Festival des Vendanges a few years ago and loved their Le Brise Glace cider. I talked about it in this recap post HERE. So we took a chance on this one. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t one that I liked. Maybe one day I’ll find a Vidal that I like but still a little too sour for my taste. Regardless, I am happy to see that they have gotten their products into the SAQ and I’m going to try to see if I can find their ciders as it seems they are also available now.

Domaine Lafrance Darragon dit Lafrance

Producer: Domaine Lafrance
Alcohol Content: 6.5%
Location: Quebec, Canada
Taste Tag: Fruity and Sweet

One of my favorite sparkling ciders definitely goes to this one from Les Vergers Lafrance/Domaine Lafrance called Darragon dit Lafrance. When I first picked up this one a few months ago, it was totally by chance. I thought the bottle looked cool and for those who don’t know, Amos Daragon is a popular French Canadaian book series so its why it caught my eye, not that it had anything related to it (or at least I don’t think so). Sparkling Ciders are usually pretty easy to drink and they vary from fruitiness and sweetness. This one has this lovely balance of smoothness and sweetness and the perfect kick of alcohol that works so well together. I don’t know how to explain it but I personally find it absolutely awesome. Plus, I actually have to go to the farther SAQ outlet to find this one so its one I don’t drink as much which makes me appreciate it even more.

Mad Jack Hard Flavored Iced Tea

Brewer: Molson
Alcohol Content: 5%
Location: Canada

MadJack Root Beer was something that my husband picked up last month. I can’t remember if he picked it up or his friends had brought it when they came to visit. I didn’t end up drinking it since its beer and I only taste it. My husband likes it a lot but I’m not such a huge fan. However, when we did grocery shopping a week or two ago, there was a tasting booth for some other flavors and well, being a tea lover, the Iced Tea variety popped out at me. Mad Jack Hard-Flavored Iced Tea is definitely quite delicious. It is a lovely choice especially at its price point for nice summer barbecues and gatherings.

It seems my monthly alcohol consumption is quite constant, sitting at a 5 items limit going into the third month.
To be fair, this one had a lot of great alcoholic selections and some ideas for future selections.
To be honest, I’m starting to want to give this a nice Quebec & VQA Ontario wine twists whenever I can, just because those are quite accessible and unique to where I usually would shop.

Feel free to suggest any wines or alcoholic beverages that you love or think I’ll like! 🙂