What is a cocktail? There are shrimp cocktails and fruit cocktails, drug cocktails and Molotov cocktails, cocktails of toxic waste and cocktail sausages, and of course the cocktails that come in a glass—mixtures of alcohol that are drunk in a bar or in a living room or poolside.

            Dictionary definitions of the word vary greatly. Ultimately, however, a cocktail is a blend of ingredients, merged under specific circumstances, and experienced within temporal limits. Brought together in these ways, the cocktail has significance greater than its components, and its effects go beyond those of the individual parts.

            The province of Québec itself is a cocktail. A few parts anglo, a few parts franco, a few parts native. Additional elements, migrating into the mix over time, have contributed new aromas and tastes. We shake ourselves up periodically, and ice is rarely in short supply. The result: distinctive, sometimes volatile, occasionally flammable. And very definitely intoxicating.