The guests were the ones concocting the cocktails at Ironwood Cider House on Friday night.
“I’m not a very good mixologist,” Tom Rendall said before the competition.
During the Cocktails for a Cause fundraiser in support of Gillian’s Place, guests had the chance to compete in a cocktail competition.
At first, Rendall and his partner, Carol Murray, wern’t sure if they’d enter. But after hemming and hawing, they decided to give it a go.
Each team drew a random theme and had 15 minutes to grab the necessary supplies to make a delicious – or not so delicious – cocktail.
Rendall and Murray had to make something spicy, so they were adding as much heat as they could, including some jalapeno moonshine from Limited Distillery.
“I don’t know what I’m making,” Rendall said as he added the ingredients to his cocktail.
Along with the cocktail mixing competition was a silent auction, with all proceeds going to Gillian’s Place, an organization that works to end gender-based violence across Niagara.
More than $2,200 was raised through the silent auction, surpassing Ironwood’s goal of $2,000.
Originally, the fundraiser was supposed to be on March 10, a few days after International Women’s Day.
“We just felt like there was too much going on with Women’s Day that we weren’t going to be able to maximize our funds raised (for Gillian’s Place),” Robyn Brown, Ironwood’s marketing and events manager, told The Lake Report.
Amanda Di Zia, development and communications co-ordinator for Gillian’s Place, said the organization was honoured to be the beneficiary of the money raised.
“We are really reliant on community fundraisers and donations to sustain our priority programs,” she said.
The money raised will go toward its 34-bed emergency shelter, its second stage housing program and the lawyer the organization has on-site.
Di Zia was happy when Ironwood reached out to her about the fundraiser, noting that with Niagara-on-the-Lake’s demographic and tourist traffic not many people realize that gender-based violence happens in NOTL.
“Any demographic can experience gender-based violence,” she said.
