Linny’s cocktail card is so well-composed with crowd-pleasers, both spirited and sober, that choosing a single drink feels like a cruel kind of self-denial. So, we didn’t. We picked one with booze and one without, as both were not only fantastic, but as the non-alcoholic drinks, when done right, are as impressive as their boozy counterparts. Our 2025 case-in-point: the coolly complex Dilly Dally sharing the spotlight with the Borscht Milk Punch, a reimagined mind-changer.

Designed to reflect the deliberate opulence of this modern deli–steakhouse hybrid, the cocktail program, led by bar manager Blaise Couturier, operates between instinct and engineering. Classic offerings—a martini, a negroni, an old fashioned—are artfully unsettled by elements like cheesecake whey, or a sly wink to mid-century tiki kitsch.

Zero-proof and fully clever, the Dilly Dally is vegetal, electric. It’s a sour that sidesteps citrus entirely, favouring instead the tart brightness of green apple cold pressed with cucumber and dill. Linny’s own full-sour pickle brine is reborn as syrup, lending a cutting tang. It’s topped by housemade, vegan foam dusted with caramelized onion ash—kitchen scraps spun into a smoky-sweet sprinkle.

The Borscht Milk Punch (or BMP) began as a joke; a youthful dislike of borscht offered by Culinary Director David Schwartz, and taken up by Couturier as a challenge, who flipped the soup into a kefir-clarified sip on the rocks. The result is magenta and mischievous. Beetroot at its most seductive, with aquavit, aromatized wine, and vodka. Tannic Earl Grey tea and lemon juice brighten the florality of Ontario rose and raspberry. It’s arresting without being ironic.

With these two drinks, any hierarchy built around ABV is irrelevant. What actually defines a great cocktail not strength but thought; a sense of balance, intent, and wit. In the end, it’s about taste and what’s poured at Linny’s, keeps pace with what’s plated.